“This could be a trap,” Teige told him. “She punched in a million numbers, so she could’ve tried to get lucky.”
“Or she could be tied up,” Jacoby offered.
“She wouldn’t give that code up for anything. She wouldn’t lead me to my death. She’d die first.”
Jacoby was silent for a long moment. “That I believe.”
*
On her way out the door, Kayla had grabbed her phone and tripped over her camera’s strap. The case was lying on the floor and Kayla grabbed it up without thinking and joined Teige in the truck.
Once Jacoby told them to get a block from Abby’s house and just goddamned wait, which went over with Teige well, Kayla sat rigidly next to him, not sure of what to say. The camera and case were worn from use—Hoss had gotten it for her years earlier. And while this wasn’t a photo opportunity, somehow it was the only link she had to Hoss…to Mara.
She didn’t tell Teige that she’d started to feel the shivers down her spine. Mara was close—they knew that. But maybe Mara was closer than she’d ever thought.
She turned the case over in her lap, the fabric soft against her thighs. She brushed away what she thought was a white piece of lint but it didn’t come off.
She looked closer. Unzipped the case. When she pressed the thin fabric in her fingers it almost crinkled.
“What’s wrong?” Teige asked.
“Nothing. It’s…maybe these are directions.” It was inane, she knew—they were driving to save Abby and she was worried about a camera case, but it had been placed in front of her. Maybe it was Old Man Kennen, making a trip next door. Hoss, from beyond the grave, good old fate…or maybe she’d finally opened her eyes and began to look around for her place in all of this.
She tried to pull the fabric delicately at first, and then she ended up ripping it open. There was a folded piece of paper in there, and when she opened it, there was a child’s handwriting—crayon—on a full sheet of loose-leaf paper. It was yellowed with age…and it was Mara’s handwriting. She gasped and said, “Teige, there’s a note in here…”
“For you?” he asked as he barreled down the street, pulling onto the curb a block from Abby’s house. She read him the note—he cursed and then Jacoby joined them, jumping into the back seat of the truck almost before it stopped moving.
“What’s going on?” Jacoby asked, noting the stunned atmosphere. She passed the note to him and he read it. “Is this shit you know?”
“Maybe,” she whispered.
The journal entry was dated two days after the fire. It was done in awkward crayon, on the back of a generic blank hospital nursing notes form used in patient binders.
I killed for Claire because she killed for me first. And then I set the fire to make sure she wouldn’t get blamed for any of it.
“It doesn’t feel like an alibi. Or a lie. It’s like a confession. A secret,” Kayla murmured, even as something inside her brain began to stir. “I know she’s told me this, but I don’t have any memory the fire, or of getting out of the house. She waited until it nearly burned to the ground and we had smoke inhalation. I guess she did that purposely, to hide the evidence and make us look innocent. Everyone knew we were abused, so the fact that they were passed out when the fire started wasn’t a surprise. The bones were so burned and they didn’t do an autopsy.” Kayla paused. “I remember waking up in an ambulance on the lawn. The smell of smoke. Barely being able to breathe.”
“Before that?”
“Going to school and getting in trouble. But the psychologist told me that happened days before the fire. I depended on Mara’s memories for all of that. I believed everything she told me.”
“And now?”
“I think she might not have told me the whole story.”
“Guess not,” Jacoby muttered. “So why is it in this case? When did it get put there?”
“Hoss gave me this camera after I’d been his witness for about six months. Long before Mara killed him,” she said quietly.
“And this is the case he gave you?” Teige asked.
“Yes.”
“Was the camera found in the room where Hoss was killed?” Jacoby asked.
“No,” Teige said, and Abby concurred. “It was with me, in the darkroom, where I was developing pictures. Hoss had set the space up for me right after he’d given me the camera…”
Teige and Jacoby exchanged a look between them and Kayla’s stomach twisted when she held up the camera and said, “This is how she’s known how to find me. There’s got to be a tracker in here. Hoss knew it when he gave it to me. And she’s always known…every time I take a picture, she gets a step closer to hurting me.”
