by S. F. Kosa
It could be Max—he had all the information. He lives in Portland and was in Eugene, a few hours from all the murder sites, but with the exception of this fire, which apparently started only an hour or two ago, all the murders took place at night, which gave him time to drive back home. It’s after ten now, not too late. On impulse, I pick up my phone and call him.
“Hello?” From the background noise, I can tell he’s in the car.
My fingers go tight around my phone. “Max?”
“Yeah? Dora? You found my notes?”
“I looked through all my stuff and didn’t find them. Was it a lot of pages?”
He clears his throat. “Only one. The last one, if my dates are correct. It was the page listing the final group of people who joined before everyone moved to Bend. I’ve been trying to recreate it, but you know.”
“It’s been twenty years.”
“Yeah. Fortunately, I was at that last initiation ceremony. Those people, I remember. I sent Miles the list. And after I talked with him, I checked—two of them were never accounted for after the fire: Parvaneh and Eszter. I emailed him everything I could remember last night.”
I’m screwed. He’s given Miles the last pieces of the puzzle. Once Miles realizes that and outs me publicly, the questions will come, and the fact that I’ve worked so hard to keep hidden only makes me look guiltier. I’ve done this to myself. But the one thing I’m not guilty of? Trying to murder Hailey and Martin. “Max, where are you right now?”
“Why?”
“If you’re in the area, we could meet again. I’m going to look through my papers again, to see if I can find your missing page. Maybe we—”
“I’m going to communicate directly with Miles from now on. Thanks.” He ends the call.
He refused to say if he was in the area. It means virtually nothing and makes it impossible to rule him in or out. There’s a reason why I’m a fact-checker and not a detective.
Of course, I’m probably not even a fact-checker anymore. I’m a liar, I’ve committed countless breaches of professional ethics, and I’m not only going to lose my job, but I’ll never be employable in this field again. And that’s if I can manage to stay out of jail, which is becoming more doubtful by the day.
My thoughts turn back to Noah and Arman. Noah’s the one writing stories about children of Darius, but for all I know, Arman isn’t one. Or he is, and Noah is manipulating him. He’s so domineering, so clearly in control of that relationship. It doesn’t mean Arman isn’t helping him, though. I can’t trust either of them. But maybe, if I can get Arman alone, I could wheedle a few answers out of him.
If only I had his contact info. I do have Noah’s, but at this point, with my car potentially used to commit a crime and maybe even to stalk Essie, it seems like my best course of action is to avoid him like the plague. Even if he didn’t attack Miles, and I’m not sure why he would except to get some crazy revenge after Miles refused to indulge the Children of Darius story, he still might have committed the murders.
Maybe Noah is a child of Darius himself. Or maybe he’s just a psychopath.
Only one thing makes me question everything: he knew I was at a hotel. And if he did, why would he set fire to Hailey and Martin’s house?
A nurse enters Hailey’s room. Amid the beeps and the droning intercom, I can hear the faint rasp of Hailey’s voice. My eyes fall shut. It could have been so much worse.
The nurse pops her head out. “Are you Dora?”
Though it’s been my name for years, right now, it’s a relief to hear. “Yes.”
“Your mother is awake. She’d like to see you.”
My mother. The words make my throat constrict. I enter the room again, carried by those syllables. “Hi.”
She gives me a weary smile and moves her mask aside. “Glad you’re here,” she whispers.
“What happened?”
She shrugs. “It started in a closet. Not sure how. But Martin found it, and I found him. I barely got him out before everything went up.”
In a closet? “Was there a fuse box in there?”
She shakes her head. “That utility closet between the kitchen and the garage, where we keep our cleaning supplies.”
Cleaning supplies. It sticks in my brain like a strawberry seed in my tooth. But I can’t dig it out or make sense of it. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Martin will be fine too. His throat and lungs were seared a bit, I guess.” Her eyes close.
“I’m sorry. About everything. I know you talked to Miles.”
