by Lisa Regan
He looked puzzled momentarily. “My aunt?”
“Rachel. What we were doing was not fair to anyone. You’re so young. I’m married. I have a family. Rachel is my best friend.”
His fists clenched at his side. Leah took a step to the side, trying to put something between them. The kitchen table or a chair at least. “Fuck her,” he snarled. “And fuck you too.”
Her body turned to stone. Only baby Tyler moved freely inside her, completely unaffected by the tension locking every muscle she had. Something old and hideous rose from the Shitty Childhood compartment of her brain. A warning. It told her she should run as far and as fast as she could. Back then, she had had nowhere to go. The evil took what it wanted, leaving hopelessness and depression to grow inside her like a malignancy. Now she felt the warning at her back like a hurricane-force wind, pushing her, urging her to get away from this boy. She wasn’t aware she had even moved until a doorknob poked her back.
D.J. said, “You’ll pay.”
Then he was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
“You moved to California,” Connor said. “You left D.J. and Sebastian behind, took your mother’s life insurance settlement, and came out here.”
Rachel nodded. “Yes. I got an apartment, lived as frugally as I could. Eventually, I started college, that’s where I met Mike. He asked me to marry him in my sophomore year. He was graduating, had a job offer here. I said yes, we moved here, and the rest, as they say, is history. Sebastian never tried to find me. I think he knew that I wasn’t meant for that life.”
“But you married someone else. You have children.”
“It was completely different with Mike and the girls.”
“You mean it was easier.”
She bristled. “No. I mean I was older, wiser, and more self-sufficient. I didn’t need to make decisions out of desperation. I was ready to be a wife and a mother.”
“You never told your husband about your past?”
“No. I didn’t see any point in it. I didn’t think that Mike would understand.”
No shit, Connor thought, but kept silent. “You never worried that D.J. might come looking for you one day?”
Rachel shifted in her chair. “When I met Mike I started to worry, so I called one of Sebastian’s neighbors, an older woman I had been friendly with. She told me that D.J. had been sent away. Evidently, there was an incident where he turned on Sebastian and burnt him badly. After that, Sebastian put him away. Even in an institution, he was problematic. I didn’t worry after that. I just thought he would never get out. I thought I was safe.”
Connor sighed and spread his hands. “And yet here we are. What happened?”
“He showed up at my house one day. I had no idea who he was. It was so unexpected. He said he just wanted to talk. I made him coffee—Mike was at work. The girls were at pre-K. I thought if I talked to him, he would go away.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He said he needed a place to stay. Just until he got on his feet. I thought about paying him to go away or paying for a hotel room, but I don’t work and Mike controls the finances. So we agreed I’d ask Mike if he could stay above our garage temporarily, get him a phone, as long as the story was that he was my nephew from an estranged brother.”
“Your husband bought it?”
“Why wouldn’t he? He wasn’t happy about it, but he’s never home so it really had no effect on him. He allowed it, but he never liked D.J.”
“And you? Did you like him?”
She shuddered. “I didn’t know what to think. I thought the nice-guy thing was an act. I saw him act differently around other people. I kept waiting for his other side to show, but he lived with us for months and nothing happened. He told me he’d been released from the institution at eighteen, and I thought if they released him maybe he’d changed. Maybe the inpatient treatment had worked.”
“Did he ask you why you left?”
“Of course he did. That was why he came. I told him that I was young and stupid and not ready to be a mother, and that I knew Sebastian would take better care of him than I ever could.”
“Did Sebastian know he’d come to see you?”
“Sebastian financed it. Hired a PI to find me, flew him out here, but told him if he chose to stay, he was on his own, which is why he needed a place to live.”
“You talked to Sebastian?”
“Yes. I asked him to take D.J. back, but he said D.J. was an adult and he couldn’t force him to do anything. He said he deserved to know about his mother.” She humphed. “‘About’ his mother, he said. Like I’m some kind of monster.”
Connor said nothing.
“So he was here and then one day he left. I don’t know where he went or what happened to him.”
Connor raised a brow. “He just left? Like mother, like son?”
She frowned. “That’s not fair.”
“You didn’t force him out because he exposed himself to Molly and Maya?”
He didn’t think she could get any paler, but her skin went a shade whiter.
“No more lies, Mrs. Irving, remember?”
“Oh my God. Please. I didn’t want my husband to find out.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Derrick readily agreed to take Claire from the vet’s office to Connor’s house so she could get her car, and even followed her home, just to make sure she arrived without incident. Derrick waited out front in his car while Claire ran inside to gather some things before she returned to the hospital. D.J. was waiting in her bedroom. Some visceral part of her sensed him as she crossed the threshold, but it was too late to retreat. She was already fully through the door. Her body lunged toward her dresser where her .380 rested in a fake, hollow book. But he sprung out from behind the door and snagged her around the waist. Her elbow whipped behind her, trying to make contact with his face, and missed.
Then she was flying through the air. She braced herself for a hard landing, for the awful loss of breath. She remembered well the feeling of having a man on top of her after she’d had the wind knocked out of her. But she landed on her bed, face in the pillows, the dizzying scent of Connor that still clung to the sheets flooding her senses.
