Sick Twisted Minds (Cruel Black Hearts Book 3)

by Candace Wondrak

  Out through the side door in the kitchen, straight into the garage. Through the outside door, I emerged into the yard, the night air crisp and cold. Or was it warm? It was so hard to tell, because I felt like I was hardly in my own body. I went around the back, stopping before the flowerbed.

  Callie was under there, rotting and decaying, worm food.

  “Stella,” Edward spoke, beside me. Funny, because I couldn’t remember him following me, but he must have. He reached for my hand, fingers entwining with mine. “Come back inside. There’s more, if you think you can handle it.”

  I looked at him, watched the silver moonlight bounce off his blonde head, illuminating his blue eyes. Such a handsome man, such a calm man, given the circumstances. Could I handle more? I mean, what the hell else was there? What more to this awful story could there possibly be?

  “Okay,” I finally said, figuring we might as well get it all over with. I let him lead me back into the house, finding that Killian and Lincoln had reassembled in the living room. I sat in the middle of the couch, trying to get my breathing under control. “What else?” My voice broke when I asked, and I hated how weak I sounded.

  These men, they’d think less of me after this. They had to. How could they watch me break down and still want me? How could they look at me, a woman who’d killed her best friend, and honestly say they loved me? Was it all a cruel lie?

  “I’ve been trying to get you slowly back on your meds,” Edward said, glancing at Lincoln.

  With a nod, Lincoln added, “It’s why my family gave me a call. We made the mistake of using their doctor for the meds.”

  “Why not just use mine?” I asked, sounding broken, mostly because I was. I also felt even worse, considering this whole family business was now all my fault. They wouldn't have had to use his family’s doctor if they weren’t trying to help me.

  “I didn’t know how you’d react once you found out. I wanted to have a backup stash,” Edward spoke, his hand still gripping mine as he sighed beside me.

  Killian coughed, looking uneasy. “There’s more, unfortunately. I…might’ve dug up her body. She might be in my basement.” He shrugged, as if he talked about having dead bodies in his basement all the time—which he just might.

  “What do you mean, she might be?” Lincoln scowled. “Either she is, or she isn’t. A corpse doesn’t just get up and walk away—”

  Turning to Lincoln, Killian interrupted, “I was trying to put it lightly. Use some discretion. Apparently you’re such a barbarian you don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “Who the fuck are you calling a barbarian, you asshole?”

  As Killian and Lincoln were caught in a match of death glares, Edward turned to me and said, “Don’t be upset with us. We all want what’s best for you, and getting you back on your meds was the first step. Now that you know, now that we all know, we can take care of you.”

  “You mean you still want to…” I felt stupid asking this, but I couldn’t not say it. “…to be with me? Even after what I did? What if I try doing the same thing to one of you?”

  Killian and Lincoln halted their glaring contest to look at me. It was Killian who said, “Considering we can’t kill each other, I think we can handle you, even on your craziest of days.” He broke out into a grin, and beside him, Lincoln rolled his dark eyes.

  “Suck up,” he said.

  “I think we should all suck up to Stella,” Killian said, crossing his arms. “She’s the reason we’re here, after all.”

  Edward reached for me, cupping my face, drying my leftover tears with his thumb. “How could you ask that? Of course I’m not going to leave you. I love you. We all do. Hell or high water, no matter how many bodies might pile up, we’re with you.” He leaned over, lightly pressing his lips to my cheek, giving me the gentlest kiss on the cheek I’d ever gotten. Maybe the only kiss on the cheek I’d had in my entire life.

  I sniffed.

  Maybe…maybe I could do this. Maybe I didn’t need to believe this was the end of it all for me. It was quite possible, with the three men around me, we’d be able to move on from this. What I didn’t understand yet was the how part, so I decided to ask.

  “How are we going to…to fix this?” I looked to all three of them. My men, my killers—they were a support system I had no idea I needed. My three psychopaths, wrapped in bloody giftwrap and handed to me by fate.

