We'd given drugs to a recovering addict.
I'd just given Gabriel shit for suggesting I was enjoying this walk on the wild side, like a drunken college girl stumbling into a filthy tattoo parlor and letting dirty needles decorate her body with the Chinese symbol for whore. The truth was that I'd been riding a roller coaster of anxiety and adrenaline since Dr. Escoda's call that morning.
And now this.
I sat there, feeling sick and shocked and angry, most of all furious with myself for being such a fool, such a damned fool.
This wasn't a game. It was serious and ugly and I wanted nothing to do with it. And yet, in wanting nothing to do with it, I was a hypocrite. I'd followed Gabriel this far because he got me what I wanted. Now he was, once again, delivering. Was I going to sail out on a wave of righteous indignation?
What would I do to prove that my parents--yes, my parents--did not kill anyone?
How far would I go?
Everything in me screamed against this. Yet the deeds had been done, the body hidden, the drugs given, the witness ready to talk. Leaving smacked of hypocrisy and empty self-righteousness. So I stayed.
"That guy says you aren't one of them," Desiree began. "He said you can help if they come for me."
"Yes," Gabriel said. "But I can't help until I understand what's happening."
She snorted. "I don't even understand. It's crazy shit Josh used to tell me when he got high, and I always figured it was just the dope talking. Then he gets a call, and he says it's about that and I was, like, holy fuck, so he wasn't making it up."
"Making what up?" I asked.
"The stuff." She waved her hands. "The crazy shit."
As she gestured, I thought I saw a spot of red on her sleeve. A stain the size of a dime. But when I tried to find it again, I couldn't see it.
"Let's step back," Gabriel said. "You were worried I was someone else. One of 'them.' Who?"
"The spooks."
We both paused.
"Do you mean ghosts?" I said.
She gave me an "Are you high, chick?" look. "Spooks. You know. The men in black. The alphabet goons."
I glanced at Gabriel.
"Federal agents," he said. "DEA? FBI? CIA?"
"Spooks."
"CIA?"
"That's what I said."
"So Joshua knows something he thinks might make the CIA come after him. Something someone else told him."
"Right. His friend from back when they were kids. The one that got carved up. Supposedly by that couple."
"The Larsens."
She leaned forward. "Only it wasn't really them. They were framed by the spooks."
"The Larsens were framed by the CIA?" I said.
"You're just a baby," she said with a dismissive wave my way. "I was still a little girl, but I remember my parents talking about those murders, and I'd sneak the papers to read about them. I always knew the Larsens couldn't have done it. They weren't more than kids themselves, and anyone could tell they weren't murderers. Then I met Josh, and he told me what really happened. I didn't believe him because he'd only talk about it when he was high. I should have believed him."