“My way of doing a sort of intervention. You don’t need to do all this, kiddo. You don’t need to lie all the time.” She tucks her face back into her mask, takes a few more breaths, and lifts it again to continue. “We started loving you after we suspected, and the more we knew you, the more we loved you.”
I sink onto the chair next to the bed. “I don’t deserve it.”
She reaches out, and I give her my hand. “You were always the sweetest, gentlest thing. You hadn’t been with us more than two days when you went out and got us Christmas presents.”
“It was the first real Christmas I’d had since I was little,” I murmur. I let go of her hand. “But Martin gave me the money, so I don’t deserve any credit.”
“You’re determined to get me to push you away, aren’t you? And back then, you were afraid of letting us know anything about you.”
“Because I was terrified you would push me away.”
“Either way, you’re convinced that if we all knew who you were—or now that we’re starting to figure it out—we’ll all see you’re unlovable. But that’s bullshit. Everybody deserves to be loved.”
“That’s why you’re a social worker,” I say with a sniffly laugh. “I’ve ruined my whole life.”
“You’ve made mistakes. But you can fix them.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know what I’ve done. But now, that’s going to be the question. And no one’s going to believe anything I say, because I’m a liar.”
“I know you didn’t do this to me and Martin. You’d never hurt anyone on purpose.”
I stare at the floor, remembering exactly how I hurt other people on purpose. “I didn’t kill Arnold Moore. And I didn’t kill Essie Green. I swear.” I shake my head. “I don’t think Ben believes me.”
“Ben’s a good man. He’ll follow the evidence and the law.”
I’m still shaking my head. “Miles is going to publish that story about me. You’re quoted in it. You might have seen it as an intervention, but he sees it as a Pulitzer.”
She frowns. “I got the sense he really cares about you.”
“Doesn’t matter. I care about him, but look at what I’ve done. Nothing but lies. If any of them had made their way to print, he would’ve been the one blamed—it’s his byline.” For all I know, he’s already sent the piece to Valentina, and I can’t blame him.
The problem is, it makes me look guilty as hell, and the whole world is about to know. Panic shakes me from the chair. “I’ll let you rest.” I move toward the door. “I love you, Hailey. I know I haven’t shown it, and I’ve caused you and Martin nothing but grief, but I still love you. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me.” I can barely get the words out; it hurts too much. “Just know that, all right?” I turn to go.
“Dora?” Her voice is weak, but the word is powerful. I turn to look at her. “Don’t run.”
I press my lips together and flee, striding down the hall, through the emergency department, out the sliding doors. I call another Uber, assessing my options. Because running? Right now, it feels like the only thing I can do. I can’t sit by and let them pull me apart, detail by detail, crime by crime.
I have to run. The only question is where. And how.
During the ride back to the hotel, I narrow it down. I can go to a Rite Ai
d, buy some hair dye, empty my bank accounts, and do my best to disappear…or I can swallow back my bottle of Vicodin and get it all over with.
I’m still churning as I unlock my hotel room door and sit on the bed. I pull out the bottle and read the label. Ten-milligram pills. I look it up—it takes nine or ten to kill a person.
I have fourteen.
I lie back on the bed. I’ve fought so hard, for so long, to survive. I’ve killed to survive. I’ve put myself ahead of everyone else, not caring about the damage I’ve done. Maybe it’s time to stop running, like Hailey said. Maybe it’s time to stop everything.
Or maybe it’s time to stop being such a coward.
I sit up, shoving away the weight of my own self-disgust. I can’t believe I’m doing this again. After a lifetime of running and finding nothing but pain and loneliness at the finish line, I’m still sitting here, thinking that’s better than facing the truth. How pathetic and stupid.
Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary. It’s time to face this and take what comes.
I pull out my phone and voice text Miles. I’m sorry for lying, for putting your career at risk, for being a shitty fact-checker and friend. I’ll set it right if you’ll let me. Send the story to Valentina whenever you’re ready. I’ll verify the details if either of you guys trust me enough to let me near it, and if you don’t, I’ll work with whoever else you assign to it so they can independently verify. I’m done hiding.
