Winnifred, much younger and brighter-eyed, snorted as she sipped on her own spiked lemonade. “Your beauty, Belle? Isn’t it a mark of class to let others compliment you?”
Belle gave her mother-in-law a withering look, but then turned her gaze back to her daughter. “And isn’t it a mark of being a Calhoun to always tell the truth, regardless of how much others don’t want to hear it?”
“Yes,” Winnifred said. “Unless, of course, it’s about money or our family secrets, then …” She made a motion zipping her lips. “Mum’s the word.”
Belle sighed and shook her head. “You could at least affirm that Trinity is a doll. She really is. Just six-years-old and studying chess with her father? And if you must know, he worries that she will beat him soon.”
“The child is a perfect pet,” Winnifred said. “Beauty, grace, brains. It’s only a pity that she didn’t inherit my …best traits.”
“I’m glad she didn’t,” Belle said. “It would be a terrible pity watching a girl with so much potential grow up with that cloud hanging over her.”
“Well, I hardly think it’s done me so badly,” Winnifred said. “After all, you’re sitting here like a perfect princess yourself, largely because of what I have done for your family.”
Belle sniffed. “Yes, yes, as you always remind us. Nevertheless, your …talents are a burden. I wouldn’t want that burden for my sweet girl.”
The two yammered on, having the same conversation they had almost every Saturday afternoon, as they sat on the porch, drank, and watched Trinity engage in whatever impressive activity she was taking on that day. Nobody paid any attention to the little boy, just two years older than his so-admired sister, sitting in his chair, twiddling his thumbs, and murmuring words under his breath that would bring a flame to the palm of his hand. He would hold it there, then pinch it brutally with two other fingers until it extinguished. Then he would whisper the words to bring the flame back again.
And still, nobody noticed. Not even when he made a show of it right in front of them. He was the one who had inherited his grandmother’s best traits, as she called them, yet no one had ever—not once—asked him or bothered to observe him using the skills he carefully honed on his own.
The words of his mother floated in one ear and out the other, seeming to sweep right over Agnew but also burning themselves into his brain.
“Trinity will be the future of this family,” Belle said. “Even after you are gone, Winnifred. Because you won’t be able to pull the strings forever. Trinity will be the future with her grace, and her charm, and her brains, and her class.”
“Yes, it’s hard to believe that you could produce such a child,” Winnifred said, speaking casually as though she wasn’t insulting her daughter-in-law. “After all, she is so exceptional in every way, but you, Belle, are rather average across the board. A jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none, wouldn’t you say? I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. We need people like you who sort of …float about, looking pretty and facilitating the success of others by keeping up with things like …laundry. And cooking.”
Belle smiled. “You said I was pretty.”
“Oh God,” Winnifred muttered, sipping her lemonade again.
Agnew bent down and picked up his own glass of lemonade from beside his chair. He was only eight, but he had taken the spiked stuff, just like his mother. Nobody paid attention, so it didn’t matter what he did, really. If he got up and walked in front of Belle and Winnifred right now, they would never notice him. Unless, perhaps, he didn’t have his shirt properly tucked in, in which case he would be chastised and then immediately ignored again. It was so routine that it was almost boring.
Except nothing that grated against his nerves so much could ever be truly boring. Nothing that Agnew took inside his little eight-year-old heart to fester could ever be boring. Nothing that inspired him to lie awake at night, whispering words of chants that he had read in his grandmother’s old books, could ever really be boring.
“Well done, Trinity,” Belle said, before sipping her lemonade again. “Keep focusing, darling. You’re doing so well.”
Agnew’s insides quivered, and he bit out a series of words. Seconds later, the liquid in his mother’s glass splashed up into her face, ruining her perfect makeup and her styled hair.
“Oh!” Belle gasped, sitting forward in her chair and waving her hands uselessly. “Nicola! Nicola! A towel!”
Their maid came running over, bringing a towel with her and fussing over Belle, until she felt thoroughly comforted and cleaned up. When Nicola stepped back, Belle darted her eyes over to Winnifred suspiciously. “What was that for?”
Winnifred snorted a laugh. “That’s your own clumsiness, you foolish twit. I did nothing to you.”
Nicola’s eyes darted over towards Agnew. She was the only one who ever saw what was really going on. She knew that Agnew was a boy of incredible talent, even at his own age. He could control so much. Do so much. No one ever, ever noticed except Nicola, and she never said a word. Not even to him. It was like a silent secret they shared together. It allowed Agnew to know, just a little bit, what it was like to be seen.
But that was no relief. Because having a hint of what it was like to be seen only made him realize more fully what he was missing. And what Trinity had in buckets even though she’d never earned it by being anything more than pretty. And a girl. His mother had always wanted a girl, and on more than one occasion, she had told him how bitterly disappointed she had been at her sonogram to find out that her firstborn would be a boy.
He had been disappointing her long before he’d ever truly entered the world.
