by Nolon King
Chapter Twenty
Adam held Selena’s hand, the two of them sitting on the couch, holding court while everyone in the room gathered around the TV to watch her interview with Isla Porter. Even the twins and their friends seemed excited.
Onscreen, Selena seemed to consider Isla’s question, then crossed her legs and said, “There is zero doubt in my mind that we are looking at a serial killer.”
“And what makes you so sure?” Isla asked.
“It’s not the three dead families. It’s the three scarves. It wouldn’t have been easy to convince me that these were accidents. Even alone they feel like murder, but once we’re adding totems into the mix, I don’t see how anyone could doubt that there’s a serial killer involved.”
As Adam expected, and surely just as Selena had wanted her to, Isla asked her to explain what she meant by the word totem. With every interview, Selena was getting better and better at taking control of the conversation.
“Your mom looks huge on TV,” Elliot said, probably to Levi since Corban was on the other side of the room, extra close to Kari.
“Thanks, Elliot,” Selena said, though she was smiling at the kid and clearly took no offense.
“I don’t mean you look big, Mrs. Nash,” Elliot tried to correct himself. “Like, you’re not fat. You just look really giant on the screen … compared to how you are … sitting on the couch right now.”
“I understand.” Selena smiled at Elliot, trying not to laugh as he blushed.
“At least we’re not in the game room,” Pussabo added, not so helpfully. “Then she’d be even bigger.”
The game room had the biggest TV in the house, with more than a hundred inches of 4K, but that space belonged to the kids — not just Levi and Corban, but their friends too — so Selena and Adam only entered when absolutely necessary. The cleaning crew came every other Friday, and that was enough to know that parental intervention wasn’t needed.
“You’ve been advising the Almond Creek Police Department. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Selena nodded onscreen. “I’m not working with them in any official capacity, but I am a concerned neighbor with an understanding of a serial killer’s mind, so they’ve naturally been asking me questions.”
“And one of your concerned neighbor conversations was about the third scarf, correct?”
“That is correct.”
“And it took place just after its discovery. Is that right, too?”
“It is.” Selena nodded.
“Would you like to tell us about that?”
“The scarves are an interesting choice of totem, because up until the third one they were especially difficult to trace. Either scarf could have easily fit into either woman’s closet. There was nothing especially unique about them. But the third was different.”
“And what was different?” Isla asked, even though her bright eyes said that she already knew.
“It was the bees,” Selena said, emphatic. “The mother at the third scene, Julia Hendricks, hated bees. And everyone knew it. She was allergic and had almost died twice. She hated the sight of them. That’s a scarf she never would have bought, or had in her closet. That meant it was clearly there to get attention, and tied around the victim’s neck after her death. If attention was true for the third scarf, then it was surely true for the other two as well.”
Onscreen, Selena leaned back in her chair, clearly pleased with her answer.
Adam squeezed her hand and whispered in her ear, “You’re doing great!”
Selena smiled, her eyes still fixed on her onscreen self as Adam surveyed the room.
Corban and Kari were so close, they looked almost conspiratorial. They weren’t holding hands, but they might as well have been as they sat in the oversized chair off to the side of the loveseat, barely big enough to seat the two of them.
Levi was half-watching the TV, but the rest of the time his gaze was on his brother and Kari, whenever it seemed like he could steal a withering glance. Adam hated to see them fighting over a girl, but at least now he was starting to understand why they’d been at each other so much. It was almost a relief. Such a normal teenage thing.
And in no way his fault.
Blood was thicker than water, especially for a Nash. They weren’t just brothers, they were twins. They were—
Then he saw it.
Something that shouldn’t be boiling his blood like it was.
Dane, watching him. Staring without any clue that he was being inappropriate. He smiled.
Despite the anger inside him, Adam smiled back.
Then he turned to the TV, a deliberate dismissal to let the boy know he didn’t care.
Adam wanted to jump up from the couch, yank the little asshole to his feet, and beat him bloody. Every instinct he had screamed that Dane was a threat.
But he didn’t know why.
Dane’s smile was pleasant enough.
And now he seemed glued to the TV like everyone else.
Selena’s interview ended and the room erupted in applause. Beaming, she stood and made a little bow with a joking flourish of her hand.
“Awesome job, Mom!” Corban shouted.
Kari echoed, “Yeah, that was great!”
“You kicked ass, Mom!”
“That was amazing, even as big as you were.” Elliot chuckled uncomfortably.
Dane said, “You were mesmerizing.”
Mesmerizing?
Is he undressing her with his eyes?
He might be. That little fucker was practically leering.
Except he wasn’t so little. Dane was bigger than Adam and had been for more than a year. Maybe two. At least he was taller. Adam was still wider than Dane in the shoulders, and would make him feel it when he eventually pressed one of them into his pulsing throat, just long enough to make him start choking before Adam cut it and—
Enough. He’d never had so much trouble controlling his murderous fantasies. And they’d never been focused on another male. He needed to stop this long enough to figure out what was wrong with him.
