by Darby Kane
This side felt still. She glanced up, letting the rain hit her face, and tried to find the sky. She saw nothing but darkness. A twisting of branches and swaying of trees.
She listened for the sound of creatures scurrying under shrubs but heard nothing. It was as if death blanketed the property. Even though she stood outside, tension pressed in on her from every angle. Her throat felt tight, and her breathing grew labored.
Yellow tape surrounded the cabin and the shed. Another bit outlined a hole in the ground and the mound of mud beside it. It had once held a body. One of the women’s graves.
Her stomach heaved. She covered her mouth with her gloved hand and tried to inhale through her nose. She could not get sick here. Not because of evidence. Because of respect. She owed Julie, Yara, and Karen better. She had to see this through. Walk where they’d walked. Feel Aaron’s malice, let it fuel her.
He was dead, and he deserved to be. She didn’t need the reminder, but this suffocating burial ground gave her one. She doubted she’d ever forget this place.
She dropped the hammer and her backpack on the porch. She used her pocketknife to slice through the tape at the door, then, with one last look at the rocky driveway leading to the house and trees that muffled the screams, she stepped into the cabin.
Silence inundated her. The thick air clogged her throat.
The curtains had been pulled back on the windows, and light entered the space. The kitchen lined the far wall. To the left, the door to the bedroom. She could see the end of the mattress but, knowing that’s where they’d found Karen, couldn’t force her body to step inside.
To her right, a sitting area with a plaid sofa and an ottoman. The kind of furniture she’d seen in countless hunting cabins. Old, durable. Frayed. Nothing on the walls. Nothing personal.
Except for the rocking chair.
It sat in the middle of the room, as if it had been dragged inside. She studied it as she’d done with the one in her attic this morning. There it was. A carving on the one armrest—a circle with a bear on its hind legs, paws in the air. Not a coincidence. This was the same design. Same workmanship. A match to the one she’d stored since she’d met Aaron in North Carolina years ago, but in better condition. This one hadn’t been hidden away and allowed to rot.
Her senses leapt to life. A thundering started in her ears. She inhaled deep, openmouthed breaths to keep from dropping to the ground in an anxiety-induced haze. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find or feel, but all she could call up was emptiness. An overriding, pummeling guilt that pushed against her shoulders, trying to slam her to the dusty floor.
“I wondered if you’d come.”
She closed her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice. The one she’d hoped not to hear. She’d never wanted so badly to be wrong.
She turned around and saw him. Tall and sure, dressed in his hiking gear and wearing that expensive watch.
Holding her hammer.
“Jared.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“I TRACKED YOU. HELL, I’VE BEEN TRACKING YOU SINCE YOUR big fight with Aaron two months ago. Figured you’d get curious and drive out here one day.” Jared whistled. “But today you seemed distracted. When you ran out of the sheriff’s office, head down and all determined, I knew you’d found something because I know you.”
They always said that. Today she hated to hear it. “You don’t.”
“I could see it in your expression.”
That persistent, nagging memory. “They weren’t coins.”
The words seemed to dampen his enthusiasm. “What?”
“In your office drawer at home.” Her mind went back to her break-in. Coins in the desk drawer and coins in a jar a few feet away. That didn’t seem like the meticulous Jared she knew, but she didn’t pick up on the strangeness then. She’d been too busy feeling crappy for snooping around his office.
“Right. Spare charms. You found them before I could toss them out of a car window somewhere far from here.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a bracelet just like the one in the photo on Ginny’s board. “Number eighteen. I’m hoping we don’t need it today, but that really depends on you.”
The words shot right through her. The number. What it meant. What he had planned for her. What he really was.
Jared shook his head as his smile returned. “Those fucking videos started all of this.”
The tone, so deep and flat. Lila felt her stomach fall. “What?”
“I told Aaron to destroy them. Hell, I told him to stop going after his students and just play with the women I found, but he refused to listen.” He pocketed the bracelet and spun the hammer’s handle around in his hand, looking as if he were born to wield it. “It’s like how he was when he first saw you. He was obsessed, and I told him to back off, but no. Then when he found out about your background, he knew you were perfect for him.”
The perfect cover for the secret life he led.
She tried to think of the right words, to stall until her brain could catch up and she could figure out what to do. “What are you doing here? Why follow me?”
He frowned at her. “We’ve been playing this game. The notes. The fights. Arguing about Aaron.” He scoffed. “Hell, I almost came right out with it a few times. When I found you in my office? I thought you were trying to tell me you’d figured it out, but then I realized you felt guilty for being caught looking around.”
“I thought Aaron might have hid something in your house.”
“He did. I kept copies of the videos with the girls and some of the other evidence he collected to keep them in line. It was in the safe under my desk. Note my use of past tense.” Jared winked at her.
So many questions bounced around in her head. She grabbed on to the one thought she could articulate. “You wrote the notes to me.”
