“This town and its horrible, horrible people stole everything that I had and then some. Now, they’re going to see what happens when karma gets involved.” Justin motions down the hall. “I’m assuming there’s a bathroom somewhere in this lovely Vanguard home?” He very nearly scowls when he says that, offering up yet another intentional clue.
Justin doesn’t like Paul; I could see that right off the bat. And I don’t just mean that he doesn’t jibe with him. I think he’s jealous of his relationship with Tess.
“Down the hall to your left,” Chasm remarks dryly, and Justin nods, giving me one, last look before he strides off.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mia.” He moves away from us with his assistant in tow as X turns his attention down to my hand on his arm. He looks stricken as he reaches down and carefully untwines my fingers from his thick bicep.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” he murmurs, but more to himself than to either me or Chasm.
“Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Chasm snaps, gritting his teeth as he turns his attention in the direction Justin disappeared to. I’m sure Tess would balk at the idea of her ex freely roaming her house. Not that he, apparently, has any issues getting in here. He left the heart pin, the skeleton key, kidnapped me, kidnapped Parrish. What is he not capable of? “You’re lucky that prick never explicitly asked us not to hit him. I have a feeling he’s a stickler for rules. This honesty thing is a kink of his.” Chas turns back to X with a sharp expression on his face. “But if what you did affects Parrish in any way, I’ll be the one hunting you down.”
“He won’t hurt Parrish for that,” I say, weirdly confident in the whims and choices of a deranged serial killer. “But god only knows what else he’ll do.” I bite my lower lip. There’s no way we’re getting away with this scot-free. Not a chance in hell.
“I’m sorry,” X says, running both hands over his messy hair. “That was stupid as fuck.”
“Yeah, it was,” Chasm snaps back, sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
“You’re not actually going to go with that guy, are you?” Maxx asks me, and I can see that he’s in the same camp as Chasm. “You can’t be alone with him, Kota.”
“He won’t hurt me,” I repeat, and both boys give me dark looks thick with frustration.
We all pause when the front door opens and Tess and Paul come back inside. Right away, I see Tess’ eyes flick to the blood on the floor.
“Justin got a nosebleed and excused himself to the bathroom,” I explain as she looks back at me. There’s the slightest hint of betrayal in her gaze. She hates that I begged to go with him. But she has no idea that I’m protecting her son with everything I have, giving up little parts of me with each of the Slayer’s directives.
“I need that man out of my goddamn house,” she murmurs, exhaling sharply and reaching up to rub at her temples. Paul remains her silent bodyguard, as usual. But I don’t miss the way his brown eyes—so similar to Parrish’s—flick in the direction of the downstairs bathroom. He despises Justin Prior in a way that’s more than just ‘my wife’s ex’. There’s something personal there, that’s for sure. “And Kwang-seon McKenna, do not think I missed that cigarette hanging out of your mouth earlier. I know how your father feels about smoking.”
“Please don’t tell him,” Chasm begs, giving a curt, little bow in response. He stands up and locks his hands together in a prayer position. “I have to spend Memorial Day with that man.”
“Speaking of,” Tess continues, giving Chasm a once-over. “You should get ready and head home before he starts blowing up my phone.”
I have to give her credit for not telling Chasm’s dad that he covers his lip piercings and his hair; she also clearly keeps her mouth shut about his ink. See, Tess has plenty of redeeming qualities. Nice that I’m seeing them now, since Justin is determined to make me look like a heartless douche in front of my bio mom. So much for that spark of a relationship we’ve been kindling …
“On it,” Chasm agrees, exchanging a quick look with Maxx.
That’s right.
I’d almost forgotten their plan to check out both the diner and Mr. Volli’s house.
“I stink,” Maxx mutters with a slight cringe. But I don’t think that at all. Actually, he smells amazing. Goddamn it, Dakota. You’re so fucking cringe sometimes. “I’m going to shower and then I need to grab food for the damn rabbit.”