*
Teige lunged out of the truck but Jacoby was already there, meeting him at the driver’s door, ready to stop him.
“Move the fuck out of my way,” he told Jacoby, and when the man didn’t move, he shoved him hard to the side.
But Jacoby didn’t shove all that easily, shot his arm out to hold Teige back against the truck. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
Teige didn’t want to think—he wanted action. He pushed at Jacoby and the men wrestled to the point of nearly falling to the ground after slamming against the truck multiple times.
Jacoby finally panted, “You want a neighbor to see this, call the police and spook Mara into killing Abby?”
And that made Teige rip himself from Jacoby’s grasp. He forced himself still, ignoring the overwhelming urge to still make a break for it. “I couldn’t help her the night she almost died. I need to help her now.”
“I know that,” Jacoby assured him. “Let’s get eyes and ears on what’s happening first—rushing in’s a way for people to get killed. And if Mara’s been this far ahead of us, she might have the house wired.”
It was true—and something Teige would normally have thought of, had the case not been so personal to him. “How do we proceed.”
“Let me go in,” Kayla told both of them. Neither man had realized she’d gotten out of the car, and she stood there now, her voice pleading. “Let me help. That’s what she wants.”
“Exactly—she wants to hurt you and Abby—and I’m not letting that happen,” Teige told her, then turned to Jacoby. “I’ll go in through the goddamned roof.”
Jacoby started to speak but Kayla cut him off. “You both need to listen to me—”
“No,” they both told her simultaneously, then went back to their arguing about who was going to storm the house first.
“I’m going in—I have the experience. I do this shit for a living,” Teige told him, and Jacoby finally conceded.
And then… “Shit—the neighbors,” Jacoby said through gritted teeth as he waved toward an older guy who was coming down the walkway. “We’re okay, sir. Just a bit of a misunderstanding between friends.”
“You two get the hell out of here,” the man told them. “I’ll call 9-1-1 if you two aren’t gone by the time I count to five.”
You two…
It was at that moment they realized Kayla was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It took Abby longer to move this time—Mara had amped the Taser voltage and Abby’s muscles jerked painfully, then continued to ache as she tried to keep track of Mara, who was pacing around her prone body. Abby was still attached to the chair, her arms yanked behind her uncomfortably as she attempted to force her body to move.
Wasn’t happening. And Mara just stood there and watched her struggle. Even laughed a few times, which made Abby so goddamned mad she actually did manage to move.
Once that happened, Mara grabbed the chair and yanked it upright, hard enough to make Abby’s neck jerk uncomfortably.
“Don’t fuck with me, Abby. Maybe you escaped one killer, but lightning doesn’t strike twice.”
“And yet here I am, fighting off another serial killer. I’d say those are one-in-a-million odds,” Abby choked out, her voice raw.
“I guess about as good as the odds of a serial ki
ller spawning two murderers. Claire was always a bad seed. No one ever saw that.”
“She admitted as much.”
“And still managed to appear innocent.”
“Because she didn’t murder anyone,” Abby shot back. “You’re insane if you believe that.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong.”
“You have proof? Because the trial would’ve been the time to do that.” Mara had the knife again, menacing Abby with it, and Abby hated this part, the power play, the fear, the control. “What will this do?” Abby asked tiredly. “What will killing me actually do, Mara?”
“Close the circle. I’ll finish my dad’s job.”
“And Claire?”
Mara smiled at something over Abby shoulder. “It looks like she’ll help.”
Abby turned her neck as much as she could and looked up to see Kayla standing behind her, an icy look in her eyes.
You can always tell us apart by our eyes.
But in this moment, Abby couldn’t. Her heart beat a tattoo against her ribs and she took some deep breaths so she didn’t vomit right there. Because Kayla had a knife…and she held it casually against the side of Abby’s neck. When Abby had turned, she felt it press into her skin.
