Surely she wouldn’t—
Drawing a jagged breath, he realized he’d finally run out of time. She’d reached her breaking point.
Swallowing hard, he flipped a U-turn and sped to Hope’s house.
CHAPTER 58
HOPE PACED AROUND her bedroom. “Damn straight I’m scared!” she said into the phone. “A woman and teenage girl were murdered within just a few miles of me. Hell, I already walk around the house with a knife. I have ever since the rape.”
She was raped?
That explained a lot: the scar on her cheek, the knives. Maybe it also explained why he’d been drawn to her. She was wounded, just like him.
“Just knowing someone is out there really freaks me the hell out. I’m coming home.”
The springs creaked above him as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Relax? You have to be kidding me. I mean, that has to be the most idiotic, irritating thing anyone can say to someone who is freaking out. Two people are dead!”
A pause.
“No, I know exactly what you meant. You want me to relax.”
He drew shallow breaths from his place beneath the bed, waiting impatiently for her to get off the phone and draw a bath. He had work to do, and very little time.
He had to take care of Hope; then he had to figure out what to do next. He knew his mother well enough to know she wasn’t going to change her mind. When she made a decision, she always stuck with it unless she was given good reason not to. And in his case, there wasn’t a good reason.
It had been Hannah’s murder that had pushed her over the edge. The only murder she could possibly connect him to. But he’d done it for Allie, couldn’t she see? Hannah had turned on her.
He let his mind drift to his time with Hannah. With every thrust of the knife, he had felt the rage drain away. With every strike he felt the fever leave him, the fog in his head lift. Now he felt somewhat normal again.
“I’m not being argumentative!” Hope cried above him. “My God! Can you maybe just listen to me for a change and not talk? That might be helpful.”
He closed his eyes and tried to push all thoughts of anything but the present aside. To focus on the moment. The bed springs groaned as Hope stood and began pacing again.
He opened his eyes and watched her bare feet as they crossed the carpeted floor. But then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Something that made gooseflesh rise on his arms. It was a roach and it was standing just a foot away from his hand, its antenna trembling.
“I attract weirdos, Greg. That’s what I do,” Hope was saying. “And I saw someone really strange twice in front of the grocery store and he looked at me like . . . like, I don’t know, I can’t explain it. But it was so weird.”
The insect took a few steps toward him and his world stopped. A fine layer of sweat rose to the surface of his skin and Hope’s voice suddenly sounded miles away.
“And to top it off, I walk in after Aunt Ester’s funeral and the house seems different somehow. The air feels strange. It even smells different. And I could swear that someone tidied up while I was gone.”
Pause.
“Yes, of course I know how crazy that sounds. But you’re not supposed to talk, remember? Thank you.”
The roach took another step forward. Then, as though it sensed his fear, it moved forward more boldly. “Jesus, get away from me!” he hissed between clenched teeth, vomit rising in his throat.
Hope was still jabbering in her faraway voice. “Not to mention that someone broke in here and cleaned my kitchen a couple of months ago. Remember? So, please. Tell me again that I should relax because, you know, it’s really a big fucking help!”
Nausea washed over him in waves. Get off the fucking phone and run a fucking bath! he screamed deep inside his head, trying to will Hope to do what he needed her to do.
When the insect started forward again, he couldn’t help it—he swatted at it and his back hit the box springs.
The roach changed course, scuttling up the wall next to him. Relieved, he took a deep breath, but then he realized that the room had gone silent.
Hope was no longer talking to her friend.
He could see her feet. They were facing him. And they were very still.
Oh shit.
The woman slowly bent to peer beneath the bed. He lay as still as possible, hoping that somehow she wouldn’t see him. That someone would ring the doorbell . . . that maybe a teakettle would go off. Something, anything, to distract her from searching beneath the bed. This wasn’t the way he wanted to reveal himself. He wanted to do it when she was in the bath. He had planned it all out on the drive.
Tilting her head, she squinted, trying to make out what lay past the gauzy bed skirt. She stared, concentration etched across her forehead.
“Hope? What’s going on?” the voice on the other side of the phone line asked.
Sweat carved a jagged path along his spine. He lay like a statue, watching her, readying his muscles to move swiftly.
She straightened a little and took a few tentative steps closer. Reaching out, she used the blade of her knife to lift the bed skirt, then she bent down again.
Her eyes met his and bulged with horror. She let out a squeal of terror. They both scrambled at the same time. Him from under the bed. Her, out of her bedroom and down the stairs.
Blood thudded in his head as he flew down the stairs after her. Once he reached the bottom, his eyes jerked left to right to see which way she’d gone. But everything had gone quiet and Hope was nowhere in sight.
Suddenly there was an intense pressure in his back, followed by an incredible pain. Then a forceful pull and sucking sound.
He screamed and grabbed his back. Whirling around, he found himself face-to-face with her. Her features were clouded with fury and she was holding one of her knives above her head, the blade covered in blood.
His blood.
Woozy, he blinked at her and his own knife dropped from his hand. He stared at her, a red-hot pain blooming in his back. So this is what it feels like, he thought, realizing the physical wound was nothing compared to the emotional ones he’d endured.