“You’re not staying with your parents tonight?” Tess asks him and Maxx pauses on his way toward the stairs.
“Nah. They’re staying in one of Seamus’ rentals out in Gold Bar. I’d much rather stick around here in case …” he trails off, but he doesn’t have to finish that sentence. Tess knows exactly what he means. She waves him away, and both Maxx and Chasm head for the stairs, casting glances back at me.
But they can’t protect me from this.
Nope, this is all on me.
“I’d like to have a conversation with you tonight,” Tess tells me, her voice simultaneously hard and soft all at once. Her expression reminds me a bit of a wounded tiger. Like, she’s bleeding, but she can still crush skulls with her teeth. “About your … Justin.”
“Of course,” I reply, taking the brief lull in conversation to snatch my chance at an exit.
Tomorrow, I’ll have lunch with the guy and see what I can’t do about Parrish.
But if I don’t have to see him again before he leaves right now, that’d probably be best for both of us.
The boys leave a short while later, but only after Maxx apologizes to me about a million times over. At this point, there’s nothing we can do about what happened. So far, so good though. Killing Parrish because Maxx punched him in the face wouldn’t serve Justin’s purposes at all.
Actually, the whole Milk Carton facial recognition app thing has made me feel slightly better about the situation. It seems to me that Justin wants his stupid software to ‘find’ Parrish, so that he can launch his new product to fanfare and praise.
That means that Parrish cannot die … right?
How, exactly, he might keep us all gagged once we get Parrish back is a problem for another day.
I take an hour or so to go over my social media, once again looking for clues that seem frustratingly out of reach. What I can’t ignore, however, are texts from Sally and Nevaeh telling me that Maxine is desperately trying to reach me.
That, and a text message from my grandparents begging me to call them.
With a groan, I put my phone up against my forehead. What a mess. My easy, average, boring life has become a twisted tangle. Everywhere I turn, there are thorns and shadows. Nothing is simple. Nothing is what it first appears to be.
While I can’t avoid my grandparents—or Maxine—forever, I don’t have the emotional energy to deal with that right now. I drop the phone to my lap and stare at the dark screen for a moment. I remember Grandma Carmen telling me to give my new situation three months. Just three months, she’d said, and if it doesn’t work out, we’d look for other solutions.
Well, it’s been more than three months. While my fish out of water feeling isn’t gone, I have much more important things to worry about. At this point, if I can just get Parrish back safely, I’ll swallow down the rest of my pain and forge through. I’ll stay here, because staying here means I can be with him—whether Tess and I form a mother-daughter bond or not.
A firm knock sounds on my door and I very quickly open my nightstand drawer, chucking my Maxine-phone inside before Tess comes in without bothering to wait for my confirmation.
“How are you holding up?” she asks, which seems like a strange question coming from someone whose son has been missing for two weeks.
“I’m perfectly fine,” I say, which maybe isn’t the best response. But I have a feeling that if I let on in any way that I dislike Justin, Tess will fight him with everything she has. She might still do that, but I can’t give her any fodder. I cannot be the reason that she goes after him, not with Parrish’s
life on the line.
“May I sit?” she asks, but then she’s sitting down on the bed anyway, like her body’s too heavy to hold up any longer. She closes her eyes for a minute, digging her nails into the blankets like she’s struggling to bring a surge of wild emotion under control. “I’m sorry that you had to see and hear all of that today.” Tess opens her eyes back up and glances over at me.
I fidget slightly beneath her stare, swinging my green and black hair over one shoulder so that I can braid it. It gives me something to do, at the very least.
Tess looks over at me, an unsure expression crossing her face. This is her ‘dorky author’ look, the one that she affects when her hair is mussed and she’s puttering around the kitchen mumbling plot points. Sometimes, she’ll forget to fully close her office door and I’ll hear her having conversations with her characters out loud.
Those are the parts of her that I really like.
But then, you can’t choose which parts of a person to accept.
Tess is that person, but she’s also the cold power bitch that comes down on me like a hammer.