  “I don’t know if there is anything we can do to fix it,” Edward spoke.

  “Eventually, her family is going to come knocking. Her brother already did,” Killian said. “It’s only a matter of time before others do, or before her parents call the cops and report her missing.” He glanced to Lincoln, who was still busy scowling at him.

  Lincoln begrudgingly joined the conversation, frowning as he said, “They’ll look at you first, Stella, since you’re the roommate and you never reported her as missing. From what I know, all evidence will point to you. The only saving grace is that ginger here has the body, which he can’t keep.”

  “I can’t get rid of her yet,” Killian said. “I just got rid of John—”

  Edward got to his feet. “You did what? Why didn’t you say anything? How did you do it? Where—it wasn’t one of your angels, was it?”

  Almost like he was talking to a child, Killian took on an exaggeratingly nice tone, “No, I didn’t make him an angel. I just took his body and dumped in a field a few hours from here.”

  “You stupid fuck,” Lincoln growled, fists balling at his sides. “That’s only going to make her family try harder to contact Callie once they find him.”

  “It’ll be a while. I left him in the middle of nowhere. I thought by then, we’d have a better idea of what we have to do with Callie, how to get out of this.”

  As they talked, as they discussed around me, I couldn’t help but sink further back into the couch cushion. Deep down, I knew this wasn’t going to go away. This wasn’t going to disappear. This was a mess I’d created, as unknowing as I had been, and I needed to face the consequences…but by God, I was going to try like hell to survive. To live. Now that I had these three, I had something to live for and three men who cared about me.

  I wasn’t about to give them up, to give this new life I had up, regardless of how selfish and evil it made me.

  “Can we talk about it another day?” I asked, fiddling with my hands on my lap. “I just…I want to have a normal night.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted sex though, which was a first when it came to them. What could I say? The shock of finding out I’d killed my best friend was kind of a libido killer.

  “Sure,” Edward spoke, reaching for something on the coffee table. “We can do whatever you want, but first…” He offered me the small object.

  My prescription.

  I took the orange bottle with a trembling hand, meeting his blue eyes as I popped it open. The pills were menacing, as frightening as anything could possibly be, because they signaled change. But…maybe they also signaled a new hope. Maybe I could move on from this, become a better person, no longer look to the edge of a knife for release.

  Or maybe not, I decided, taking a single pill and cocking my head back as I dry swallowed.

  Maybe, pills or not, it was only a matter of time before I killed again.

  Chapter Fifteen - Killian

  The other two guys didn’t put up as much of a fight as I thought they would when they learned Stella was taking me to the wedding. Granted, much of the time we’d spent at her house after the declaration had revolved around Stella herself and making her see the truth, and then comforting her most of the night, but still. I had expected…more. Something. Not just for them to nod and say whatever Stella wants.

  It was the truth, though. It was whatever Stella wanted. We all bent to her will, like cattails in the wind. She had a hold on each of us; I highly doubted I ever would’ve been able to be in the same room as Lincoln otherwise. Edward—he wasn’t too bad, which was fucking ironic, considering he was the one I’d tried to
go after. He was the one who took Stella home first.

  Seeing her with them, and by extension seeing them with her, it made me realize that she needed them. As much as I wanted to be the only one to complete her, I knew I wasn’t enough. Who could ever be enough to hold Stella’s fragile mind and love her body? No one.

  Stella told me what the colors were for the wedding, and I got a suit to match. She was her sister’s maid of honor apparently, so during the actual ceremony, she wouldn’t be sitting by me, which was okay. It just meant I got to watch her. She had my eyes, my body, my heart. Any number of women could walk by and I would still only feel for her.

  The wedding itself was not something I looked forward to, but then again, it was not something I could avoid. I hadn’t been to a wedding in…well, ever. It would be a new experience all around—plus, I’d get to meet her family. If I was honest, I was mostly curious about that part.

