Close to Home

by Nolon King

  Then he turned to his brother and dissolved into laughter as Corban dropped the bat and flopped backward onto the bed. Laughing with him.

  For the first time in what felt like forever.

  “Can you believe him?” Levi asked, desperately clinging to whatever this was.

  “Haven’t been able to for a while.” Corban looked as uncertain as Levi felt. What now?

  “Do you want me to go too?” Levi asked.

  His brother hesitated, then shook his head. Although he didn’t say he wanted Levi to stay.

  But he did.

  Levi was afraid that he might do something stupid to pop this brittle, beautiful bubble. “Can you believe we were raised by The Virgin?”

  “Ugh. I hate that word, at least in that context.”

  Levi looked at his brother, almost didn’t dare to say it, then decided that they weren’t going to get back to where they needed to be unless they started sharing again. Preferably something positive.

  So he asked, “But you and Kari … right?”

  For the first time, Corban’s face cracked into a wide and unrestricted smile. “Yep.”

  “And?”

  Corban laughed. “You know.”

  Levi laughed too. He did. And that was enough for now.

  Chapter Sixty

  Adam had to get out of this house before it ate him alive and spit out his bones.

  His reputation, ruined. His wife, gone. But his sons no longer respecting him hurt more than anything else. They might never be willing to call him father again. He couldn’t blame them.

  This is it. This is what rock bottom feels like.

  He stumbled outside. Into the Porsche. Engines on, windows down, Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” on the speakers.

  Out of the driveway and onto the road.

  Sunshine nearly blinding him as it bounced off the bathtub body’s gleaming silver hood. Trees whipping by in a blur of serenity. The hum of tires zooming over asphalt.

  Everything would be fine. He just needed to keep driving. Eventually he would get somewhere better.

  Adam drove faster.

  He was nearly down the hill. Once there, it was left or right, or nothing.

  If he chose nothing, it would be the last choice he ever made.

  A right would take him into town, and a left toward the river. There wasn’t much of anything if he went left, and that was probably the smarter choice. Choosing right meant choosing to continue, choosing her instead of his family.

  He was done with that. Forever.

  The girl with the blood-red lipstick. The murder fantasies. All of it. Right now and until the end of time.

  Even if it meant he had to be locked up to keep from being a danger to the people he loved most.

  He turned left, toward the river.

  It was where he’d taken the boys to ride the bike trails and skip stones and fish.

  It was where they’d celebrated most of their birthdays, at least until the boys became video-game-obsessed teenagers.

  It was where they’d spent their happiest times as a family.

  Now it was the place where Adam would figure out how to keep his inner serial killer from murdering any chance he had of getting his family back.

  He made it a mile before his phone rang. Private caller.

  He answered more out of curiosity than anything. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Adam.”

  A familiar voice, but nothing he could place. “Who is this?”

  “Give it a second. I’m sure you know.”

  The caller was right. Fuck. “What do you want, Dane?”

  “I thought that maybe we should talk.”

  It took everything Adam had to temper his rage. Through gritted teeth he said, “What about?”

  “A few things. I think we should meet in person.”

  Great idea. In person was the best way to get his hands around this little bastard’s throat. “When and where?”

  “Do you know where I live?”

  “I don’t. Probably because you’re always at my house.”

  “943 Hidden Trails. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Adam hung up.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Selena had been sitting in her chair long enough to know that she had seriously underestimated Sam.

  He was right, this web series could blow up. If the thing hit even a fraction of its potential, it could get picked up by someone big. Web series were the new pilots. Broad City, Ugly Americans, and Adult Video — all of them got their start as web series before becoming the next big thing. HBO was paying attention, Netflix was paying attention, whatever was coming next was paying attention too.

  Why hadn’t Sam made this argument yesterday? Selena would have felt much better about the whole thing. Instead, she was getting it from April, Paul, and Tyler, the trio from Trauma, who were selling her hard. Not that they had to. She was loving every word from their mouths, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

  “Really,” April continued, “the show is yours. We feel really lucky to have you, assuming we’re going forward.”

  Selena laughed. “Why wouldn’t we? After what happened, this is exactly the right move.”

  That was another thing she loved about them. They didn’t care that her life was a disaster.

  “We can work with what happened, turn it into a great story,” Paul assured her. “Our marketing department is already on it.”

  “So then,” Tyler took over, “just tell us how you see the show, now that we’ve given you a bird’s eye view of what we’re thinking.”

  “I love the George Washington angle for sure, and I’ve already been looking into that. There’s lots of great stuff there, and I’m surprised I’ve never heard of any of it. I’d love to do Thomas Edison. He had the power and the means to hide his life as a killer, plus there’s that whole thing with Louis Le Prince.”

  “Louis Le Prince?” April repeated.