Her eyes flashing, she brought the knife down again, hard. He barely managed to catch her wrist before the blade sliced into the tender flesh of his chest.
Her palm opened and the knife tumbled to the floor. But before he knew it, she had twisted out of his grasp and shot back up the stairs.
He picked up the knife and started after her, but a muscle spasm seized his back. “Jesus!” he screamed, the pain a thousand times worse than when she’d stabbed him.
He lumbered up the steps one by one, applying pressure to his upper back as best he could with the palm of a hand. An upstairs door slammed and he heard a lock engage.
When he got to the top, he heard movement in her bedroom. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time. The woman’s friend, having heard her screams, had surely called 9-1-1 by now. He’d have to get out of there and fast. But he’d have to take care of her first.
“Come out, Hope!” he tried to yell, but it only came out as a gurgle. “Don’t make this any worse than it has to be,” he said, his voice louder this time.
“Stay away from me, you sicko!” she shouted on the other side.
“Come on out and I won’t hurt you. I only want to talk.”
“My friend already called 9-1-1. Save your sick ass and get the hell out of here!”
Sick ass?
Blood roaring in his ears, he lunged at the door with everything he had, sending it flying open. A white-hot pain shot from his back, deep through his middle. Squeezing his eyes closed, he howled in agony.
His knife drawn, he stepped into the bedroom to find Hope halfway out the window. He flew across the room, and just as she was about to let go of the windowsill, he dropped the knife, grabbed one of her arms, and yanked her inside.
She began screaming at the top of her lungs, so he shoved a hand up against her mouth. Pinning her down with his knees, he managed to s
hut the window. Then he lay on top of her, needing to catch his breath. Droplets of sweat fell from his forehead into her face, and he could feel her heart hammering beneath him.
Her face crumpled as she pleaded with him. He relaxed his grip on her mouth. “Why? I don’t understand! Why me again?”
He tightened his grip and tried to figure out how much time he had. Her friend had undoubtedly already called the police just like she said. And then there had been her mind-bending screams at the window and the possibility of a neighbor or passerby having heard.
He needed to do something . . . and quick. The pain in his back had lessened, but he was growing weak from the blood loss.
The woman struggled beneath him, but she was getting noticeably weaker, too. He watched, blinking, as she sank her teeth into his palm. But so much adrenaline was circulating in his blood, he couldn’t feel a thing.
He stared at the woman, relishing the chance to finally see her features up close. He took pleasure at seeing her eyes so full of fear. She deserved it after the way she had talked about him.
Bitch.
As he reached for his knife, his back went into another spasm. His body arched without his consent and he screamed. The woman scuttled out from beneath him, jumped to her feet, and started to run.
By the time he got back on his feet and reached the hallway she was already halfway down the staircase. Missing a step, she lost her footing and began tumbling down the remaining stairs. But once she reached the bottom stair, she leapt up and exploded toward the front door and out of the house.
He descended the steps one by one, screaming with each. By the time he reached the front doorway, she was limping in the middle of the street, screaming for help.
He started after her, but froze.
A car was coming around the bend, heading right for her.
Unfuckingbelievable! he thought, his heart hammering so hard, it felt like it was going to explode.
He couldn’t believe she was getting away.
CHAPTER 59
AN HOUR HAD passed since dinner ended.
Allie was in her room, still trying to make sense of the evening. The dinner had been disturbing. The food the woman served, the way she had behaved.
Suddenly her bedroom door opened and Miss Bitty appeared. She looked stricken and was alarmingly pale. “Get your shoes and jacket on now. We’re going out.”
“Where are we going?” Allie asked.
But before she could get all the words out, the woman had disappeared.
A few minutes later, Allie sat in the passenger seat as the old woman flew down dark country roads, the car’s suspension groaning in protest as it hit potholes at full speed.
“Miss Bitty, where are we going?” she asked for the second time, staring at the rain battering the windshield.
Silence.
“Miss Bitty? You’re . . . you’re scaring me.”
The woman kept driving.
Allie tried to hold back her tears. Miss Bitty had become her safe place, her everything, but now she was falling apart right in front of her eyes.
CHAPTER 60
BITTY STEPPED INTO the driving rain with the proper change in her hand. Opening her eyes that morning had been a herculean effort. Saying good-bye to her son had been even harder. And walking to the pay phone for the purpose of exposing him was the hardest by far.
She looked around, cold rain beating down on her head, and double-checked that there weren’t any security cameras. Satisfied, she slipped the change into the metal slot with trembling old hands and punched in the numbers. She waited for the call to go through, knowing that once she made it, there was no going back. It would impact her and her son forever. Most importantly, though, she tried to remind herself, it would help keep innocent women safe.
Finally her instinct for doing right over wrong was overpowering her maternal instinct—even if barely.
If only someone else would’ve turned him in. It would’ve been much easier on her old heart. Now she would have to forever live with the guilt of the women’s deaths and killing her own son, because she knew he would never let them take him alive.