“Of course,” he shot back. “I couldn’t just let you kill Aaron and not pay a price.” He shrugged. “I thought for sure you’d guess. The notes were my way of getting even and letting you know who was in charge.” He tapped the hammer harder against the side of his leg. “Me. I’m in charge.”
He could get close to her house without anyone questioning it. He came in and out of her life, her office, and her home. He was always just . . . there. Dependable and strong. No-nonsense and undemanding.
He’d stalked her. Scared her. The smile on his face said he’d enjoyed all of it.
Her mind fought back, determined not to let reality set in. She shifted, keeping him in front of her as she circled, putting her back to the kitchen area. A sturdy wall and no way to be surprised from behind. “Tell me what’s going on, Jared.”
But she knew. Every word, the feral look on his face. He’d come home to his killing ground.
Only one thing stood in his way—her.
“Aaron arrived at my house that night after your big fight, furious and mumbling. You’d been digging around in his stuff. You’d found him out.” He sat on the arm of the couch, looking relaxed and acting as if they were talking about normal things on any other day. “He was sure you’d talk to the police and he wanted you dead. That night.”
“Sounds like Aaron.”
“I said no, of course. People always blame the husband, and I couldn’t have that kind of spotlight so close to me before I had a chance to prepare.”
“Of course,” she repeated the thrown-away comment as she glanced around the room, looking for something that could fend off that hammer.
“He liked the chase. Always did. Never enjoyed the kill.” Jared laughed. “Which really pissed Dad off. All that training and Aaron was a lost cause. He fucked. I killed.”
She froze. “I don’t understand.”
He sighed like he was disappointed in her. “You do.”
God, she did. A family enterprise. Aaron had been blamed for the killings, but that honor belonged to Jared, and to his dad before him. Aaron’s sin was not forgivable but was also not murder.
“Explain it to me.” Still stall
ing. Still thinking of a way out.
“I’ll give you a hint.” He put his foot on the rocker part of the rocking chair. “This one is mine. The one in your house belongs to Aaron.”
Identical chairs.
He tapped the rocker and set it in motion. “They were on the porch growing up. He’d sit there and look over his property. Watch the games begin.”
Games?
“When Dad died, we each took one. I brought mine here so I could sit outside and enjoy a nice evening. Get a little air.”
He sounded so logical and calm, just as he always did. She’d expected that someone who lived this secret life would be unspooled, deranged. Talking in undecipherable rants. Nothing prepared her for how normal he looked. She had naïvely believed she’d be able to pick horror out of the crowd and stay away. But the opposite was true. He’d blended in and made her believe.
“See, Dad liked to hunt. Animals were for eating. They served a purpose. The other hunts, the ones with women, those were for fun. He took us along from the time I was eight or so to this farm in Pennsylvania.”
The thought of the boys being dragged along . . . “Eight?”
“I still remember it. Fischer’s Farm. It sat near a lake, and the school sometimes rented it out for events.” He let out a harsh laugh. “At first I didn’t understand what was happening. All these men and this naked woman. Then they would give her a head start and go. They’d sit and wait before scrambling after her. Then the game would begin.”
The dizziness hit her, and she fought through it. She had to stay on her feet and focus. “You can’t be serious.”
“Those guys were really sick. The things they’d do once they caught the women?” He shook his head. “Shit, that was too much for me. I liked the hunt, but at the end of every hunt you do the humane thing.”
She didn’t want him to say the words, so she did. “Kill them.”
“Now you get it. You put the animal down.”
“Jared . . .”
He actually smiled at her. “Aaron didn’t have the stomach for it. He liked to mess with girls, have sex with them. It was this weird conquer them thing he had. But you know that because you were his biggest prize.”
She couldn’t let her mind go there.
She reached into her pocket and brought out her pocketknife. Tucked it into her palm. “This is your cabin.”
His gaze bounced to her fingers then back up to her face. “Now you’re catching on.”
“You bought it in his name.”
“I like to think ahead. Have an exit strategy.” He shrugged and his voice took on a joking tone, as if he were enjoying this.
The pieces came together in her head. “You kill them. He, what, finds them for you?”
“No.” Jared made a face. “Come on. You’re smarter than that.”
“Apparently not.”
He stood up and took a step toward her. “I made him come with me now and then. He wasn’t into the stalking and hunting, but he’d do it if I ordered it.”
Her panicked breath came in pants now. “Why would you do that?”
“To keep him in line. If I needed to. You know, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“You.” He pointed the hammer at her. “He thought it was funny that he thrived on doing the very thing that broke you as a kid. All right under your nose.”
“He was a twisted piece of garbage.”
“Careful. That’s my brother you’re talking about.” Jared chuckled. “But he could be reckless. Making him come here, having him move a body or help me dispose of one, kept him culpable. I could control where my DNA ended up and, if needed, use his.”
“Frame your own brother.”
“He was hardly innocent.” He frowned at her. “I honestly thought you’d leave him. Either way, there was a chance that you’d turn him in, which had the potential to blow back on me, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
Memories flooded her brain. All the meals together. The talks. The things she’d told him. How they’d joked about being alike.