  “You’ve never heard?” Selena said, even though she was sure that at least one of the three of them hadn’t. “We all know that Edison was responsible for the first motion picture camera, but few people know that Louis Le Prince was on his way to America to demonstrate his single-lens camera, and the short films he made with them nearly a decade before Edison built his cameras. Le Prince boarded a train from Bourges to Paris. But the train arrived in Paris without him, despite numerous passengers swearing to his presence. His luggage disappeared along with him. Same for the camera and movies. The disappearance was investigated by his family, Scotland Yard, and the French authorities. But Le Prince was never found, and they declared him dead seven years later in 1897. The same year Edison patented his Kinetograph.”

  She shivered with excitement. Selena could see this show.

  “So what if Edison murdered Le Prince? What if he murdered the original inventors for most of his patents?”

  “Maybe many of his patents,” Tyler suggested. “Most might be a bit much.”

  “Or many,” Selena agreed. “Whatever. Point is, history is full of stories like this!”

  Paul smiled. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Now came the tricky part. Selena licked her lips before she spoke. “So, I was thinking of an interesting angle.”

  “Oh?” Paul raised his eyebrows.

  “We all know what a shit-show things are in Almond Park. After all, that’s why we’re here.” She smiled at Paul. “But maybe we can use what looks rotten to make something fresh.”

  “Keep saying things like that,” April said.

  “My husband …”

  “Yes …” April was leaning ever so slightly forward. So were Tyler and Paul on either side of her.

  “He’s not a killer.”

  “Of course not,” April said.

  Selena swallowed. “But that’s because of our work together. Hard work for sure, but work that can be done.”

  She took a breath, then a sip of her water. It felt nice, drawing this out while they
hung on her every word. Being wanted.

  “What if some of this country’s worst killers had been given similar treatment? What if we could identify these people before they succumb to their worst impulses? What if we made it safe to do so? Like admitting you’re an addict, then getting the help you need?”

  “Go on …”

  “Jeffrey Dahmer, Edward Kemper, and Ted Bundy. They were all geniuses, and they all should have been studied instead of destroyed. We did the world a disservice. But that’s another show.”

  She laughed, enjoying their attention.

  “What if we did what you’re wanting to do with the historical figures, but in reverse. We could take a guy like Bundy, and imagine who he would have been, and the things he could have done.”

  “It’s dark,” April said, clearly meaning it as a compliment.

  “Terrible,” Paul agreed.

  Tyler nodded. “Much better than what we had.”

  “If we’re going there,” April said with a coy little smile, “then can we talk a little more about Almond Park?”

  Selena nodded, knowing what was coming. Then April said it:

  “What do you say to people who think that your husband could be the Almond Park Killer?”

  “It’s ridiculous. I do feel terrible that his imaginings are out there like they are. It really is unfair to him, the way that happened. Can you imagine if the same thing happened to one of you? Your spouse accidentally unleashing your most private thoughts onto the world?”

  Interesting. Paul and Tyler made sympathetic faces, but April squirmed in her seat.

  Selena continued. “But since they are out there, then anyone can easily see that he doesn’t fit the profile at all. He could have been a brilliant filmmaker. Adam is extremely visual. And he has hematolagnia. Yes, that’s a blood fetish. But that’s all it is. He’s aroused by the sight or thought of blood. The Almond Park Murders have nothing in common with my husband’s fetish.”

  All three of them nodded, but she could tell from their expressions that none knew where she was going.

  “If we look at the six phases of the serial killer cycle and apply them to the Almond Park Killer, we get a specific profile that has nothing in common with my husband. There is no Aura Phase because we have been openly discussing his imaginings for twenty years. We’re home together all the time, there was no wooing. Capture and murder are all about emotional climax, and as ugly as it might be to say out loud, what we’re looking at here would do nothing to satisfy my husband.”

  Selena paused, holding her breath, trying to gauge whether they were interested or being polite. What she was about to propose would be an amazing show, a way to get where she’d been trying to go before everything fell apart.

  And Adam was going to hate it.

  But she couldn’t pass up the chance, not when it might mean the difference between getting back to life as usual or ending up homeless.

  Paul wanted more. “Go on, please.”

  “That leaves Totem and Depression, and while Adam is depressed these days, I think we can all agree that he has every right to be. But the Totem sure doesn’t fit. There’s nothing bloody about a scarf. Nor sexual. Not these scarves. If anything, it’s …”

  But she couldn’t say it, because that would make everything true.

  “Ms. Nash?” April looked concerned.

  Maternal.

  Oh God. How had she not seen it before?

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Go?” Tyler was standing, a second behind Selena. “You can’t go!”

  “I need to leave. I forgot something really, really important.”

  “But—” tried one of the guys, it didn’t matter who.

  “I’m on board, we’ll talk tomorrow, I’ll call you.”

  If she was still alive tomorrow.

  She sprinted to the elevator, hitting Adam’s contact entry and getting voicemail.

  Down to the parking garage and behind the wheel of her Mercedes.

  Corban didn’t answer. Neither did Levi.

