“I’m thinking,” I say softly. “Lots of thinking.” Planning how I’ll kill Cowan and get away with it.
“Cowan did this on purpose. He knew you’d see it. He knew you’d recognize it. Why would he do that? He doesn’t do anything without a plan.”
“I don’t know. He’s a fucking nutjob.”
“Yep, exactly. He’s absolutely freaking insane. But even still.”
“I’m still going to punch him so hard his teeth turn into his tonsils.”
“Think for a second.” I feel like my head’s going to explode and if I do what she’s asking, if I slow down and really consider where this ends, I’m going to let all that pain inside.
There’s no more thinking. There’s no more hesitating.
I’m going to kill Cowan.
I have friends with money and connections. I’ll do time, but I won’t spend the rest of my life in prison. I can survive getting locked up for a decade if it means ending this piece of trash and watching the life drain from his worthless body. It won’t bring my father back and it won’t fix the way things ended with me and him, but at least it’ll give me a few minutes of pleasure in this otherwise bleak and miserable world.
“He’s using you. I don’t know what his end game is, but think about it.” Blair sounds desperate, but her words pierce through my rage-red haze as I navigate at dangerous speeds toward the hotel.
“I’ve thought. He’s dead.”
“The farmhouse with those Polaroids. The aunt’s house with the shotgun and the boxes and the mask. The addict lead actor that happens to be on the same drugs as your father and happens to escape to a homeless encampment one morning. And now this, with your father’s script. Baptist, he’s doing it on purpose.”
“You think I can’t see that?” I’m shouting at her but I can’t stop myself. I’m seething, breathing hard, and I can’t seem to get enough oxygen. I turn the car fast and come to a screaming halt half a block from the hotel. It’s not Blair I’m mad at, it’s myself. “I know he’s fucking using me. He’s screwing with me and doing his best to drive me insane, and I don’t understand what he thinks he’s going to get out of it.”
“This is what he wants,” she says softly, touching my chest. The weight of her hand has a strange calming effect, and even though I’m still riding the edge of madness, I meet her eye and try to hear what she’s saying. “He wants you to get emotional. He wants a reaction. Why else give us that script? He knew you’d read it and he knew you’d freak out about it. Don’t give him what he wants.”
“What should I do instead? Should I sit here and take it? Let this man keep messing with me?”
“I don’t know,” she admits softly and her fingers slide down my arm until they lace into mine. “Maybe it’s time we walked away.”
I let that sink in. Coming from her, it’s a huge deal.
If she’s willing to walk away, it must mean we’re at the bottom of a very deep, very dark barrel, and it’s not going to get any better.
I take a deep breath and lean my head back. I close my eyes and try to bring myself under control.
But there’s so much swirling in my head. I keep returning to that last evening with my father when I told him what I really thought of this manuscript and the look on his face, devastated but trying to keep his emotions in check. My father always had so much pride, which is part of why Crawford running his theater into the ground hurt so much. I felt nothing back then, no pity, no sadness, only anger that he’d done so much to tear our lives to pieces only to come back to me and ask for my opinion on some stupid fucking script. I hated him for that and I wanted to make him hurt the same way he’d made me and my mother hurt.
Now, I hate myself more than I ever hated him.
How can I look myself in the mirror and call myself a man if I let Cowan get away with doing this?
I don’t understand why. I can’t imagine what he has against me, but he must hate me so much to do something like throw that manuscript in my face.
Blair is right. He wants this reaction. He’s been pushing harder and harder from the beginning, finding my buttons and my dials and turning them. He knows how I feel about Blair, and he keeps shoving her into danger. He knows how I feel about my father, and he keeps throwing that in my face.
But it doesn’t matter what he wants anymore.
I’m done worrying about Tony Cowan.
“I’m sorry,” I say and shove the door open.
“Baptist! Wait!”
But I don’t look back.
Chapter21