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Michael watched in the dark as two figures plodded toward him through the thick foliage. He’d spent the last several hours up in the treehouse alone with his thoughts, turning over the idea that he might be a murderer and eventually coming to the conclusion that he was. Though he hadn’t planned it, he’d meant to push Dylan. And he had intended to kill him before because he thought Dylan would try to do the same to him.
But he couldn’t be sure what Dylan had intended when he raised his hands out in front of him. He’d had the bar, but he hadn’t drawn it back for a swing.
Below, the two individuals were now only a dozen yards or so away. One was the silhouette of a slender woman who appeared to be about Sam’s height and might have been her, but the other, beyond being that of an adult male, was a question mark. He waited in silence at the top of the treehouse, while Dylan’s body lay below, behind the tree and collecting critters.
“Michael?” Sam’s familiar voice called up.
“Here!” Michael pushed his way through the treehouse doors and began his descent, his body alive with excitement even while his heart weighed heavy with what he’d done.
When he reached the ground, he ran to Sam and she to him. They embraced, wet cheek to wet cheek, Michael chancing a seizure and vision—one that never came. He wondered briefly if that was because he’d already seen her future, and nothing they’d done had changed it.
After nearly a minute in each other’s arms, Michael pulled away. He looked back and forth between his foster mother and the person with her, Bruce, trying to learn what he could from their expressions. “Is it over? Are we safe?”
Sam sniffled and nodded. “We got him. Bruce is here for backup, you know, just in case, while Sergeant Rollins is managing the scene with Frank’s assistance.”
She clapped Bruce on the shoulder. “This guy would never have left Wainwright until he saw him behind bars or dead. But since he couldn’t stand next to the sicko without wearing earplugs, I forced him to come with me.” She smiled. “It’s been too long since you last had my back.”
Bruce frowned. “What about—”
“Anyway, Wainwright’s headed off to jail as we speak. Dr. Horvat’s in custody, too, but... well, that’s a long story. We also saved the little boy who was taken from the hospital, but two of his other victims, the people he used, died in the shootout.” She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Michael... Jimmy’s dead.”
Michael jerked away. “What? How?” He shook his head as he began to stutter. “It-it’s not possible. He was in a halfway house. He—”
“We don’t have all the details.” Sam exchanged a look with her former partner. “Whether he was brainwashed all along and made his way back to them or was kidnapped or whatever, we won’t know until we can investigate. He was masked and shooting at us when we found them, and—”
“Did you kill him?” Michael wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to that question, but he fixed his gaze on Sam and waited nonetheless.
But it was Bruce who answered. “I did, son.” He winced, and for the second time, Michael saw a hint of vulnerability in a man who’d seemed all anger and hate.
Michael’s chin quivered, and he had to look away, trying to board up the dam before it cracked. He fell back against the tree trunk, and he slid down it to his butt, burying his face in his hands. He thought of Jimmy, then Dylan, and the dam burst. Everything just poured on out. “I killed him.”
“Huh?” Bruce crouched. “No, son, it was my fault. I should have aimed lower, should have been more careful. None of this is—”
“Not Jimmy... oh, God, Jimmy too.” He bellowed a moan that sounded like an animal in its death throes, dying alone at night in the woods. “I-I-I came here with Dylan, and I... and I killed him!”
“What are you talking about? Michael, you’re not making any sense. Dylan’s here? Where?”
“Dylan?” Bruce asked.
Michael ignored them and poured on. “I thought he was faking, that he was really his son, not brainwashed like the others.”
“Wait.” Bruce stepped closer. “Whose son?”
“Wainwright’s or Jefferson’s or whoever he is.” Michael felt a tingle in his nose and knew it was starting to run. He wiped it with his sleeve and sucked it up. “He attacked me at the school, acting like one of them, but Robbie tackled him, and he started acting all normal again. So I led him here, took his phone, checked his calls, and saw the call had come from his father.” He pointed up, his arm swaying in small circles. “I pushed him off the top there.”
Sam exchanged a glance with Bruce, then said, “Michael, slow down. Start from the beginning.”
“Don’t you get it? I pushed him out of the treehouse! I killed him! And I don’t even know—”
Sam put a finger over her lips. In a soft tone, she said, “He fell, Michael.”
“You’re not listening to me. I pu—”
More sternly, she said, “He fell, Michael.”
“Where is he?” Bruce asked.
Michael threw a thumb over his shoulder as he held back a sob. He hid his eyes with his forearm, resting on bent knees, his heels tucked under him. As Bruce walked around the tree, Sam hugged him again.
“Was he working for his dad?” Michael sniffled. “Or just brainwashed? Was he really my friend?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sam,” Bruce said. “You’d better come over here.”
Sam held him a moment longer. “Are you okay to go with me?”
Michael nodded, but he stood up shakily. She led him around the tree. As he saw Dylan’s pale, lifeless form, his tears ran anew.
Bruce crossed his arms. “I thought you said you pushed—”
“He fell, Bruce,” Sam snapped.
“Did he fall onto that branch?” He pointed at the stick poking out of Dylan’s stomach then the two pairs of circling footprints. “Looks like he got up, and—”
“He fell, damn it! Or Michael pushed him in self-defense!”
Michael’s body shook, but he managed to respond. “He was holding that bar.” He pointed to the zip line handlebar on the ground beside Dylan. “I... I thought he was going to attack me with it, but...”
Sam looked him in the eyes. “So you didn’t kill him. See? Even if you had pushed him out of the tree, he was trying to kill you with that bar, and you did what you had to do. It was self-defense.”
“You say he was Wainwright’s son,” Bruce said as he removed a cell phone from his pocket and turned on its flashlight. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s something we vetted internally because the boy’s last name, Jefferson,” Sam said. “I put someone I can trust on it. Dylan’s the son of someone else at the hospital. Everything checked out.”
“Did you vet it personally? Wainwright’s people can fake all sorts of documents. Whoever looked into it may have seen only what Wainwright wanted him to see.” Bruce leaned closer to the boy. “But just looking at him, I can tell he’s not Wainwright’s son, at least not biologically.”
Bruce crouched, shining the light into Dylan’s face. He went eerily silent, holding that position for several seconds as he ran his fingers down his face.
“Bruce?” Sam said, breaking the quiet. “Is everything okay?”
Bruce stood and turned, his face haggard and ghastly in the light of his phone. In a quivering voice that seemed not his own, he said, “I just can’t believe how much he looks like Jocelyn.”