I hit Send before I can think too much about it, diving off that high board without hesitation. It feels like I’ve just finished the longest, hardest run of my life.
A knock at my door brings my head up. It could be Ben, tracking me down. It could be the room cleaners. They knock again. I walk over to the door and peek out the peephole. No one’s there. Curious, I open the door.
He looms over me, flattening his palm on the door even as I rear back to try to shut it. “Dora,” says Noah. “I told you we needed to talk.”
Then he pushes his way inside.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Retreat
December 15, 2000
Before Parvaneh could grasp the handle of the knife, another hand batted hers away. Eszter’s fingers closed around its hilt, and she claimed it for her own.
“Eszter, don’t be greedy,” Darius chided, his hands slipping away from Parvaneh’s body.
“This,” Eszter said, blowing out a shaky breath. “This is the most important thing I’ve ever done.”
Parvaneh reached for the knife again, but Eszter whipped around, nearly slicing Parvaneh’s fingers. “Don’t,” Eszter snapped.
Parvaneh edged back. Xerxes had sunk to the floor. Eszter stepped around him. She gazed up at Darius. “I’ve loved you since the day we met.”
Darius smiled. “As I love you.”
Eszter opened her arms. “I need your strength now.”
Jealousy pulled so tight around Parvaneh that she could barely breathe. As people died all around her, Eszter was making this a romantic moment with Darius—and making Parvaneh watch, overwriting everything Darius had said to Parvaneh a moment ago. She almost gagged on her hatred.
Darius leaned into Eszter’s embrace. She threw her arms around him. For a moment, all the sounds seemed to fade away. Darius’s eyes closed.
Then he screamed.
The muscles of his neck went taut, and he shoved Eszter away and clawed at his back. His hand came away coated in his own blood. Before Parvaneh could understand what she was seeing, Eszter lunged. He wasn’t even able to raise his arms to defend himself. Her arm whipped down again, and again, and again. His back, his belly, his throat. Parvaneh shrieked as she watched Darius collide with the dais, his blood-smeared hands knocking candles this way and that, one catching on his robe.
“Let’s go, Parvaneh,” Eszter screamed, hurling the knife away and scrambling over to Xerxes. She yanked him up and cradled the woozy boy’s body. “I know the code!” She limped toward the door to Darius’s office.
In a detached daze, Parvaneh took in the scene around her, Kazem sprawled on the floor, bleeding, Basir and Hamzi crouched over him, meditating as sweat and tears streamed down their cheeks. Zana was lying on the steps of the dais, flames from an errant candle licking at the hem of her robes, even as Kyra approached her from behind, hesitant but determined looking, hunting knife raised.
Darius was on the other side of the dais, inching forward on his stomach, his robe stained with blood. He reached out, desperately grasping…for Eszter, who was punching in the code to his private office.
Rage exploded through Parvaneh as she watched Eszter, the stupid, fat, homely, useless traitor, punch at the combination. She’d stabbed Darius. Darius. The only man who’d ever loved Parvaneh. She ran for him, reaching him as Eszter disappeared into the office.
“Darius,” she cried.
He was bleeding from everywhere, it seemed. His lips dripped red as he turned to her, panting wetly. “Get her,” he whispered hoarsely. “Three eight two one. Get her.” He coughed.
Then Parvaneh coughed. The room was filling with smoke, bitter and stinging. On the other side of the altar danced a lick of flame. She tried to pick Darius up off the floor, desperate to pull him to safety, but he screamed in pain and was far too heavy to lift. Eszter had ruined him.
She’d ruined everything.
“Three eight two one,” said Darius, his voice halting. Agonized. Their eyes met. “Go.”
This was her test. She ran for the door and had it open a few seconds later. A thump from the closet told her where the traitor was—trying to escape through the tunnel to Darius’s cabin. She moved toward the sound, even as she heard someone banging on the other side of the door to the meeting hall. “Let us out,” Kyra screamed. “Fire!”
