Project 17 (8 page)

“You don’t see that?”

Lillian looked out of the windows again. “See what, Caleb?”

He didn’t answer. He stood up and went upstairs, followed by Mimsy.

Lillian should follow him but she couldn’t take her eyes off her phone.
Just five more minutes.

They’re dead.

Lillian sat immobile on the chair, her cell phone in her hands.

Nearly decapitated. Stab wounds in the neck and chest.

Mimsy screamed. The sound traveled down Lillian’s spine and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She jumped to her feet, dropping her phone in her haste to get upstairs.

“Caleb?” she called. “Mimsy?” He was not in his room. Lillian ran to the bathroom and pushed and rebounded, striking the wall. The door was locked.

“Caleb?” she called, turning the knob.
I need to call Paul
, she thought.
My phone is downstairs.
“Caleb, open the door!”

The door wasn’t locked, it just got stuck. When she was finally able to push the door open, she found Caleb on his knees in front of the bathtub. The water was running.

“Caleb?” Caleb didn’t acknowledge her, didn’t even move from his position. Lillian moved forward, slowly.
My phone. My goddamn phone.
“I thought I heard
Mimsy—”

Caleb had his arms submerged in water, his skin covered with crisscrossing scratch marks. Lillian leaned forward, saw a flash of wet orange fur, and covered her mouth with her hands to keep
herself from screaming.

“Mimsy said she’ll burn my brother,” Caleb said. His eyes were bloodshot. “I can’t let that happen. My brother’s all I have.”

Lillian turned away.

“Where are you going?” Caleb said. “Get back here!”

She ran down the stairs, tripped on her feet when she reached the landing, and fell hard. She crawled on her knees and tried to look for her phone. She couldn’t find it. No time. She
turned on the tabletop and dialed Paul’s number. The call connected. Lillian hit Speaker and screamed, “It’s Caleb! It’s Caleb, it’s Caleb, it’s
Caleb!”

“Lillian?” Paul said. “Lillian, what’s—”

A hand gripped the back of her neck. Lillian whimpered and started to cry.

Caleb forced her to her feet and led her to the kitchen. “Caleb,” Lillian said. “Caleb, let me go.”

He bent her over the sink, stray wisps from her ponytailed hair brushing against the side of her face. Caleb leaned across her back, pinning her in place. She could feel the edge of the
countertop digging into her stomach. A pen, from Paul’s own box of refuse, was now pointed at her eye. Lillian cried harder.

“You brought that cat to this house,” Caleb said, his mouth against her ear. He was shouting. Lillian’s head hurt. “Was that the plan, you goddamn skank?”

Lillian gathered all her strength and pushed Caleb off. She threw back her elbow. It connected with Caleb’s jaw. He screamed. She pushed him and his forehead hit the countertop.

She stepped back to the kitchen doorway, cradling her elbow. Dazed, Caleb slid to the floor. He dropped the pen, pulled his knees to his chest, and covered his head with his arms.

He remained in the same position until Paul arrived.

“Lillian?” he said, his gaze moving from the living room (the still-open tabletop displaying a screensaver of dancing squares) to the kitchen. Lillian was sitting on the floor
outside the kitchen.

“He’s hurt,” Lillian said, and Paul ran to his brother. She watched as he knelt, murmuring like a nurse at a dying man’s bedside, and placed his arms around Caleb.

“It’s okay,” Paul said as Caleb cried in deep, heaving sobs that made Lillian’s chest ache. “I’m right here.”

While Paul tended to Caleb’s wounds upstairs, Lillian stayed in the kitchen and replaced the calcium pills with Senerex. For a brief moment she looked at the bottle of Neuropro, but she
could hear Paul walking downstairs. She slammed the cupboard shut and sat by the kitchen island.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Asleep,” Paul said. “I’ll give him his pills in two hours.” He looked at her with worried eyes. “How about you, Lillian? Are you all right? Would you like
some coffee?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “About Mimsy—”

“Oh, God,” Paul said. “Oh, God, your cat. I’m so sorry. I placed her in a box for now.”