As it had in the river, her consciousness tried to remove itself from her body, this imperfect vessel that had taken so much abuse over the years. Her “No” came out as an actual snarl and she flipped onto her back.
“No?” D.J. had stopped in his tracks at the foot of her bed, fists clenched, the expression on his ruined face equal parts surprise and amusement.
She took a second to study him, revulsion sending bile into the back of her throat. He looked like something out of a horror movie. His once perfectly chiseled features were shredded and bloody. A two-inch gash sliced his forehead. His right cheek bore three red puncture marks that looked as though they went straight through to the inside of his mouth. On his left side, a flap of skin along his jawline hung down, exposing bone and bright-pink tissue. The side of his neck bore several puncture marks and some deep gashes where Wilson had tried to pull the flesh from his body. Dried blood had turned his white tank top almost entirely reddish brown. She could not imagine how badly his wounds hurt, and she felt a deep gratitude toward Wilson for the damage he’d inflicted on the monster before her.
“Why are you here?” she asked him.
He tried to smile, but one half of his face was paralyzed. The side that worked winced in pain. He made a guttural noise—pain and rage. “Before I kill you, you’re going to give me what I want.”
Slowly, Claire pushed herself up on her elbows. From her periphery, she tried to gauge how quickly she could make it to the gun on the dresser. There was no chance. He didn’t look like he had a weapon, but she knew he didn’t need one. His rage was his weapon. Claire was well acquainted with that kind of rage, and she had no desire to be on the receiving end of it ever again. He was high on adrenaline. It numbed most of his pain. It would make him stronger, amplify his rage, which, C
laire guessed, even at its baseline, was deadly.
She could take a beating. The things that had been done to her had amounted to nothing short of systematic torture, and she had survived it. But the man before her was likely to go straight for the kill. She had to be careful. She had never expected to find herself at the mercy of a psychopath ever again, but here she was, and she had to survive. Her heart pumped so hard that every beat seemed to jar her entire body. Her bones vibrated with fear and the terrible awareness of what this beast was going to do to her.
This time, her “No” came out squeaky and strangled.
D.J. took a step toward the bed. A car horn sounded from outside. He stopped and looked back toward the door, as if he could see out front from there. “What the fuck is that?”
She didn’t answer. The beep came again.
He put a knee on the bed and reached for her. Her body betrayed her. She scrambled back, pressing herself against the headboard, hands raised. She thought she could take it—his hands on her—but she couldn’t. She was dangerously close to shutting down completely. “It’s my friend,” she choked out. “He—he’s outside. He’s waiting for me.”
“He brought you here?”
“Yes.”
“You have a choice. Get rid of him or he dies too.”
With a death grip on her right triceps, he yanked her off the bed and led her to her front door. His instructions were to get rid of Derrick from the doorway. She was not allowed to signal him in any way, or to mouth anything. Her heart sank the farther they got from her .380. She was both relieved and disappointed when Derrick drove off after just a wave and a stiff smile from her. But then she remembered Derrick had no idea of all that was really going on. He knew she had helped save the Holloway and Irving children after the accident on Saturday; he knew Brianna had been mugged and Wilson had been injured, but he had no idea that any of those things were related to the Soccer Mom Strangler case. When she had asked him to take her to get her vehicle, she had only said that with everything that had happened in the last few days, she would feel better if he followed her to her house.
With a sinking heart, she watched Derrick drive away. D.J. dragged her into the living room. He pushed her and she fell, tripping over the coffee table and falling awkwardly on her side, half on the couch and half off. Her knee throbbed as she dragged herself into a sitting position onto the couch.
He started pacing. Fresh blood oozed from two of the puncture wounds in his neck. If he got close enough to hurt her, she would go right for his wounds. She’d rip that flap of flesh right off his face if she could. She just had to hope that the pain would not simply fuel his deadly rage.
“It was you,” he said. He stopped and pointed at her. “You were in the river with Leah that day. Not your twat sister.”
Claire thrust her chin at him. “You hurt my sister, didn’t you? You put her in the dumpster.”
“I’ll do worse to you if you don’t tell me the truth.”
“Did you hit her?”
“No. The dumb bitch fell backward and hit her head. All I wanted to know was why she let Leah die. I grabbed her. She told me to stop. Then she said Leah was dead when she got to the car. I knew she was lying. She changed her story. I kept telling her to just tell me the truth. I was sure she killed Leah. That she could have saved her, but she just didn’t. She kept saying, ‘No, it wasn’t me, I wasn’t there, it wasn’t my fault.’ And I’m like, what? What do you mean, you weren’t there? But then instead of answering, she tried to get away, and she fell. Just, like, out cold. I could’ve killed her. How was I going to figure out what she was talking about now? But then I did: I’ve been watching you two for a couple of days now, seen how far up each other’s asses you are. I have no idea why, but you two were running some kind of game. Lying about the whole thing. Christ only knows why, but it was really you who swam out to the car.”