“There’s already blood on her knife,” Mara pointed out happily.
“What did you do, Kayla?” Abby demanded.
“It’s Claire. And shut up,” Kayla told her.
The eyes, they weren’t helping… “Don’t—”
“Do you want the honors?” Mara asked Kayla.
“Together. It’s the best way.”
“You know what you did, right, Claire?” Mara asked her. “You killed Daddy. I had to protect you, but you didn’t care.”
“I didn’t remember,” Kayla corrected.
“You still could’ve believed me.” Mara grew more agitated with each passing second and was holding that big knife too close for Abby’s comfort.
“Tell me what happened, Mara,” Kayla demanded.
“She said you killed your father,” Abby said, and was rewarded with Mara’s fist against her cheekbone. She heard a crack, more arguing and she just tried to keep track of the chaos around her.
“That’s not true,” Kayla said, her voice rising to an almost hysterical level. “Is it true, Mara? Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why keep it from me?”
“I’m protecting you, dammit! That’s all I’ve ever tried to do, and you keep punishing me for it,” Mara slammed back. “I killed for you because you killed for me first!”
*
Kayla’s head swam but she forced herself to keep it together. It wasn’t just her life that was in danger—more than that, it was Abby’s, Teige’s sister, and she could never forgive herself if anything happened to her.
Just then, she noticed the smell of smoke in the air. Abby did too and Mara smiled. “I lit a fire upstairs. A slow-burning one, but still, I thought maybe it would jog your memory, Claire. Because I lit the fire at our house that night too.”
“You killed our parents.”
“No, I covered our crimes—they were already dead,” Mara told her. “I kept this secret—your secret—for a long time, but now you need to know what you did. I have Abby as a witness.”
“And after you tell me?” Kayla asked.
“Then you kill Abby and we run, together.” Mara nodded and Kayla forced herself to lie with a nod. “Good. I want you to think about that day—we’d gone to school, come home, foraged for our supper since Mom was drunk and Dad had been gone for three days.”
“Your father, the genius serial killer?” Abby asked boldly.
Kayla hit her in the back of the head, hard enough for Abby’s head to jerk forward but not hard enough to cause her real pain, although she groaned just the same. “Keep going, Mara.”
“You’d had a bad dream, so you crawled into my bed,” Mara told her as Kayla clawed her own mind for access to the memories. “You wanted hot milk, and I’d hidden away some Parmalat that I’d stolen a couple of days earlier. I thought you were safe since he’d been gone for so long. I pulled a chair up to the stove and stood on it so I could watch the pan. You didn’t like it when the milk scorched and formed a skin, so I was careful.”
That struck a nerve… “I never liked it like that, no,” she said quietly.
Mara nodded her approval and continued. “I didn’t hear anything. I might’ve been humming or daydreaming, but either way, I’d let my guard down. It was only after I poured the milk into a mug that I heard the loud thump, the muffled sobs, the sound of you retching. I dropped the milk and ran for my room, because you were in the wrong bed. My bed.”
“Why would that matter? Did we used to get in trouble for sleeping in each other’s rooms?” Kayla asked.
“I made sure you never had to deal with Dad’s kind of trouble,” Mara said coldly, and an awareness washed over Kayla like an icy hug. “I found him on the floor, the scissors sticking out of his chest. You were rocking on the floor, your chest over your bent legs, vomit in front of you. When I pulled you up, I saw the blood on the bed—a small, lighter stain—and I knew exactly what had happened.”
“You knew…” was all Kayla could say.
Mara finished for her. “I knew because it happened to me all the time. But never to you. Because I always made sure you were never in my bed when he was home.”
“Mara—”
“You asked me, ‘Did he do this to you? Did he touch you?’ and I told you yes, he did. But before we could do anything, Mom was yelling. She lurched into the room and saw Dad. She yelled…”
“Holy Mary Mother of God, what did you do,” Kayla said before she could stop herself.