The idea that she’d been feeding him information all along, that no part of their relationship had been real, made her knees buckle. She fought to stay on her feet and concentrate. To stay outside of swinging range of that hammer.
“I installed some cameras of my own across the street from you and around your house. They came in handy today when I saw you walk past the media and all of your new fans at your house and get into Tobias’s car.” He leaned against the rocker. “The way you messed with the neighbor’s alarm weeks ago in order to make him turn it off? Brilliant. I admit at first I didn’t know what you were doing. The walks up and down the street. Sneaking into their yard at night.” His smile fell. “But then one morning Aaron’s car left very early, and you were driving, and I knew you’d launched some sort of plan.”
He’d watched. He’s seen her plotting, working on strategy. He’d been there, at least through a lens, on that final morning.
“Oh, you were bundled up and wearing what looked like one of Aaron’s suits, but I could make out your face. Good thing I’d already left my conference in a loaner car.”
“That could have been traced back to you.” It would have. Ginny would have figured that out with a little time.
“Not when you pay with cash and use a license stolen from a drunk guy in the bar.” He shook his head, as if impressed by his own ingenuity. “I still had to break every speed limit to get back to Ithaca in time and take care of the scene before dawn.” He snorted. “And getting his car off the school grounds without being seen?”
“How?”
“I could only take it a few blocks. Parked it in plain sight in a neighborhood, covered in a tarp for two days while I figured out a safe route back to the cabin.” He pretended to drive. “But imagine my surprise when I found Aaron slumped over the wheel with the engine running and the tailpipe blocked.”
Dead. She’d killed him, and Jared had found him. It all made sense now. He’d tracked her and watched her and stepped in to save Aaron. “But you were too late.”
“I was.” He nodded. “I tried to revive him, but you’d been very thorough. Good for you.”
The singsongy sound of his voice made her sick. It chipped away at her focus. Took her back there, made her relive the panic over the notes and her fear that Aaron was still alive.
She tried to focus. To hear every horrid detail. “But you stabbed him.”
He made a tsk-tsking sound. “I have spent a good deal of the last few months protecting you. Telling Aaron not to fight back. Watching. The stabbing was one more example. It was meant to throw off the police.”
“He was already dead.”
He shrugged again, as if they were not talking about killing and defacing his own brother. “Honestly, things seemed to be collapsing because of Aaron’s extracurricular activities, so I thought it was time to pull up stakes and move on. You going rogue just moved up my plans. But I needed it done my way. With the cabin being found and Aaron taking the blame. That meant adding your plan to mine, which I admit was not a perfect fit, but it looks like it worked out. Aaron will get the blame. I’ll leave town in horror, change my name, and then start again.”
“You mean go kill somewhere else.”
“Well, I enjoy hunting. Getting them out here, letting them run. Offering a sliver of hope then taking it away.” He whistled. “The panic is something else. I love the panic and the begging.”
The complete disregard and absence of any concern or feelings had a ball of anxiety forming in her stomach. “Did your mom know what was happening?”
“When she figured out the reason for the weekend games and all the hush-hush stuff, Dad set up one last hunt.” Jared waved his hand in the air, swinging that hammer close to her face. “Got the guys together. Made sure it would look like an accident.”
His mother. Hunted and murdered.
Lila’s stomach pitched and roiled. She swallowed back the bile, deter
mined to hear every horrible word. “And the trust fund?”
“Rich people will pay a lot of money to do some crazy shit.” This time he tapped the hammer against his thigh. “So that took care of Mom, and when Dad started to lose it, when he started to babble about some secrets, which luckily sounded so brazen no one believed him, I handled it.”
What the hell? “You ran him down on the side of the road.”
“I handled it.” His voice grew angrier. “It’s what I do. I clean up the mess, including yours.”
“No.”
“We’re connected. I know you feel it. You talk about it all the time.”
Her focus faltered, but she kept going. Waiting until the exact right time. “Brent?”
“Yeah, I started the rumors about his involvement.” He laughed to himself. “Wait until the police find the kiddie porn on his computer.”
A psychopath. He outlined his sick crimes with the same emotion he used when he spoke to her about stocks. Clear and no-nonsense.
“Do you feel anything?” She had to know, though she doubted he would be honest.
“Do you?” He tapped the hammer faster against his leg. “You killed your husband and seem fine with that.”
“You’re sick.” She knew from Ryan’s books that she should appeal to his humanity, if he had any, but the words slipped out.
“I’m exactly like you.” He took that last step that put him right in front of her, only a few feet away. “Emotions other people feel—guilt, love, devotion—mean nothing to me. I’ve tried to have a relationship, do the dating thing. So fucking boring. I need more. Excitement. The race.”
“The girls from school were blondes.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Aaron liked young blondes. You hunted for brunettes.” The difference in the women became so clear to her now. “Aaron didn’t kill any of them.”
“I said this already. He was a failure in that department. I found the women. I lured them to look at something by my car or grabbed them at the gas station. In a parking lot.”