by Lisa Unger
“Matthew won’t want me there,” said Mason. “And I have a job here.”
“Do you?” asked Ward gently. “After this gets out? That poor girl.”
His words landed like a gut punch. Marla. I’m so sorry. Her smile, her little-girl-lost energy bottled up inside the too-knowing, too-old-for-her-years facade. Her plait of shining blonde hair, her pink-painted nails. Her almond-shaped blue eyes.
Everything ahead of her. Gone. Snuffed out. Why?
He hadn’t hurt Marla. But he might as well have; he hadn’t been there for her, let her down like he did Amelia. He should have raised up the alarm when she’d told him about Drew; he should have known she’d been scared, hanging out because she’d wanted his help. She wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise. He shouldn’t have dropped her off and driven away. Tears came up fast and powerful. He didn’t even care if he cried in front of the old lawyer. Benjamin handed him a box of tissues from the center console.
As they pulled up to the church, Head Pastor James Vernon was standing at the entrance to the building. Mason emerged from the vehicle, and he saw that Vernon wore a particular look that Mason had seen before. A mingling of pity and worry, a guarded kind of tension.
“Mason,” said Vernon as he approached, digging his hands into his tweed jacket. “I think we need to talk.”
“Shall I wait?” called Ward from the car. “I’m heading back that way.”
Mason gave Ward a tight nod and followed Vernon inside.
It wouldn’t take him long to pack. He owned almost nothing. True, the police had told him not to leave. But he was going to anyway; let them come after him. Let them follow him back to Merle House.
There was a kind of relief beneath the knife’s edge of his sadness and despair.
Hadn’t he always known that one day they’d all have to go back and face the Dark Man?
The story continues in part four of Lisa Unger’s HOUSE OF CROWS, Love the Way You Lie.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Unger is the New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45 and many other books. Her short story The Sleep Tight Motel and her novel Under My Skin were nominated for the Edgar Award, and her story Let Her Be was selected for The Best American Mystery and Suspense.