Agnew got up from his chair. Nobody noticed. He walked inside the house. No one turned their head. He walked upstairs and into his own room, closing the door behind him. If he didn’t resurface for the rest of the day, no one would think to come looking for him. Even if they noticed his absence, they would simply say that he was in another of his foul moods and should be left to sulk on his own.
That was fine. He’d had enough of them—all of them—for the day. He was tired of pretending to fit in and not care that nobody loved him. He was tired of pretending like there wasn’t a small part of him that was also captivated by Trinity. There was something about that girl. He loved her, and he hated her in equal measure. He could pretend better with her, sometimes genuinely getting along with her. After all, it was hardly her fault that everyone around her doted on her ridiculously.
But there were days when he couldn’t pretend, and this seemed to be one of those days. He whispered a few words to himself, blowing up the size of his bedroom so that it was more like a baseball field. The outer dimensions of the room didn’t change, and no one would be the wiser. There, trapped in his own space, Agnew screamed and screamed, with no more productive outlet for his frustration and his hurt, and his loneliness, and his bitter disappointment in himself for not being worthy of anyone’s love or attention.
He let it all out, and then, when some of the tension had eased from him, he sat down in the middle of his own little world, and he continued to study. He learned every spell that he could. He read every book that he could. He would never, ever tell anyone what he was capable of. They would have to notice it on their own. But if they were paying any attention at all …they would have every opportunity.
***
Present Day
They never had noticed, though. Not once in his whole life had anyone in his family ever looked at him and seen the potential that had been inside of him. Trinity had never developed any magical skill whatsoever. It hadn’t been in her. And yet it hadn’t made anyone love her any less, not once in her whole life. She’d had everything she could ever want.
And Agnew had lived his quiet, lonely, miserable life, hoarding his magical powers to himself. He never was flashy with them. He didn’t create wealth, like his grandmother had. He didn’t control events. He didn’t do anything other than sit in his empty bedroom at night and chant to hims
elf, proving to himself over and over again that he was, in fact, a powerful man.
The bitterness had become like a knot inside of his gut, twisting his insides so sharply that pain would sometimes burst through him. He couldn’t stay near his family. He had moved away almost the moment that he had become an adult, and he had watched from afar as his mother became more useless, as his father became more oblivious, and as his grandmother became more dangerous. In her old age, she had begun to break many of her rules, getting flashier and more violent with her magic.
It had been useless to try to explain to Trinity how dangerous their grandmother was. Trinity doted on the woman, and she refused to see reason—especially if that reason was coming from Agnew.
He hadn’t meant to kill her. But he didn’t feel badly about it either.
Actually, with each day that went by, he felt better about it.
When he was younger, he hadn’t fully hated Trinity. He had resented her, but there had also been part him that had loved her. At some point in his early teen years, that had changed dramatically and almost overnight. He grew to hate her, and he made no secret of it to her. He would torment her psychologically, following her around and whispering terrible, violent promises. He molded his magical abilities so that they were entirely focused on making Trinity’s life miserable. He forced her into a life with no relationships and no success of her own. Running her clothing shop from behind the scenes hadn’t been because she was so humble. It was because he had promised to cut her throat if she ever took credit publicly for anything. He couldn’t stand the idea of even more people praising her.
He had been determined to find her breaking point, but in that much, he had failed. He had killed her before he had gotten her to turn on him. Oh, they had fought, and she had been terrified of her older brother, but she had never told their family what he was doing to her. She never told them that he had magic. She never told them that he was a monster to her. She only ever pleaded with him to stop. To leave her be.
It made him so angry—that self-righteous way that she would beg him to do the right thing. She would promise to never betray him and to always support him, if he would only let her live her life in peace. He just wanted to see her break—to see her fly at him in anger. To break that perfect persona that she carried everywhere. The only fight they’d ever had where she’d yelled back at him was when he had come to her shop, barged in, and demanded that she control their grandmother. Trinity had doted on Winnifred, and that made him even angrier.
The night he had killed her, it hadn’t been planned.
***
Agnew had walked up to Trinity’s door and knocked sharply, five times. It was his signature knock, and he knew that it would send fear down Trinity’s spine. He waited for her to just open the door to him. Would she stand up to him finally? Would he have to kick her door in? Would he actually do it if she refused him?
He didn’t have to decide. Trinity had opened the door, her eyes wide and her thin fingers trembling. “Agnew. I …wasn’t expecting you.”
Agnew had pushed the door open and walked in, already furious just at the sight of her face and her nervous twitching. “You’re never expecting me. Why would I wait to come until you’re expecting me?”
“Please, I don’t want to fight tonight,” Trinity said, closing the door. “It’s been a long day. What is it you want? Money? I’ll give you whatever money you need—you don’t have to take it from me, you know. I’m happy for you to have it.”
Her pandering infuriated him. “Shut up,” he had yelled. “I don’t want you to give it to me. I want to take it from you by force, and I want it to hurt. You deserve pain in your life, Trinity. You’ve never had to endure it, have you? Not once.”