But Darius had given his orders. He’d offered her the chance to prove herself worthy, finally. She’d get Eszter, bring her back, and then she’d help the others. She drew in a deep breath and immediately fell to her knees, coughing. Smoke curled its fingers under the door, reaching for her. She crawled to the closet, pulled back the carpet square over the tunnel’s trapdoor, and flung it open to find Eszter on the rungs, descending.
With all her strength, she grabbed Eszter by the hair. Eszter shrieked and clawed at her hands, but hatred and fury gave Parvaneh a power she’d never felt. Xerxes landed in a boneless sprawl at the bottom of the ladder, a foot caught in one of the lower rungs, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Parvaneh wrenched the traitor upward and dragged her back into the office.
“Come with me,” begged Eszter as she struggled to free herself from Parvaneh’s merciless grasp. The smoke was getting thicker by the second. Holding a huge handful of Eszter’s hair, Parvaneh yanked her toward the door to the meeting hall. From outside, she could hear staccato chirps; someone was trying to punch in the code. Her heart leapt. She grabbed the door handle, registering its incredible, searing heat only a second before it burst inward, bringing with it a wall of flames.
She brought her hands up as Darius fell on her, his robe on fire, his movements disjointed, the only sounds coming from him animal grunts. Nearby, Eszter let out a pained yelp; as Darius tumbled to the floor, the flames spread to the bottom of her robes as well, and she batted at them furiously.
Parvaneh dove for Eszter as she began to crawl back toward the closet. It felt like someone had wrapped a length of barbwire around her chest; breathing was a chore. But adrenaline fueled her. She jumped on Eszter, who screamed. A lancing pain brought new awareness—Parvaneh’s robes were on fire too. But she wasn’t going to let it stop her. She ripped the garment off. Naked and free, she grabbed Eszter just as the traitor reached the open trapdoor.
“Come with me,” Eszter said again. “Think of your baby!”
“You ruined everything,” Parvaneh shrieked, slamming her fists into Eszter’s back. Her head. Any place she could reach.
Her thoughts were a rending wail as everything she’d ever wanted and needed burned all around her, as the past stretched its skeletal fingers long and gashed her heart. She’d thought she’d broken free, but it was all she felt, all she had left, this black, hard misery and the realization that the one good thing she’d ever had was now ash and cinders. “You killed us!” She bunched her fingers in Eszter’s robe and pulled her backward with all her remaining strength.
Eszter’s hand plunged into her own robes, and she whirled around and up. Parvaneh registered a flash of blue before her vision exploded with fire and stars. Everything went inside out, bright red and all wrong. She collided with something hard—the corner of the safe—and went down. She found herself facing Darius, the man who had changed her world. But she couldn’t make out his features anymore. Everything was engulfed in flames. Dizzy and confused, she looked around. Her thoughts had gone dark and sluggish like the smoke coiling and dancing above her. Everything hurt.
Eszter. That bitch had hit her in the head with a meditation stone. And she’d gotten away.
Parvaneh dragged herself toward the trapdoor. If she didn’t get out of this room, she was going to die here, like Darius, like all of them. She would die, and it would be for nothing. Her baby girl would die for nothing.
With a lurching heave, she pulled the trapdoor open again. The flames bit at her ankles, her calves. She threw herself down headfirst and slammed into the dirt floor below, loose soil raining down from above, grit crunching in her teeth.
Her vision blurred with blood and tears, Parvaneh could just make out a limping, hunched figure ahead. Moving slowly. Weak and fragile. The traitor. The destroyer.
With every movement bringing a fresh agony, every breath telling her she didn’t have many left, Parvaneh began to crawl after her, already knowing it was far too late.
Chapter Thirty
Bend, Oregon
December 14, present day
I dart to the side, but he easily blocks my way and shuts the door. “I’ll scream,” I say.