“Yes, that’s exactly what she said. And you said—”
“I did it,” Kayla said, as woodenly as she had that night. “He touched me.”
“Mom slapped you—called you a liar. And I stepped in front of you, Claire, and I told her—”
“He’s been doing this to me for years and you’ve never believed me.” Kayla stared at her sister as she spoke her mother’s words, “You shut up, you stupid shit. You killed him. What am I gonna do now?”
“She left the room and I took you with me, away from Dad’s body. I sat with you in the messy, dirty kitchen area of that shitty double-wide we called home for a few minutes before going to find Mom. If she was going to call the police, I needed to get my story straight. But she was packing. Packing. And only her clothes. Muttering, ‘Got to get out of here. Welfare will take care of those brats. Gonna get blamed for this.’”
“She was leaving us,” Kayla said hollowly.
“You’d already killed to protect yourself, but I knew you’d killed when you realized that Dad had done this to me before.”
“It was too familiar to him,” Kayla agreed, trying not to throw up as she caught a memory’s whiff of his dirty shirt and beer breath as he lay on top of her, telling her, “Give it up easily for Daddy, because you know that’s how I like it.”
“I went back into the bedroom, yanked the scissors out of Dad’s chest. Walked into Mom’s room. She screamed when she saw me, but I moved fast, jabbed her, once in the chest, the way you did to our father. I held them there while Mom gurgled something, until she started falling to the floor. And you were watching the whole damned thing from the doorway, after I’d told you to stay put.”
“I was worried about you.”
“You went into shock. I shoved you away, got the gasoline and poured it on Mom and I set the fire. I stayed in the house with you until the fire spread and the smoke got thick in our lungs. Only then did I dial 9-1-1, yelled ‘Help’ into the receiver and pulled you onto the lawn.”
“You wanted us to have an alibi.”
“No one would ever believe we killed our parents, Claire. They knew CPS visited—they all knew how we lived. It wasn’t a big stretch to think two drunks fell asleep with cigarettes burning and nearly killed their two innocent daughters,” Mara spat. “I reme
mber when the house burned down. I relive it every night—the sweet smell of smoke, the way my heart beat so fast when I saw the flames. For the first time ever, it all seemed right and I knew I’d done the best thing. You hugged me on the lawn. I wrapped a blanket around your shoulders and you looked at me and I looked at you and we didn’t need to say anything more, because we both knew what we’d done for each other. Except you forgot.”
With that, Mara lunged, knife out. The smoke had gotten thicker—Kayla hadn’t realized her eyes were burning until she faced her sister. She yanked Abby’s chair out of the way, throwing her to the ground where the smoke was thinner, and she held the knife out toward Mara.
“Don’t,” she told her sister. “Don’t you try to fool me again.”
“What are you talking about? You remember—”
“Yes, I remember. I remember that Mom was dead first. She was already dead, and you told me it was an accident, to go lie down in your room until you figured out what to do. I was already in shock and you set me up. You knew Dad was coming home, where he’d go, what he’d try to do.”
“I was protecting you,” Mara protested coldly.
“You were dragging me in. You killed first and it wasn’t self-defense. Maybe I did kill our father, but it was definitely in self-defense. Killing you will be for the same reason.” She walked quickly toward Mara and Mara toward her, a game of chicken neither could fully win.
Just when Kayla thought Mara would walk right into her knife, Mara stopped short of it, but Kayla didn’t stop moving. It plunged into Mara’s stomach and Mara stared down at it and back up at Kayla in disbelief. Mara blinked, eyes watering…maybe from the smoke or maybe not, because she sounded sad when she said, “It doesn’t matter. All this time, I thought it would, but it doesn’t. I did all of it for you, which means I did it all for nothing.”
With that, Kayla let go of the knife’s handle. Mara turned, lunged to open the door into the next room. Flames had engulfed the area and she walked directly into them as Kayla screamed—just screamed as Mara cried out and flailed, her body quickly covered in fire.
Mirror Me Page 20