Lillian nodded.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Paul said. “I don’t understand what happened. This is the first time he became violent after he started taking his meds, and Caleb took
all of his meds on time. We made sure of that, didn’t we? I’m so sorry, Lillian.”

Paul was a good man. Too good. Lillian recalled the calcium pills, Mimsy dead in the water, how Caleb cried against his brother’s chest like a child lost in the wild. For the first time
everything came crashing down.

“Oh, shit,” Paul said, rendered helpless, like all men, by the sight of a crying teenage girl.

“I’m sorry,” Lillian said. Paul handed her some tissue.

“It’s okay. Jesus. If I could leave Caleb, I would have driven you home right now. Do you want me to call anyone?”

Ten minutes later, Max and Jamie were at the door, Jamie’s car parked behind them on the street.

“Hi, I’m Maxine,” Max said, shaking Paul’s hand. “And this is my cousin, Jamie. How’s—”

“I’m fine,” Lillian said, rushing forward before Paul could say anything. “Max, listen. About Mimsy—”

Max looked down at the floor. The basket, containing a box, was sitting by Lillian’s feet.

“Mimsy’s dead?” Jamie said.

Everyone fell silent.

“Oh, my God,” Max said.

“Please calm down,” Lillian implored, glancing at Paul, who looked like he might throw up.

“Did Caleb,” Jamie started to say before he caught himself.

“Yes,” Paul said, without meeting their eyes. “And I’ll understand if you want to press charges.”

Max and Lillian looked at each other.

“It wouldn’t fly,” Max said. “Caleb wasn’t himself.”

“Lester is going to kill us,” Jamie mumbled.

“This is going to sound horribly insensitive,” Paul said, “but I can offer to buy the owner another Persian.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Dolores,” Max said. “We’ll—we’ll talk to him first.”

“I can ask a vet office to pick up Mimsy for now. Keep her until the owner figures out where to bury her. I’ll take care of the fees.” Paul shrugged. “It’s the
least I could do.”

Lillian looked at Max and Jamie and raised her eyebrows.

Max sighed. “All right then.”

Before they left, Paul pulled Lillian aside and spoke in a soft voice. “Lillian,” Paul said, “if you want to quit, I completely—”

“I’m not quitting,” Lillian said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Why?” Paul looked completely puzzled.

Because it’s my fault, Abraham.

“I like you,” Lillian said, and smiled.

“Thank you,” Paul said, “for not hating us.”

“Of course you’re going to quit,” Max said inside the car, as Jamie drove. “Right?”

Lillian had lain down on the backseat with her eyes closed, chewing on a Candy Stripe that they brought for her.

“Honey,” Jamie prodded when she didn’t reply, “he fucking
attacked
you.”

Lillian chewed. “It’s an isolated case.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Paul said this is the first time he became violent after he began taking his meds,” Lillian said.

“So you think he missed his meds? But aren’t you the one in charge of—”

“Not on weekends,” Max said.

Jamie absorbed this, what it meant.

“Well that’s irresponsible,” he said.

“I think Paul’s a nice guy,” Max said.

“Whose side are you on?”

“He genuinely cares for Lillian and his brother, okay?”

“They were framed,” Lillian said.

Jamie and Max glanced at her.

“So you’ve read the emails,” Max said.

“Dexter said Northpoint cars arrived at the house that summer,” Lillian said. “Forty minutes later, Zeke arrived, followed by the Sentries. Zeke’s mind was already
broken, so when he got there and saw his family gutted like pigs, he must have thought that he caused it. And his bosses allowed him to think that.” Lillian sat up, excited by her own
narrative. “Northpoint-Pascual swooped in, knight in shining armor, and offered to bribe SentryServ to intercept the report, offered to give Zeke and his brother new identities, offered to
give them jobs and financial security. Maybe Margaret and Nikolas were forcing Zeke to work on something illegal, or something against his morals, and he wanted out. NP-P used his family’s
dead bodies as leverage in exchange for his silence, his cooperation. So he would finish the project.”