“Dakota,” she starts, and I feel a small rush of pleasure that she chooses the right name. “I’m sorry that I lied about your father. When you asked me about Justin Prior that day, I should’ve … I should’ve been honest with you.”
I shake my head. Even though she did lie to me, I understand why.
She likely has no idea that Justin Prior is a serial killer, that he’s the Seattle motherfucking Slayer. But she knows he’s a bad man. She was trying to protect me from that.
Saffron, too, seemed to know so much more than she should. I’d love a chance to speak with her privately. There could be clues there as well.
“While I don’t appreciate being lied to, I can see why you did it. He’s … intense.” I grit my teeth at the memory of his smile after Maxx punched him. There’s something even more unsettling about his charming, almost placid demeanor. If he’d flown into a rage, I could’ve understood that. But that quiet calm? Dear god, what have I walked into here? “To be fair though, Tess, you can’t just tell me he’s a liar and a cheater and expect me to hate him.”
She lets out a small sound, turning away from me toward the darkening sky outside the window. Even though I can only see her profile right now, there is no mistaking the intense sense of longing in her eyes, the sorrow in the shape of her mouth, the love in her shaking hands.
She’s thinking about Parrish.
A line from Abducted Under a Noonday Sun comes back to me with a rush of pain. Losing a child is like losing a piece of your soul. On the outside, you’re still you. On the inside, you’re nothing but aching regret and bountiful memories. Every small moment you shared becomes larger than life; it becomes everything.
I finish my braid and then reach into my pocket, searching for a stray hair tie. I have a tendency to collect them in my pockets. Once, I counted fifteen hair ties shoved into the pocket of a denim jacket.
Instead of a hair tie, I find my Tess-phone. A thought occurs to me, so I slide it out and pretend to check my notifications. Instead, I surreptitiously start recording our conversation. If Tess is going to give me any clues about my father—or any of their ‘special places’ as Maxx put it—it’ll be now.
“Why don’t we start with … how you two met?” I begin, adding a question mark onto the end of that sentence. At least I don’t say ‘question mark’ aloud. Guess I’m not twelve anymore. A small flicker of sadness chases through me. My childhood is most certainly in the rearview mirror. I will never be the same after the things the Slayer has made me do.
And I imagine this is only the beginning of his demands.
My hands twist in my sheets as I wait for Tess to reply.
She keeps her gaze focused out the window, but her expression shifts from one of longing to one of long-buried pain.
“We met at Whitehall,” she says, and then she finally glances back at me. “I’m sure you didn’t miss Justin’s little dig about me being trailer trash.” Tess cringes slightly, as if she’s ashamed about that. My mouth flattens into a thin line. I hate billionaires with unabashed passion, but I do not hate people for being poor. There’s nothing to be ashamed about here.
“Tess,” I start, but it’s like, now that she’s started, she isn’t ready to stop.
“Anyway, my grandmother worked hard to make ends meet while still trying to chase her dream of becoming an author …” Tess pauses again, turning fully to face me. There’s regret written plainly all over her face. “I should’ve told you all of this sooner. Not just you, but all of you kids.” She reaches out to touch my face, hesitates, and then flattens her mouth into a thin, determined line. Tess closes that distance between us, cupping the side of my face and stroking her fingers into my hair. “You kids are my heart,” she whispers, voice cracking. “My whole entire heart.”
I look away. I can’t help it. I’m not ready for this conversation with her, not after she hurt me in too many ways to count. But I also feel for her, ache for her, want to cry for her. I will save Parrish for her. For Chasm. For Maxx. For Kimber and Ben, Amelia and Henry. Even Paul. They all need him back, no matter what it costs me.
Tess drops her hand back to her lap, and I look back, wishing I’d had the strength to maintain that eye contact with her.
“I worked as a waitress in the very same diner I was working in when you were … stolen from me.”
