Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

water, and a prescription bottle.
    I thought of what Jean-Marc had said about her actions being common for someone with her disorder.
    I looked back at Marie and tried to think of how to say what I needed to say. In the end, it was she who spoke first.
    Her voice was monotone, grave. She didn’t take her eyes from the view outside her window.
    “You said it wasn’t safe for us back there,” she said. “Why?”
    “I saw things I didn’t like.”
    “What did you see?”
    “Two .32 caliber bullet casings. The gun that killed Tim Carter was a .32. Your brother gave that gun to me as a show of good faith. Or at least he claimed it was that gun.”
    “You think now it wasn’t.”
    I nodded. “He gave me it this morning. Scully had been killed very recently.”
    “There’s more than one .32 caliber gun in the world, right?”
    “Yes, but I’ve become a lot less intolerant of coincidences lately.”
    She thought about that, then said, “What did they do to him?”
    “Scully?”
    “Yes.”
    I didn’t answer.
    “What did they do to him, Mac?” she repeated calmly.
    I told her that from what I could tell he’d been shot twice in the head.
    “Was he beat up?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Bad?”
    I nodded.
    “Why would they do that?” Again, her tone was calm, she was simply gathering facts.
    “If whoever did that worked for your brother, they were probably trying to find out where you were.”
    “They were trying to make him talk.”
    “Yes.”
    “And if he had told them, they would have been here by now, right? They would have been waiting for us, or we would have come in just now and found my place ransacked. Right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So that means he didn’t tell them. They beat him and he said nothing.”
    “Maybe.”
    Marie nodded in a way that made me think that she was convincing herself of something. “I’d say definitely.”
    I glanced out the windows. Montauk Village was quiet, the parking spots along Main Street empty. If anyone had been waiting for us, we wouldn’t have made it out of her vehicle, never mind up to her place.
    “So he died protecting me,” Marie concluded.
    I nodded. “I guess, yeah.”
    “It’s important that we know that. It’s important that we remember it. We’re all that’s left to remember these kinds of things. You and I, we’re all that’s left. It’s important to keep these facts straight, don’t you agree?”
    She was still in shock, I could tell, but we were out of time. I took a step toward her bed and said, “What’s going on, Marie? Why is Jean-Marc looking for you? Why is he killing everyone close to you?”
    “Do I look anything like the girl you remember, Mac?”
    I shrugged. “Maybe, a little. What does this have to do—”
    “They had to rebuild my jaw. That was one surgery. Then later they had to rebuild my nose and one of my cheekbones. I look at pictures of me as a little girl and I feel so sad. It’s like that little girl has just disappeared. It’s like she never grew up to be who she was supposed to be. She grew up to be a stranger to herself.” She paused. “It’s funny, but I go out of my way to avoid my own reflection. When I do catch it, I don’t see myself, only what I’ve become. I know that probably doesn’t make sense. I know it probably sounds crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me.”
    I said nothing to that.
    “Anyway, my brother tells everyone that I had plastic surgery because of my vanity. Because I didn’t like the way I looked.”
    “But that wasn’t the reason,” I said.
    She shook her head. “He doesn’t like it when he can’t control me. He never has.”
    “He hit you.”
    She nodded, then said, “For starters.”
    I felt a wave a dread move through my gut. “Your father let this happen?”
    “My father didn’t know.”
    “How could he not know?”
    “He was away on business half the time. Out of the country for weeks at a time. Plenty of time for bruises to heal. And anyway, my brother knows how to keep his secrets.”
    “Why didn’t you get help? Why didn’t you leave?”
    Marie laughed, though not because what I’d just said had struck her as funny. She was shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe, of all people, that you’re asking me that.”
    She looked at me, her smile—her angry smile—gone now. “Why didn’t you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The things your adoptive father did to you, the way he treated you. You were more like hired help than family. You used to