  Her family.

  What kind of family had Stella been raised in? What sort of parents could scorn a daughter like her? So what if she enjoyed writing about killers? Tons of other people out there took to writing about other shit. Book bloggers, makeup influencers, if you named it, there was probably someone out there writing about it. Everyone had their own devices. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already prejudiced against her parents.

  During the work week, I did a little digging. I wasn’t about to walk into this rehearsal dinner unprepared. I wasn’t like that. I needed to know everything about these people, mostly because I felt the need to protect Stella from anything they might say or do. From what she said, she didn’t really get along with her baby sister. I didn’t get it, because I was an only child, so I had no siblings to compare their relationship to.

  I researched the father first. Out of all of them, I’d heard the least about him. Charles Wilson was a man of fifty-five years, and it looked like he was part of a pretty successful real estate business in Stella’s hometown. Which meant she came from money. Maybe not as much money as Lincoln apparently did, but money nonetheless. There wasn’t much about him online, which led me to believe he wasn’t very important in the scheme of things.

  I then turned my Googling to Stella’s mother. Margaret Wilson. A frilly, pompous woman by the look of her Facebook profile. The only things I could see were the pictures of her at her country club, having tea with other middle-aged women, doing other various things that frankly would bore me to death. She seemed to be the type of woman who never left her house without her face plastered in makeup, her lips always red.

  Margaret wanted attention. She didn’t want to be forgotten, left to rot as old age always took hold of women harsher than it did men. Or maybe that was just society talking. Women did have a greater pressure to look good regardless of their age.

  The woman was nothing like Stella. If anything, I wondered how the hell Stella had grown up in a household with that freak as her mother. If she acted half as snooty as she looked in her photos, I couldn’t blame Stella for being a little unstable…although, I honestly had no idea whether something like schizophrenia was inherited or not. It was probably a mix of many things, all tossed into the pot that was Stella.

  The last one I looked up was the one getting married. Bree. She was…not my kind of woman. Younger than Stella, the stereotypical Generation X who the media always portrayed as more self-involved than her predecessors. Whether that was true or not remained to be seen, but judging from her many, many profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all of the other websites where her face could be plastered, the stereotype proved to be a little true. And, shocker, like mother, like daughter.

  Meaning nothing was private.

  God, this woman posted everything. Every little thought the flitted into her brain, as tiny as it was. Every tweet I read made my eyes want to bleed. Every Facebook post and Instagram picture made me want to vomit. This was Stella’s sister? This preppy, happy-go-lucky, snooty bitch? I already hated her, and I’d never met her. An accomplishment, surely.

  I was so caught up in researching her sister and her sister’s future husband that I neglected to realize it was closing time for the Tribune. I’d barely left my office all day. The other employees had left, and the afternoon sky grew dark with the setting sun. I was in the process of locking up the front door when I was approached.

  A stupid thing to approach and startle a serial killer, but I guess I wasn’t a serial killer right now. I was just me. Just Killian, the manager at the Tribune.

  “Ah, I caught you,” a familiar and annoying voice rang through my head, and I felt my back straighten of its own accord. I didn’t need to look at him to know who he was; I knew his voice well enough. Perry.

  Fucking Perry.

  I put on a smile and turned to face him, swinging my keys over my finger to let him know I was done locking up and ready to head home. Stella was with Edward and Lincoln tonight…I’d get her tomorrow, for the wedding rehearsal. “Perry,” I said, lying through my teeth, “good to see you.” When he did nothing but give me his tight, closed-lip smile, I added, “Any new developments?”

  “Sadly, no. It seems our perp has gone under the radar,” Perry said, the wind rustling his suit and revealing his badge, which hung on his belt loop. “He’s probably seen the feds in town, so I don’t blame him. Serial killers are smart. They have to be, to get away with their crimes for as long as they do.” There was a pause, and his wrinkled, wise eyes studied me. “But they always make a mistake sooner or later.”