He was no good indoors for more than a couple of hours at a time and, depending on how he was doing emotionally, sometimes that was even too rough for him. He would get antsy, pacing around. Opening windows.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
The old woman’s mind flashed to the little boy who had once been learning how to walk . . . who nursed on her breasts for the first couple of years. She recalled the joy in his innocent little chubby face when he’d see her upon waking.
The trust.
She could almost even smell his warm, milky baby breath.
She remembered all the hours of rocking him to sleep. The first time he told her that he loved her when he was barely nineteen months old. The curiosity in his eyes when shown new things.
He always ran to her when he was hurt or needed to be protected—which is what she thought she’d been doing at first.
Protecting him.
But then she slowly began seeing the truth. She hadn’t been protecting him really. She’d been enabling him. She’d been enabling the person she loved the most in the world to do some of the very worst deeds.
No one had ever come even close to him in her heart. Or ever would. But he needed to be stopped . . . for his own good and the safety of others. She only wished that she didn’t have to be the one to stop him.
She glanced at the car and saw Allie staring back at her, her eyes as big as saucers. The girl looked terrified.
“9-1-1. Is anyone on the line?”
Wet hair plastering the sides of her face, she tried to get the words out, but they were thin.
“Ma’am, I can’t hear you. Please speak louder.”
Bitty took a deep breath and spoke up. “I’ve got information about the murders,” she croaked. “I know who the killer is.”
For the briefest of moments, Bitty questioned whether she was really doing the right thing. Maybe she had it wrong. Maybe he hadn’t committed these murders. After all, nearly anything was possible . . . right?
Maybe if I act fast enough, I can call and warn him. Save him before they get there, she thought suddenly.
But then something bigger than her took over.
“His name is Louis Thibodeaux. He lives in a rental house at 68 Norfolk Street in Grand Trespass. You’d better . . . you’d better come quickly for him,” she stammered and hung up the phone.
Not two seconds after walking away from the pay phone, two sheriff’s cars sped quietly down Main Street. The reaction seemed surprisingly fast to her.
They were going after him.
After Louis.
“Oh God. What have I done?” she whispered.
Making her way back to the car, Bitty motioned for Allie to move into the driver’s seat. Then she sank into the passenger’s seat and wept as they headed back to the house.
Her life as she knew it had just come to an end. Everything had just come full circle.
She’d brought her son into this world.
And now she’d taken him out.
CHAPTER 61
LOUIS STARED AT the massive oak, the odor of copper filling his nostrils. The scent of blood.
His blood for once.
Grinding his cigarette out, he sat in the plastic lawn chair, removed his glasses, and ran a small cloth over the lenses. Then he leaned deep into the chair and laced his fingers over his head.
His back immediately spasmed. “Shit!” he cried and tumbled to the ground. On his side, he studied the yard and the woods bordering his rental house. Angry rain clouds had gathered over the last hour, bathing everything in ghostly shadows. A storm was on its way and it would be there soon.
As he struggled to stand up, his life flashed quickly through his mind: Stabbing the kid with the pencil in elementary school. Stabbing another kid with scissors. Living a peaceful existence alone with his mother and being homeschoole
d. Meeting a beautiful, playful young thing named Dariah in the waiting room of a psychiatrist’s office, then following her to Louisiana. He knew from the beginning that she suffered from depression, but he had no idea her sickness was as bad as his.
Two months after arriving in Louisiana, they killed two random truck drivers and disposed of the bodies in the pond behind the house. Then, as if by silent agreement, they never breathed a word about the truck drivers or their fantasies again. The hunts had been disappointing, so he decided from there on out to only hunt solo. Also, if he could help it, he would never again hunt men.
Not long after, Dariah became pregnant. First, with a bright but cautious sandy-haired boy. Next, with a breathtakingly beautiful raven-haired girl. When the little girl was just a few months old, Dariah’s personality darkened. She was no longer accepting of him . . . the quality he had been most attracted to in the first place. She screamed at him and raged at every little thing imaginable.
He’d wanted so incredibly badly to take a knife to her, to prove to her that he was the more powerful of the two, but he managed to resist the temptation.
He knew the children would need one of their parents. He also knew that he wasn’t up for the job. So when the children were still very young he said he was going out for a case of beer but instead went to California, back to his mother.
Through everything, his mother had steadfastly stood by his side, hopeful that if she loved him enough he would never kill again. She loved him so much that she bought into his lies. Then a year ago, she insisted they pick up their lives and move back down to Louisiana so he could finally make things right with his daughter, the only good thing that had ever come from his existence.
His mother had hoped that with the responsibility of raising the girl, he would find some peace. That everything would miraculously come together and be fine. He hoped so, too, but it hadn’t exactly worked out how they had wanted it to.
When Allie arrived at the house, he watched her every chance he could get, although he was careful to hide it. He had savored every second he’d gotten with her during their tutoring sessions. Savored visiting her at night. Marveled at watching her change for the better. He was attracted to her pain. Her life had been a nightmare . . . and he could relate. Yes, she was still very broken, but he was leaving her in the very best hands. His daughter was fixable. He was not.
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