He forced himself to smile at Selena. “I’m so proud of you, honey. You owned the interview. If my calculations are correct, Sam should be over the moon.”
She laughed.
He took a breath, and then a second deeper one. But the desire to tear Dane apart got more intense, not less.
Something was wrong. This wasn’t like before.
This wasn’t how the thoughts usually came. They felt more urgent. More dangerous. He had to speak with Selena.
But how could he tell her about this? About who he was thinking of? Or why he was thinking it?
Things would get ugly fast. Sure, Dane was eighteen. But he was a junior like the boys, and Selena would defend him on the basis of his youth.
She turned to Dane, practically glowing. “Mesmerizing, huh? I don’t know that I’ve ever been called mesmerizing before.”
“You have,” Dane said. “Alicia Ayers from First Murder on The Left called you mesmerizing in episode ninety-three. I’m just agreeing with her. She’s almost as interesting as you.”
“Is that what you do? Collect women who interest you?” Adam regretted the words as the room went silent and everyone looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
He was out of control and even his kids could see it. But he couldn’t stop himself.
“Don’t we all?” Dane said, completely unfazed. “I collect everything that interests me.”
“And what are your interests, specifically?”
Dane looked thoughtful in his silence, as if deeply considering his answer. “Everything interesting.”
He didn’t look like he was trying to be a smartass. His face was honest and tranquil. Completely sincere.
Maybe he was wrong about Dane, but that didn’t stop Adam from picturing himself turning the kid’s face to blood pudding. By the time he was done punching it in, Dane’s head would look like a bowl of tomato soup.
He shifted his thoughts to
the girl with the blood-red lipstick instead.
That would help.
Her naked body, covered in blood.
“I’m sorry if I offended you in some way, Mr. Nash.”
Everyone was looking at him. He forced a laugh from his throat. “Not at all, Dane. I’m just giving you a hard time.” Then, he couldn’t help but add, “Like you probably give your father.”
This was surreal.
He wasn’t taking any pleasure in cutting the kid down. He was feeling worse by the insult, and horrified by the anger lurking behind it all. Adam had lost it, seeing things that weren’t there. He had to be imagining that glint of hostility under the surface that no one else seemed to notice. The hints that Dane wasn’t the super nice guy he was pretending to be.
Something inside him coiled in oily knots.
Dane is up to something. He’s too interested in Selena.
But the look on Levi’s face made Adam stand down.
Levi was usually the one to jump in and join him in batting insults back and forth, but right now he was chewing on his lip with disappointment in his eyes. Adam and Dane were breathing the loudest, enough that everyone could hear them.
Selena was a statue, putting visible effort into doing nothing.
Adam had to apologize. Somehow make this right.
He opened his mouth to say he was sorry and more, but no one was paying attention, the room’s focus having been jerked back to the TV by a newsflash.
Then the anchor finished the announcement — a break in what the press was now calling the Almond Park Killings — and Kari started to scream.
Chapter Twenty-One
Corban tried to hold her, but Kari was hysterical.
Sobbing, she ran outside for fresh air, but it didn’t look like it was doing much good, despite her gasping and choking and sucking tiny sips of it through her teeth.
He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay, but given what they had just heard on the news, why would she believe him?
She finally swallowed a mouthful of snot, then sputtered, “He … he’s being investigated …” More sobs, then, “What the fuck, Corban? What am I supposed to do?”
And then it was like her outside lost all of its insides and Kari collapsed against him, soaking his shirt with her tears.
“There’s nothing tying him to the third murder. The news reported that. So they don’t have anything. My mom would say that’s circumstantial evidence.”
“He’s being investigated! And I found out at the same time as the rest of the world!” She gasped. Covered her mouth. “My mom! Oh my God, my mom! I have to call her.”
Kari pulled away from Corban, fumbled in her pockets, then almost dropped her phone twice on its way to her ear.
Corban gently took it away.
“Hold on. You can’t call your mom yet. She’s probably freaking out too. Doing it on the phone together won’t help either of you. Let me take you home.”
Kari didn’t fight, just started to whimper.
“It was an anonymous tip. My mom would also tell you that there’s always a good chance that means it was a neighbor with a beef, or something worse. The best tips are rarely anonymous. Everything is going to be okay.”
Corban remembered her father’s strange behavior, but he wasn’t about to bring it up now.
Ollie coming home and slamming doors.
Pacing inside while they were out on the porch, ranting and raving on the phone about Lakeway Estates, the site of the second killings.
But maybe she was thinking the same thing, because she finally said, “Do you think …?”
“No.” Corban shook his head. “Of course not.”
But maybe he did. His mom said that anything was possible, and this was definitely anything. Corban couldn’t imagine, and was dying to ask her what she thought.