“You cause me pain,” she whispered. “It doesn’t have to be that way, though.”
“Yes, it does,” he had said, looking around her perfectly designed living room with its plush, blue couch and thick, gray rug, and softly lit paintings of birds and flowers. “My only purpose in this life is to make sure that you don’t get too full of yourself with the praise, and the adoration, and everything handed to you as though it was your fucking birthright just because you were born pretty and sweet.”
“Agnew …”
“Shut up!” he shouted, turning and advancing on her. Her eyes widened, and it enraged him. He put his hand over her eyes, pushing her up against the wall. He couldn’t stand to look at her anymore. His fury was deep and powerful tonight. Potent. He could feel it flowing through him, making him tremble with the need to crush Trinity’s bones beneath his hands.
With his hand still over her eyes, he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You deserve pain, and terror, and death.”
“No,” she whispered, the word little more than a whimper. “No, that’s not true.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Agnew, please.”
“Do it,” he hissed, his mouth still right at her ear. “Call me a liar, you entitled worthless piece of shit.”
“Please …”
“CALL ME A LIAR!” he roared. “For once in your life stand up for yourself, you stupid little—.”
His words stopped, and he dropped his hand. She was shaking and crying, covering her face with her hands when he stepped away from her.
Agnew hadn’t known he was going to say those words. It was as though he had stepped outside his body and was watching from afar. He was mesmerized, as he listened to himself. “From darkness came, to darkness return. Your breath leaves. To death you cleave.”
“Agnew,” Trinity had said, clutching her chest. “Agnew—no. Please …no.”
He watched her, as she began to gasp for breath, suddenly dispassionate. “From darkness came, to darkness return. Your breath leaves. To death you cleave.”
“Agnew …” her words barely choked out of her throat. “Agnew!”
“FROM DARKNESS CAME, TO DARKNESS RETURN!” he shouted at her, his own body trembling now as the power that was required to take a life took its toll on him as well. “YOUR BREATH LEAVES. TO DEATH YOU CLEAVE!”
Trinity slumped to the ground, lifeless, pale, and still. It had only taken a matter of minutes. Less than that, really. And she was gone. He hadn’t meant it to happen, but now there was no going back. He hadn’t been able to stop himself.
But he felt no sorrow as he looked down at her. He felt no relief either.
He felt nothing at all.
Agnew dragged Trinity’s body away from the wall, and he went into the kitchen, took his shirt off, and with the shirt wrapped around his hand, grabbed one of her knives. He took it back to the living room, and he stabbed her, watching as her blood, not yet cooled by death, flowed, bleeding out onto her skin and her clothes, and the carpet.
“All you had to do was turn on me,” Agnew said, staring down into Trinity’s lifeless face. “It would have been better if you hadn’t kept pretending that you didn’t hate me. I know what to do with hatred. It would have been better that way.”
And then he had gone, taking his shirt with him, and he had never looked back.
***
Agnew had left, not knowing what would come of Trinity’s death. He didn’t expect that his family would just accept her murder—he wasn’t stupid. He knew that they would turn over every stone and look under every rock to try to find the person responsible. But they had never noticed him before, so there was no reason to think they would start noticing him or think him capable of anything now. And the police—well, he had very little faith in them.
What he hadn’t even considered was that two people totally unrelated to the situation would get swept up into the mess—an investigator and an innocent bystander. What he had expected even less was that his first murder would awaken a need in him that he had never known existed. He needed to kill again. And again.
Killing his grandmother had been desperately satisfying.
Killing these two innocent bystanders …well, that would just be fun.
>
Chapter 31
Liam
“We can’t just stand here,” Liam said, as Hannah paced back and forth in the narrow hallway. “He’s shut the way behind us. There’s no way to go but forward.”
Hannah nodded. “I know. But there’s something to be said for not playing right into his hand. Clearly that’s what he wants us to do.”
“And if we stand here, then we have a better chance of avoiding his plan?” Liam asked.
“No,” Hannah said, stopping her pacing and looking at him. “No, Liam. We’re in trouble. We’re in a good bit of trouble. But I’m not totally without power myself, you know, and I’m thinking about the best way to use it.” She lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “As far as I know, he has no idea that I …” She didn’t actually say the words, flapping her arms instead and giving him a pointed look.
Liam glanced around the hallway they were in. “True, but this is a very small space, and you are not a small …” He flapped his own arms.
“Yes, but if the space opens up …,” Hannah whispered. “The point is, I’m not about to go rushing down this hallway without thinking about the possible outcomes. This is like a chess game. We have a vague idea of what’s waiting for us, but he could make a number of different moves. I’m not playing into his hand before I’ve contemplated what those moves might be and what my responses should be.” She put her hands on her hips. “I have done this before.”
She was so absolutely beautiful when she was indignant, and he wanted to sweep her up in his arms and kiss her, but even he knew this wasn’t the time for that.
Rockwell Agency: Boxset Page 91