She’s shaking now, and I can see that this conversation is pushing her to the edges of her emotional limits. The thing is, if I can get this out of her, I might be able to save Parrish. It’s absolutely vital that I keep her talking; this is my chance. The longer Parrish is missing, the harder it will be to get her to talk to me so frankly. She’s already starting to crumble. Yes, she’s been pulling herself back together, but how long until she breaks? We all have our breaking points, whether we care to admit to that or not, but losing a second child after just recovering the one you lost for fourteen years? That would break anyone—even a big shot bestselling author like Tess Vanguard.
“Anyway, I was working there and attending Whitehall on a scholarship. Justin … He and I met at school, and he asked where I worked. He started coming there daily after class, just to talk to me.” She smiles a little at the memory, but it’s tinged with bitterness. “He used to leave me hundred-dollar tips. Not just once in a while, but every time.”
I can’t tell if I’m supposed to be impressed by that or not. Maybe, in some circumstances, I would be. But knowing Justin Prior the way that I do now? It comes across as patronizing, controlling, and obsessive.
“Last Chance Diner and Grill,” I say, realization making my skin crawl. “That’s where he proposed to you, too.”
Tess startles like she’s been slapped, blinking at me in surprise.
“How do you know the name of the diner?” she asks me, but I can’t exactly say, ‘hey, remember your maid, JJ? Well, Chasm and I picked up her body in a wooden box from that location. That was just before we shoved the box into his trunk, bungeed it down, and delivered it to her rapist/murderer’s house.’
Yeah no.
“You told me last night that the diner in Fleeing Under a Summer Rain was based on a place in North Sultan. Didn’t take much internet sleuthing to find it.”
My explanation mollifies her slightly, and she sighs, reaching up to pull pins from her coiffed hair. It tumbles over her shoulders in an espresso-colored wave.
“Well, you’re right,” she says, giving a slight smile. I’m so excited by this turn of events that I start to tremble, forcing my hands beneath the covers to hide my reaction. “He gave me a ring as a tip one day.” She gives a harsh laugh, reaching up to rub at her forehead. “Can you even believe that? The arrogance of it?” She shakes her head and sighs. “But that’s one of the things I liked most about him. He just dropped a million-dollar diamond onto the bill and looked at me with that charming smile of his. I was sold.”
Tess gives m
e a look that I can’t quite interpret, half tender, half admonishing.
“I was still a senior in high school. Actually, I was still a senior in high school when I got pregnant with you.” My cheeks flush, even though I had nothing to do with that decision whatsoever. Somehow, I still feel guilty for ruining Tess’ last year of high school. “That’s why I’ve been so hard on the sex thing. Kwang-seon, he’s a nice boy. I should know,” she says, giving a little laugh. “I practically raised him. Seamus, he’s not a bad man, but he never could cope after Ji-hyun died.” Tess pulls her hair over one shoulder and, offering me another smile, starts to braid it in a similar fashion to mine. “I just don’t want you to end up like me.”
“A millionaire author married to a plastic surgeon set to inherit billions?” I query back, and she lifts both brows. I shouldn’t be a tease right now. This is a serious conversation, but I can’t help it. I was never meant to live in eternal darkness. I’m somebody who craves the light. Fun, easy conversations, lazy afternoons, movies with laughter and popcorn. That’s me.
“Married too young, made a mother too young, lacking in options. That’s what I mean.” She finishes her braid and then points at me. “You’re funny though.” I give her a small grin, but it’s lacking in presence. I need to steer the conversation in a different direction.
Although … I don’t dislike the one we’re having now. I once thought that having a heart-to-heart with Tess Vanguard was my worst nightmare. Guess losing the guy I’m in love with to a serial killer has really put things into perspective for me. This isn’t nearly as bad as I expected. Actually, I’d love to know everything there is to know about Tess’ backstory, her relationship with Justin, all of it.
But I need more specific information right now.
“What about, um, special places?” I suggest gently, wondering if the change in subject is too abrupt. “Like … your guys’ first kiss? Or … the hospital where you had me? Anything like that?”
Payback Princess (Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer Book 2) Page 28
