Blood Loss

57

Dale Merritt sat forward in his seat and Ren realized for the first time the intensity of a man she had thought was a gentle giant. He was clearly someone who would do anything to protect his young.

‘What would you do?’ said Dale. ‘Your son calls you to say that he accidentally hurt his stepsister. Accidentally. He’s in a state of panic. What was I meant to do apart from going to him, and helping him?’

What about Laurie, helping her?

‘Was it accidental?’ said Ren. ‘It doesn’t look accidental to me. You’d have to push someone pretty hard to split their head open on a headboard. This wasn’t just him bumping into her and knocking her down. Colin is going to go talk to Joshua after this, and I’ll be talking to Laurie.’

‘But-’ said Cathy.

Try to argue with me.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ren. ‘We need to find out what happened for once and for all. I understand your need to help your son, Mr Merritt. What I don’t understand is all the rest of it. All the lying, the covering up …’

‘We know absolutely nothing about what happened between Mark and the babysitter,’ said Cathy. ‘We were as shocked as anyone else. I have no idea what happened there. I didn’t think Mark was capable of anything like that. We just … we just … we did the wrong thing, but we thought … I don’t know what we thought.

We just needed a few days until we worked something out. I don’t know. We didn’t have a plan. We wanted to make sure she wouldn’t tell on Joshua. Dale couldn’t bear to have him taken away.’

‘He was grounded for breaking into a neighbor’s home, is that correct?’ said Ren.

Silence.

‘Laurie had a head injury that night,’ said Ren. ‘What did you do about that?’

‘We monitored her,’ said Cathy.

‘You didn’t bring her to a doctor to get it checked out?’ said Ren.

Cathy paused. ‘We … didn’t think she needed that. If she blacked out, maybe, but she didn’t.’

‘How could you watch your ex-husband go through so much anguish over his missing daughter?’

‘Because he never noticed mine,’ said Cathy. ‘He never noticed my anguish for all those years.’

You scary, scary bitch.

Laurie Whaley was sitting cross-legged against a pile of pillows on her bed. There was an iPod on the bed beside her, a bottle of purple nail polish on the nightstand. She smiled at Ren when she came in.

‘Can I grab this seat?’ said Ren, pointing to the one at Laurie’s desk.

‘Sure,’ said Laurie.

Ren sat down. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m good,’ said Laurie. Her gaze was unsteady.

‘I’ve got a few more questions for you,’ said Ren.

‘OK,’ said Laurie.

‘We know now that Joshua came to your hotel room, Laurie.’

Laurie’s eyes went wide. She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t.

‘Do you know why Joshua came to the hotel room?’ said Ren.

Tears welled in Laurie’s eyes. ‘Did you ask him about it?’

‘My colleague Colin is speaking with Joshua right now.’

Laurie looked everywhere she could, apart from at Ren. She pulled her iPod by the headphones toward her, and started rotating it between her little fingers.

Ren waited. ‘You have to tell me the truth, Laurie. You’re free to talk to me about anything.’

Laurie nodded. She started to wind and unwind the headphones around the iPod.

‘Joshua wanted the code to my cell phone,’ she said eventually. ‘I have two cell phones — one my parents gave me, the other one’s a secret. Joshua got it for me. We both think mom and Dale’s rule is dumb, that they get to see everything in our phones. None of my friends’ parents look at their phones.’

D’ja think?

‘I never take my other cell phone with me when I’m with my parents,’ said Laurie. ‘I’d left it in my room back home.’

‘Is there a particular reason why you need two cell phones?’ said Ren.

Laurie nodded. ‘To have fun. To send jokes to my friends, and to talk to boys and stuff. I know I’m too young to have a relationship … but …’

Relationship. Sweet Jesus.

‘So … the phone … and Joshua …’ said Ren.

‘Joshua knows where I keep it, so he took it, so he could phone his friends in Breck when he got there. But when he went to turn it on, duh, he didn’t have the code. So he came back to the hotel to get the code. He called the desk from a payphone, and asked what room we were in …’

And idiot Jared Labati told him, and said nothing. ‘And what time did he call to the room?’ said Ren.

‘Just after Erica and Dad went to dinner. Like, just after nine.’

‘And what happened?’ said Ren.

‘He totally pushed in the door, and was, like, “what’s your code, Laurie, what’s your code?” I was, like, “Calm down, what’s your problem, what are you even doing with my phone?” And he was, like, “Just give me the effing code, you effing b.” He was crazy,’ said Laurie, out of breath, finally releasing everything she had been holding back. ‘It was freaky. I hadn’t done anything to him. I had actually covered for him, and now he’s, like, going insane.’

‘Where was Shelby Royce at this point?’ said Ren.

‘She was freaking out, too,’ said Laurie. ‘I told her it’s OK, he’s my stepbrother, but she was, like, “It’s not OK. It really is not OK. Something is wrong with him.” She looked terrified. I said “There’s nothing wrong with him, he’s just crazy.” That really bugged him.’

‘What did he do next?’ said Ren.

‘I told him no way was he getting the code,’ said Laurie. ‘No way. I told him that he scared the crap out of me earlier, hiding in the car, and that he was in so much trouble, and that I didn’t want to get the blame, and that he was spoiling everything.’

‘And what did he do?’ said Ren.

‘I told him he was a fat freak …’ Her lips started to tremble.

‘It’s OK,’ said Ren. ‘Take your time.’

Laurie burst into tears. ‘Joshua has never ever hurt me,’ said Laurie. ‘We’d have these little fights, he’d tease me, whatever, but … this was so scary. He kind of jumped at me, and he grabbed my arm, and threw me down on the bed. He pinned my arms above my head, and he, like, stuck his face in mine, and shouted, “Put in your code, you stupid b.”’

‘Where was Shelby at this time?’ said Ren.

‘She tried to reach for the hotel phone, and he threw it across the room. Leo started crying next door, and Joshua said to Shelby, “If you touch that effing phone, if you call one person, I will effing kill you. Go in there, and shut that little shit up.”

‘I’ve never seen Joshua so mad,’ said Laurie. ‘So I grabbed my phone from him, and I punched in the wrong code. Then I did it again. And then I did it one more time.’

‘So he was locked out of the phone,’ said Ren.

‘I told him I knew what he did to the Ronsons and that he was a psycho, but that made him even madder …’

‘And where was Shelby at this point?’ said Ren.

‘She was in the bedroom calming Leo down.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Then she came out and Joshua asked her for her car keys, and she said she didn’t have a car. He pulled out this big pen-knife and started waving it about. I couldn’t believe it.

‘I told him he had to stop, that this was going to get him in so much trouble. Even more trouble. I said that if he just left we wouldn’t say anything, we promised, but he kept saying “You will, I know you will.”

‘Then Joshua grabbed me up by the pajamas and he shook me real hard, and hit my head off the headboard. And then … I passed out. I woke up after that, and he took me out of the room. And then mom and Dale met us and took us home.’