  Resisting the urge to scream as she hit every streetlight on red, then barreling up the highway on her way to Almond Park, she called them over and over again. No answer.

  If her family died, it would be her fault. She’d hadn’t just made them targets, she’d practically invited the Almond Park Killer to be part of their lives.

  Selena floored it.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  943 Hidden Trails.

  This couldn’t be the place.

  Adam hadn’t thought so when he’d entered the address into his phone and it showed him one of the newer neighborhoods where lots were still being filled with custom McMansions. He was pretty sure that Dane’s father wouldn’t be able to afford a place like this.

  But he really thought it was the wrong address when he pulled up to a new — just finished — home with a SOLD sign in the yard. Goddamn kid was playing games. Good thing Adam was in the mood to play back. Dane was going to regret ever coming near his family.

  The lawn was lush, fresh sod that sank underfoot, beside a paved walkway of sand-colored stone. The concrete driveway and parking area outside it didn’t have a single speck of dirt or drop of oil.

  Adam went around back, just to make sure. The gorgeous built-in grill had never been turned on. He looked in the windows and saw that the inside was just as pristine, with not a single stick of furniture.

  He went back around front and knocked on a freshly-painted door that had surely never been knocked on. Again, just in case. No one answered.

  His phone rang and Adam jumped a little, embarrassed that this idiot kid had him on edge, and hoping he wasn’t watching from the shadows and laughing.

  He looked at the screen, saw it was Selena. Decline. He turned the phone off — didn’t want it going off again while he was sneaking up on Dane — and slid it into his pocket.

  Adam tried the door. Unlocked. He went inside.

  “Hello?”

  The little shit was in here somewhere. The question was what the asshole wanted, and what Adam would do when he found him.

  “Dane?”

  There was a dripping, coming from the hallway.

  Adam flipped the light switch. The lights actually came on.

  Through the kitchen and down the hallway. Maybe the master bedroom? He followed the dripping.

  “You here?” Then under his breath, “You little fucker.”

  The dripping got louder. Halfway down the hall Adam smelled something rich and metallic.

  That scent used to excite him. Now it made him want to retch.

  He reached the end of the hallway and stood in front of a white door, about one-quarter ajar, with a single crimson streak running across it.

  His heart pounded. Sweat erupted from every pore.

  This wasn’t a trick, it was something else. Something terrible.

  Adam did not want to see what Dane had left in the empty bedroom, but he had to look.

  A fallen ladder, too old and rusty to have had any part in finishing this house. It had to have been brought here, just like the girl draped across it.

  And not just any girl. It was the girl with the blood-red lipstick. The first time he’d seen her without her perky smile, unless Adam counted the gaping aperture at her throat, the wound through which her blood had poured onto the plush, creamy carpet below.

  That wasn’t even the worst part.

  Adam clutched his stomach, doubled over, covered his mouth and swallowed hard to keep from polluting the crime scene with vomit.

  That’s what the police would call it once someone reported it.

  His stomach convulsed again, trying to force its contents up his throat. He couldn’t stand to look, but he had to.

  Because what if he was imagining this?

  Maybe he was stuck in one of his sick and twisted fantasies?

  What if he had finally snapped himself into a living nightmare?

  This was how it would be now. His nightmare
made permanent.

  So Adam looked back, saw the impossible, and lost it again, dry heaving this time, losing himself to a full body shudder, disgusted by the reek of death and the sight of blood, horrified of who he was and had believed he might become.

  The reality was nothing like his fantasies.

  The girl with the blood-red lipstick held something in her hand. It looked like Selena’s red notebook, and sure as shit it probably was. On the floor next to her he saw Selena’s missing Dr. Who scarf looped in the shape of a heart, surrounding the word Virgin written in blood.

  Adam grabbed Selena’s scarf and managed to stand.

  That little shit framed me.

  He’d probably already called the cops. Adam had to get out of there.

  Oh hell. He’d left fingerprints everywhere.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Adam’s phone kept going straight to voicemail.

  Selena kept calling and calling and calling, hoping and wishing and even praying, but no matter what she kept getting the echo without an answer.

  Same for Levi.

  Ditto for Corban.

  She even tried Kari, not that Selena expected the poor girl to give her the time of day.

  What have I done?

  And who the hell am I?

  Pity could come later. Right now, Selena needed help.

  She considered calling Dane. That might be her best play.

  Or was it? So far, her judgement had been pointing due south. He’d left clues like breadcrumbs, and she’d been blind to them all.

  Right now Selena couldn’t trust herself. So calling Dane was out of the question.

  There was someone else she could contact.

  So Selena dialed him instead.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Corban watched as Kari’s expression shifted from suspicion to uncertainty, and then from uncertainty to acceptance.

  “I accept your apology,” she said to Levi, and for the first time since this whole thing started, Corban felt like life might get back to normal.

  No, not normal. Better than normal.