That was good. But the jury was still out on how Veronica would take the news. There was no guarantee she wouldn’t throw me out on my ass. I didn’t think she’d call the police. At least, I hoped she wouldn’t.

We finished the bottle as I finished my story. I took a deep breath and waited for her to speak.

“That is so interesting,” Ronnie said finally. “I mean, that really appeals to the anthropologist in me. And if I look at it that way, it doesn’t bother me.”

“It doesn’t?”

She shook her head. “At least, not yet. Give me a few days.”

“Oh.” What else could I say?

“You only killed bad people, right?” The ring of hope in her voice was unmistakable.

I nodded. There was no point in telling her that I might have killed someone who didn’t deserve to die. The cousins and I had vowed that we didn’t want to know the truth about that, and I felt comfortable in my ignorance.

“Did you kill Dekker?”

“No. I couldn’t do it. But I did drive him to thoughts of suicide.” I told her the story of how I kept him alive as my own imprisoned therapist.

Ronnie snorted. “Oh, my God. That is the funniest thing I ever heard! Did you really do that?”

Okay. So it was all out there. And she took it well. But I still felt very uneasy.

“I shouldn’t have accused you of anything,” I started. “I was the one who pigeonholed you. I should have asked you-”

Ronnie silenced me with a kiss. She stood and started to pull me upstairs. I followed. Even though she hadn’t fully processed everything and was very likely in total shock, I wasn’t about to turn her down.

Chapter Thirty-six

So this was what it was like. I listened to Ronnie breathing beside me and sighed. If she woke up and decided she never wanted to see me again, at least I had this moment. I rolled over and watched the sun set lower in the sky. I wanted every late afternoon to be like this.

“Hey.” Ronnie tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to face her, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes.

“Hey. How are you handling this?”

“Aside from the dream I had where you had a contract to take out an evil capybara, I’m okay.”

“Really?” It was amazing how much hung in the balance of that one word.

“Really.” She kissed me and climbed out of bed, starting to put her clothes on.

“Why are you putting your clothes on?” Why was she putting her clothes on? Maybe she didn’t accept this like I thought.

“Don’t be so paranoid!” Ronnie laughed as she threw my shirt at me. “Sartre and I are starving.”

We made our way down to the kitchen and in moments we had a buffet of unrelated food, from cheese to Jell-O. Sartre had blueberries.

“So, you are okay with this?” I asked again, in danger of becoming annoying.

She nodded. “If I look at it from a scientific viewpoint, yes. And it helps that you only killed really bad people and have retired from the business altogether.” She popped a grape into her mouth.

“I didn’t expect it, is all. I thought you’d go through the roof.”

Ronnie thumped me on the chest. “That’s because you pigeonholed me.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.” We continued eating.

“So, are you ever going to tell me who killed Kennedy?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, I can’t do that. I had to sign a confidentiality oath in my own blood when I was five.”

Her eyes went wide. “Really?”

I nodded.

“Wow. But there really was a conspiracy, right?”

I laughed. “Yes. While there isn’t always a conspiracy, there was in that case.”

Ronnie cocked her head to one side. “I bet you think I’m a real idiot over the whole Senator Anderson thing, don’t you?”

I stiffened. “No. I don’t.”

She waved me off. “I mean, when you gave me that file listing all the horrible things Anderson had done, I was really mad at you. But I did some more digging and found out you were right. I guess I didn’t look hard enough because I didn’t want to believe that he’d really had a heart attack.”

“Ronnie-”

“And the ridiculous lengths I went to in order to find his killer! And I was part of that weird group! We were so sure we were going to bring the senator’s killer to justice!” She laughed again. “I mean, how do you bring something like heart disease to justice?”

“Ronnie.” Something in my voice must have told her to stop, because she did. “You weren’t wrong. Senator Anderson was killed for selling a list of CIA agents to Iran.”

“What?” She slammed her hand down on the table, causing Sartre to jump. “Oh, my God! I was right!”

“You were right.”

She started pacing wildly around the kitchen. “Oh, my God! He really was murdered! I can’t believe it! Well, actually that is a relief, because I thought I might be nuts.” She continued her inane prattle as she prowled around the room.

“And I bet you know it because you are in the business! Talk about weird shop talk! Can you tell me who did it?”

I nodded.

“Really? ‘Cause you can’t tell me about Kennedy! Really? Wow! This is like The X-Files!” She paused for a second, and I wondered if I would need a geek intervention here. “So, who was it? Who killed Anderson?”

The woman I loved looked at me with eyes shining, as if she had discovered the tomb of Jesus Christ.

“Me.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

A number of years back, I scored a strange assignment: a young, idealistic senator from the Midwest. I have to admit, it took me by surprise. Anderson seemed like a good guy. That was, until I read the dossier.

Senator William Anderson was a sinner in saint’s clothing. How he managed to keep everything under wraps, I’ll never know. Actually, calling him a sinner is a bit of an understatement.

Do you remember that Stephen King book about the guy who could see the future? He saw that the guy running for president, a guy everyone loved and respected, was going to become a ruthless dictator responsible for the deaths of millions…in the future. In the end he decided he had to kill this man before he took office and tossed the nation into chaos and death.

It was kind of like that. Anderson wasn’t just into hookers, corruption and graft. It was much worse. The man had scams in third-world countries that would make you commit suicide. I won’t go into a litany of his crimes here. Suffice it to say that the man was a monster.

However, he was a beloved public figure. So his death had to be out of my normal scope. I managed (I can’t tell you how) to break into his house and discover he had a bum ticker. Missi drugged his toothpaste so that when he went to sleep that night, he went to sleep forever. It was clean and it was quick. And it looked like natural causes.

That was how I killed Senator William Anderson.

“Wow,” was all Ronnie said when I told her. “Wow.”

When she didn’t speak for an hour, I collected Sartre and let myself out, carefully locking the door behind me.

Back in my trailer, I lay on my bed and cried. It was the first time I could remember doing that. I didn’t just cry because I’d probably lost Ronnie and my chance at true love forever. I cried because I’d killed all those people since I was fifteen. I cried because my wanker brother was dead. I even cried because, in a couple of years, even Sartre would leave me. That’s right, I premourned her death.

The sobbing shook my whole body, and after a few hours every muscle, even the one that controlled my thumb, ached. After splashing cold water on my face and taking some ibuprofen, I went to bed and slept.