“But it doesn’t matter, does it?” Kari looked up at him helplessly. “Even if he’s innocent, no one will ever look at him the same again. Same for my mom.”
Her lip trembled, she tried harder to hold it this time, but eventually Kari collapsed against its weight and fell forward into Corban’s arms again.
He held her, knowing that she was right. Everything had changed. For Kari’s father and everyone in his orbit.
Things would be different for her at home, and surely at his as well. Along with anywhere and everywhere Kari went in Almond Park. But Corban had no doubt about where her nightmare would play hardest, and where she would want to scream the loudest.
Kids could be cruel, and in the waters of Wembley High, the sharks were already circling.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Selena looked up from her notes as Corban entered her office, his eyes red and puffy, looking more like a child than he had in forever.
“Mom,” he pleaded, “you have to make them take it back.”
Her heart twinged as she saw the faith in his eyes that somehow she could fix this. She chose her words carefully.
“Detective Sharpe wouldn’t question Ollie unless he had a good reason to.”
“But you can explain to the cops that it’s not him.”
“It’s not my place to—”
“Bullshit.” Corban actually kicked her desk, his face crumpling. “That detective asked who you thought it was. He’d believe you.”
Selena laced her fingers together and sat up straighter, readying her most reasonable tone. “You’re asking me to risk my professional reputation to interfere with a police investigation, for the sake of a girl whose father might be guilty.”
“Dad’s right. You make everything about you.”
“If Ollie’s innocent, Detective Sharpe will let him go.”
“By then, it’ll be too late. Kari’s life is ruined and you don’t even care.”
“Corban, I—”
But he bolted, slamming the door behind him.
He's only a kid. Someday he'll understand.
A part of her thought he already got it: that she’d sacrifice his girlfriend — or anyone else — if it meant grabbing another rung in her career.
But Selena had merely assembled the facts and passed them to Sharpe. How was it her fault if Ollie was in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Want to hear another one?”
Selena knew he didn’t before she looked up from the letter.
“Sure,” Adam said anyway. Humoring her.
She looked down at the pile and picked another envelope from her desk at random. He could’ve left three letters ago if he’d just shown her the courtesy of at least acting excited for a minute or two, instead of letting her see he was bored — maybe even annoyed — with her success.
The letters were always interesting, and sometimes fun. Today there were plenty of both types. And it was nice to see them all in a pile. Her ratio of emails to letters was at least ten to one, but Selena could never get excited about the stuff she read on a screen.
Her P.O. Box got hit with a dozen letters the day after her interview. Yesterday, almost twenty. Today, thirty-one. They were all over the place so far, though that wasn’t unusual. Selena had seen it all, read the creepiest confessions, from murderous thoughts to things that person wanted to do to her. Most of it excited her, even the letters telling Selena that she would go directly to hell with all the murderers she made excuses for. She’d never had so many all at once. Her career had finally reached escape velocity, headed straight for the stars.
She opened the envelope, plucked out the letter, and read it aloud.
Dear Ms. Selena Nash,
Thank you for the brave work you do to understand something that most people will never try to. I used to think I was crazy, because I could never get these thoughts outta my head. It was always the same. I would grab someone, in my mind she usually had dark curly hair in tight little ringlets. I would take her and put tape over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. Then I could put the cuffs on her. I always do the tape first and the
handcuffs second. I keep all of that stuff in a box in my closet. It’s full of other kinds of toys, so no one will ever think anything if they look.
Selena looked up from the letter and gave him a wink. “Kinky.”
Adam gave her a thin-lipped smile.
I first got the handcuffs before I ever had the thoughts, back when I was into this girl who was into that kind of stuff, the handcuffs I mean, and so we liked to play with them, but then things didn’t work out with her and so I moved on and eventually I started wanting to use the cuffs on someone else, even if they didn’t like it so much. I thought I could get them into one of my rooms and I could leave the tape on and same for the handcuffs and we could watch porn together. Maybe they would warm up after a while but probably not and if they don’t then it will have to go violent. But if they were good then I give them a bath.
She looked up again. “This is still all one paragraph. The whole letter is Dear Ms. Selena Nash, and then allthewords.”
“Is it over?”
She continued reading.
All of this is the stuff I can’t talk about with anybody because nobody would ever understand me or even want to. I told two people and then I could never tell them again. Twice. Because sometimes you have to delete stuff. I delete stuff on my computer all the time. Sometimes there are crime scene photos and you can buy them and if they are really gross they are exciting too. I bet you see stuff like that all the time. I like all of that and the porn but not with the kids that’s not for me. Anyway to tell the truth this is all the stuff I think about and like I said I can’t really talk about it with anyone but maybe you could like me too. I have supplies if I ever meet you, and maybe you could like sex with me together. Or—
“Why are you reading this?”
“People’s most intimate confessions? The heartbreaking, the brilliant, the daffy … you love this stuff.”
“You should report this.”
“There’s nothing to report.”
“How does that one end, the one you’re reading now?”
