"Informing on me."
I blink at him. He shrugs. "That's obvious, isn't it? They let him in because they wanted leverage inside my department. Knowing who the spy is made it easier for me. I didn't tell Will anything that I wouldn't want getting back to them. I did give him some stuff that could get me in a bit of trouble, just to monitor. After about six months, he stopped passing that along, and that's when I knew I could trust him. I still never gave him anything that could get me kicked out."
"Which is why you told me to keep even the murder investigation between us."
"Yep."
I lie back on the pillow. He stays there, on his side, watching me as I stare at the ceiling.
"How do you deal with what he did?" I say finally. "How do you reconcile that?"
"I don't."
I look over at him.
"Something happened over there," Dalton says. "In the war. All I know is that the guy who killed his commanding officer just sacrificed himself to save me. That's the person I need to focus on."
I expect any conversation with Anders will wait until he's recovered. It doesn't. He wants to talk to us, and Dalton realizes he's not going to truly rest until he does. Dalton expects we'll do this together. I refuse. He's the one Anders has worked with for two years. Been friends with for two years. Betrayed for two years. That's a conversation between them.
Dalton talks to him that afternoon. I go right after. I walk into Anders's room, and I sit on the chair by the window, and I stare out of it. He just waits until I'm ready.
"I want to know why," I ask.
"Why I shot my CO?" he asks, his voice low. "Or why I informed on Eric?"
The answer should be obvious. Why he murdered a man is far more important than how he wronged Dalton, but he knows which one I meant. And here is the truth of why this is so hard for me. Because it doesn't matter if I only met Anders a few weeks ago. I know him, and he knows me.
That's why nothing ever happened between us. I understood him, and so there wasn't that thrill of fascination and discovery that I had with Dalton. I understood Anders, and that's what twists in my gut now, because I want to say, in light of everything, that I obviously don't understand him at all. Like in the forest, when I kept waiting for him to turn into something else, someone else. But he didn't.
He did exactly what I expected of the man I'd come to know. He did exactly what I would have done.
"When you came to Rockton, you didn't know Eric," I say. "I'm sure the council told you stories that made him seem like a loose cannon. Informing on him was the price of admittance. Then you got to know him, and you realized you could help him by reporting things that didn't matter, making the council think he was being monitored."
Anders exhales. "Yes. Thank you."
"The shooting..." I prompt.
"Why did I do that?" He goes quiet long enough that I don't think I'm getting an answer. When he does speak, his voice is barely audible. "Anything I can say feels like an excuse. A good man is dead at my hand. Two good men were wounded. That can't be excused." He lifts his gaze to mine. "I think you understand that. Better than anyone."
"Give me a why, then."
"There is no why. Not like with you. They didn't..." He fidgets in his bed, wincing as he pulls against his bandages. "They did nothing to even remotely deserve it, Casey. It was me. All me. I was ... I had problems. Coping. I saw something. Over there. A mission went bad and things happened and something snapped. I blamed my CO, but not like that, not like I wanted to kill him for it. They put me on meds, and there were side effects. Rage, mental confusion. I wanted to stop taking them, and I just damned well should have, but I agreed to give it one more week."
He goes quiet and I wonder if that's all I'm getting. Then he says, "I remember going to bed. The next thing I knew, I was standing by his bed, and then I'm suddenly outside his quarters looking down at two wounded men. I still do not know what happened. But that's no excuse, is it? I kept taking the meds when I knew better. No one else pulled that trigger. The army wasn't going to send me home with a dishonourable discharge. I was looking at life in a mental ward or a prison cell, which I deserve, because I was responsible."
I move to the bed, and I sit beside him, and that's it. We just sit there. In silence. Like we did in the cave. Lost in remorse and guilt that won't ever go away. Not for either of us. There are no excuses here. No easy answers, either. We'll spend the rest of our lives dealing with what we did. Period.
As for Jacob, Dalton's dealing with that, too. I'll help, as much as I can, but it's his brother, and I understand that. The fact that we no longer have a doctor in Rockton complicates matters--with both Jacob's withdrawal and Anders's recovery. We've called on anyone with any medical training to step up. Except that two of those three people are also on Dalton's watch list, having bought their way into Rockton. Complicated? Fuck, yes, as Dalton would say. But we'll deal. We have to.
Then there's Diana. We know she didn't kill Mick, but it doesn't matter. She's still being deported. I haven't talked to her since I learned the truth. I've been telling myself that I can have that talk in Dawson City, more privately. Except with Anders incapacitated, I need to stay behind as the only law enforcement in town.
Two days after Beth leaves, the council decides Dalton is well enough to take Diana out and I promise to speak to her that morning. At eleven, Dalton finds me still at my desk.
"We leave in an hour, Casey."
I keep writing. "I just need to finish this report."
"I'll do it. You go see Diana."