“She was protecting me,” Claire explained. “I didn’t want to be in the press.”
Claire felt a searing stab of guilt. She blinked back tears.
“So you were there.”
“We both were,” Claire explained. “But only I swam out there.”
“You saved the kids. It was you.”
Claire nodded. He started pacing again. A terrible half grimace stretched across what was left of his face. He stopped, slightly out of breath, and pointed an accusatory finger at her. “You let her die.”
It felt like a slap. This was about Leah. All of it. He was the one who had been stalking Leah. He had stalked her, raped her, then let her live. He was obsessed with Leah. He’d probably believed it was reciprocated. Claire knew better than anyone how deep these psychopaths’ fantasies could run. Reality became a vague, easily discarded suggestion. All that mattered, all that existed, was whatever their diseased minds had conjured, and woe to anyone who did not fully subscribe to it. Claire had to be careful what she said about Leah, lest she contradict whatever fantasy he’d created in his mind.
“It was too late to save her,” Claire lied.
“No, no. It wasn’t. You saved the kids. You could have saved her.”
Claire’s cell phone beeped. If D.J. noticed it, he didn’t let on.
Claire put her hands up. “No, listen to me. She was in the front seat. She was the only one in the front seat. She took the brunt of the impact. Her internal injuries were extensive.”
“You’re lying.”
She shook her head vehemently. “I swear to you, I am not lying. Why would I lie? You think I wanted her to die? You think I didn’t try to get her out? You think I enjoyed watching her die? Having to tell her children that their mom didn’t make it?”
He became very still. She hoped she had the attention of whatever piece of him that was capable of processing logic and reason.
“I tried to get her out. The locks were jammed. She was in the front. It filled up with water fast. So fast. Her—her injuries were so bad that she—she was disoriented. I don’t even think she knew where she was or what was going on. I’m sorry that she’s gone, but please know that I did everything I could.” Claire added, “Leah meant a lot to you.”
“She was mine,” he said. “She came back. She came back to me. She promised never to leave again. She promised me. I came back for her, but she was having a baby. She chose the baby over me. I told her she would pay unless she came back to me. Then she called me. I was with her last week.”
Claire tried not to grimace at his language. He talked about Leah as though she were an object he owned. Claire doubted very much that things had happened the way he described them. But there would be no penetrating his delusions. “I’m sorry,” Claire said.
“If she was hurt so bad, you should have saved her first,” he insisted.
Her cell phone beeped again. His eyes flicked around the room, but he didn’t try to find the source of the noise. “You got all those kids out; you could have gotten her out.”
Claire wondered if anything she said would satisfy him. Leah hadn’t given Claire a choice. But telling D.J. the truth wouldn’t feed the fantasy he had so lovingly constructed and violently cultivated. The truth could be disastrous for Claire. The problem was that she had no idea if anything she said would make a difference. He was likely going to kill her no matter what. She needed more time. That was her only hope. When she didn’t answer his texts, Connor would come looking for her. Then she would have a chance. Her cell phone beeped again.
“I told you, she was really out of it when I got to the car. She was barely conscious. The locks were jammed. I couldn’t get the doors opened.”
D.J. loomed over her, one fist clenched. “That’s not true. You’re lying to me. If the doors wouldn’t open, how did you get the kids out?”
“Through the sunroof,” Claire said.
“So, you got those stupid kids out through the sunroof and you still left her in the car to die.”
“No,” Claire said. “Leah lost consciousness. There was no way I could have gotten
her out through the sunroof.”
He stepped closer. “You left her to die. Did she cry?”
“No, no. She wasn’t crying.”
“She begged you to help her, didn’t she?”
“No,” Claire said.
His voice was growing more and more high-pitched. “She wanted to live. We were going to be together. I know she wanted to live. You killed her.”
“No.”
“She begged you to help her, you ignored her, and she died. That makes you a killer.”
“Listen to me—she was very badly injured. She didn’t … suffer. I promise you, she didn’t beg. She was very disoriented.”
“You heard her last words,” D.J. said. “What were they?”
Claire racked her brain, trying to figure out a way to stall him that wouldn’t result in him beating the hell out of her. She thought about all the things Connor had told her about Leah’s case. “You know,” she told him.
His expression loosened. “Know what?”
“You were the last person to talk to her.”
He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. I hadn’t talked to her—”
“Your call was the last call she took before she crashed. You used a—what’s it called? A burner phone?”
He swallowed. More blood oozed from the puncture wounds in his neck. “Yeah, I guess. A prepaid phone.”
“Yes. A prepaid phone. The police call it a burner. What did she say to you before she crashed her car?”
He looked nonplussed. “I didn’t talk to her.”
“You didn’t call her on Saturday morning? Right before she went into the river?”
“No, it wasn’t me. I—”
“Did she know about the other women?”
“What?”
“The women you killed. Did Leah know?”
Her cell phone beeped once more. This time he lunged for her, his hands everywhere at once as he clawed at her pockets. She was starting to hyperventilate when he finally came away with it. He stood over her again, staring at the phone’s screen. “Who the fuck is Connor?”