“It’s not about throwing her away. Making her spend years in this kind of pain … That’s torture, man. It’s wrong.”

“No. You think it’s wrong. Who knows why you think that? Because you’re right, or because this case breaks your heart, because you’re feeling guilty as hell, because Jenny reminds you of Miss Kelly who taught you when you were five? That’s why we have rules to begin with, Richie: because you can’t trust your mind to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. Not on something like this. The consequences if you make a mistake are too huge and too horrible even to think about, never mind live with. The rules say we put Jenny away. Everything else is bullshit.”

He was shaking his head. “It’s still wrong. I’ll trust my own mind on this one.”

I could have laughed, or howled. “Yeah? Just look where that’s got you. Rule Zero, Richie, the rule to end all rules: your mind is garbage. It’s a weak, broken, fucked-up mess that will let you down at every worst moment there is. Don’t you think my sister’s mind told her she was doing the right thing when she followed you home? Don’t you think Jenny believed she was doing the right thing, Monday night? If you trust your mind, you will fuck up and you will fuck up big. Every single thing I’ve done right in my life, it’s been because I don’t trust my mind.”

Richie lifted his head to look at me. It took an effort. He said, “Your sister told me about your mother.”

In that second I almost punched his face in. I saw him brace for it, saw the blast of fear or hope. By the time my fists would unclench and I could breathe again, the silence had got long.

I said, “What exactly did she tell you?”

“That your mam drowned, the summer you were fifteen. When yous were down at Broken Harbor.”

“Did she happen to mention the manner of death?”

He wasn’t looking at me any more. “Yeah. She said your mam went into the water herself. On purpose, like.”

I waited, but he was done. I said, “And you figured that meant I was one strap away from a straitjacket. Is that right?”

“I didn’t—”

“No, old son, I’m curious. Go ahead and tell me: what was the line of thinking that led you to that conclusion? Did you assume I was so scarred for life that going within a mile of Broken Harbor was sending me off on some kind of psychotic break? Did you figure the crazy was hereditary, and I might suddenly get the urge to strip and start screaming about lizard people from the rooftops? Were you worried that I was going to blow my brains out on your time? I think I deserve to know.”

Richie said, “I never thought you were crazy. I never thought that. But the way you were about Brennan … That worried me, even before … before last night. I said it to you, sure. I thought you were overboard.”