  Whether he was threatening me or not, I didn’t care. I didn’t want to be here, talking to him, didn’t want to listen to his know-it-all voice drone on and on about whatever bullshit he was trying to say. Whatever intimidation attempt he was trying to do, it wouldn’t work.

  “I don’t think every serial killer has been caught. The Zodiac Killer comes to mind,” I said, quoting one of Stella’s many articles. “And what about Jack the Ripper?”

  Perry held back a frown. “I suppose a few might slip through the cracks, but most end up behind bars. Or dead. I’d much prefer them all end up dead, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said. Like I’d ever admit I didn’t want them dead, purely because I was one. What was this guy on? He wouldn’t catch me so easily, even if he suspected me of something. Even if he suspected Stella. “So what can I do for you today, Perry?”

  “I was just dropping by to see if you’ve read Stella’s latest blog post. It was…enlightening. She’s a very strange girl, isn’t she?”

  Enlightening? Her blog post? Why wasn’t I notified? Why didn’t I get a push notification on my phone? I could’ve sworn I turned those stupid things on so I’d know when she posted again…I must’ve been too wrapped up in doing family research to realize it. And since I had no clue what her post said, I had no way to defend myself from whatever it was Perry thought.

  Shit.

  “She’s unique,” I eventually said, hoping I didn’t take too long to recover.

  “Unique,” he repeated. “Well, when you have the chance, take a look at her blog. I’m sure unique isn’t exactly the word you’d use to describe it. I’ll be having more eyes on Stella from now on. The things she writes…I have half a mind to wonder if she made our perp do some of the things he did.” Perry glanced to the setting sun, squinting his wizened eyes. “I’ll let you go, but I’m sure I’ll be in touch.”

  I didn’t wait for him to dismiss me; I headed straight for my car in the Tribune’s parking lot, which was empty, save for my car and his. I got in, my mind reeling as I drove home, not even glancing at Perry as I passed him by.

  Stella wrote a blog post, and it was enlightening? What in the world did that woman say? What could’ve possibly made Perry come all this way at the end of the day, knowing he might’ve missed me? He would’ve missed me, had I not been so wrapped up in researching her family.

  Fuck. I didn’t like this, not one bit.

  I raced inside my house, ran up to the computer in my room and bo
oted it up. I supposed I could’ve looked on my phone, but I wanted to print it out, add it to my binder of Stella. All of the things I had that she’d written, I could make a book about her. A whole trilogy, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Still—what did my little Stella write about after so long an absence?

  I pulled up her blog and read the most recent post. Posted an hour and a half ago. Man, that Perry was on her like a fly on a pig in the middle of the summer sun. It was…not like her old posts. Kind of confusing. I wasn’t certain what Perry gleaned from it, but I knew whatever it was wasn’t good.

  It’s been a while, readers. Stalkers. I’ve missed you. You might be expecting a long article from me, a post detailing my recent absence—after all, not once in the last ten years have I ever stepped away from this blog for more than three days at a time, but this is not going to be one of those posts.

  I know this might sound weird, but this…this is probably unlike any other blog post you’ve read before. Am I being dramatic? Maybe, but with the state of things, with recent events and not-so-recent events coming to light finally, it’s time. I need to write this, need to get it out there, to whoever is listening.

  This is a confession. This is me saying I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. If I could take it back, I would. I would do anything right now to make the pain go away, but I know that’s life. Anyone still living would say pain is a part of life and that I have to deal with it, to which I would say: I agree. I did this to myself, to someone else. Everything I did I have to handle.

  God, I really do wish I could take it back. If there was one thing in my life I would give anything for a redo over, it’s you. You were everything to me; you were the only thing I had, the only normal part of my life, and I ruined it. Soiled it like it was my job. You were only trying to be there for me. Sure, we might not have always gotten along, but things happen. Arguments arise between even the closest family members sometimes. It wasn’t you.

  It was me.