Red Glove by Holly Black Read Free Book Online

atrium. He died instantly.”
    I feel like someone punched me in the gut.
    I push the picture back toward Agent Jones. “What are you showing me this for?” My voice shakes. “That’s not Philip. That’s not my brother.”
    I’m standing, but I don’t even remember getting up.
    “Calm down,” Agent Hunt says.
    There is a roaring in my ears like a tide coming in. “This is some kind of trick,” I shout. “Admit it. Admit that this is a trick.”
    “Cassel, you have to listen to us,” Agent Jones says. “The person who did this is still out there. You can help us find your brother’s killer.”
    “You’ve just been sitting here chatting with me, and my brother’s dead? You knew my brother was dead and you just let me—you let me . . . ,” I stammer. “No. No. Why would you do that?”
    “We knew it would be hard to talk with you after you found out,” Agent Jones says.
    “Hard to talk to me?” I echo, because the words don’t make sense. And then something else strikes me, something that doesn’t make sense either. “Philip was your informant? He would never do that. He hates snitches.”
    Hated. Hated snitches.
    In my family going to the cops is cowardly, despicable. Cops already can do whatever they want to workers—we’re criminals, after all—so going to the cops is kissing the ass of the enemy. If you turn someone in, you’re not just betraying the people around you. You’re betraying what you are. I remember Philip talking about someone in Carney who’d reported on somebody else for some petty reason—old guys I didn’t know. He spat on the floor whenever he said the man’s name.
    “Your brother came to us about five months ago,” Agent Hunt says. “April of this year. Said he wanted to change his life.”
    I shake my head, denying what has to be true. Philip must have gone to the Feds because he had nowhere else to go. Because of me. Because I thwarted his plan to assassinate Zacharov, a plan that would have resulted in Philip’s closest friend leading the crime family. A plan that would have gotten my brother riches and glory. Instead I got him killed; if Philip is dead, Zacharov must be behind it. I can’t think of anyone else with a reason. And what would Zacharov care about his promise to leave my family alone, especially if he was faced with the discovery that Philip made a deal with the Feds? I was an idiot for believing Zacharov’s word was worth anything.
    “Does my mother know Philip’s dead?” I finally manage, throwing myself back down into a chair. I feel like I could suffocate on guilt.
    “We’ve managed to keep it quiet,” Agent Jones says. “As soon as you leave here, she’ll get the call. And we won’t be much longer. Try to hang in there.”
    “There’s a kitten poster like that.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.
    They both look at me oddly.
    I feel suddenly so overwhelmingly tired that I want to put my head down right there on the table.
    Agent Jones goes on. “Your brother wanted to get out of organized crime. All he needed from us was to get a hold of his wife so he could apologize for what he put her through. We were going to send them into witness protection together. As soon as we got them into the program, he said that he’d give up everything he had on Zacharov’s hatchet man. Maybe bring down Zacharov along with him. The guy’s real bad news. Philip gave us the names of six workers this sicko killed. We didn’t even know for sure they were dead, but Philip was going to lead us to the bodies. Your brother really was trying to turn over a new leaf, and he died for it.”
    I feel like they’re talking about a stranger.
    “You find Maura?” I ask.
    Maura lit out of town last spring, their kid in tow, once she discovered that Barron had been changing her memories. He’d made her forget every fight she’d had with Philip and remember only some kind of sweet dreamlike relationship. But not remembering their problems didn’t stop