Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
THE WORLD NEEDS LESS ASSHOLES.
Juniper
“So let me get this straight, you told the guy no several times, warned him you’d mace him—” Sterl sits on the edge of the armchair, eyes wide as he recounts Jeffrey Morgan’s stupidity on each of his fingers.
“Mace? What happened to the little Taser I got you for your purse?” Dash questions, sitting upright against the couch. I’ve figured out that the more gruesome details are best skirted around, because Dash, despite his job as a Bluebell officer, gets a little queasy with some of the details.
“This was before you got it for me but… I don’t carry it on me anyway,” I admit, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “I accidentally tasered Trace,” I admit, remembering the day that Trace came back to the house to grab Ivy’s pencil stash. I thought it was an intruder because he came in the back door and didn’t call out that he was there. So I tasered him.
I felt bad after the fact, but Ivy agreed—if you don’t announce yourself, you get tasered.
“Wait, so—” Dash strokes a hand down his face, his eyes contemplatively set on me. “If you had Mace the whole time…”
I shake my head. “That was a little white lie.” I shrug. “I didn’t expect to be called on it. Most times you tell a man you have Mace, they back off.”
“I get the feeling that Jeffrey Morgan called your bluff?” Sterling’s lips quirk to the side, and my eyes trace the subtle lift, falling down to the landscape of exposed throat and chest, put on display from the way he’s tugged at his hoodie. I can’t wait to be past all this stupid dead guy stuff and have my lips pressed right there, right where his pulse hammers in his throat.
I nod, ignoring the pulsing between my legs that has been occurring off and on all night. Between gory and tiresome details, I get lost in them. I realize that coming clean about years of murder is not the best time to get turned on, and that if I read this in a book, I’d probably think I was crazy.
But I’m not.
I am passionate about the world not being full of assholes.
And jam.
And my family.
And these guys.
But I am not crazy.
After telling them how Jeffrey Morgan put his hands on me at the King Dum—a dumpling place in Oakcreek where I started meeting my internet dates—I recounted how even though I’d never once said yes, he never once stopped when I said no.
I told them that the chipper had been acting up, and I knew under the oak tree wouldn’t work so I put his remains in the old well near the edge of my property line. There hasn’t been water in it for years, and no one goes out there since the land is dry and infertile. But it’s far and even dead men are heavy, so I only used the well once.
I tell them about the next guy in detail.
I explain to the men that Stanley was a child rapist I’d seen on the news. I remember his story vividly, because the children he assaulted were so young, around age five or so. I thought of Bear, and I thought of that man putting his filthy, sick hands all over him. And if God or the universe doesn’t want me to be bad, then why on his green earth did Stanley Eugene Cutler move to Bluebell, California, where I reside?
Divine intervention works in mysterious ways I think.
I followed Cutler and waited until he went to the hardware store, and I asked him out. He said yes, so I followed him home, fed him jam and as soon as he became paralyzed, I smothered him to death with the stacks of newspapers I found in his home.
They were papers that featured his victims. He’d bought them as trophies.
It only seemed fitting that his throat would be full of their stories as he took his final breath. Fair is fair.
“Stanley Eugene Cutler,” Dash recites the name of my fourth victim back to me, “he fucked up by choosing Bluebell,” he finishes, rounding off that thought as if he sees it completely from my perspective, leaving me with no nagging feeling to defend my actions.
Sterling scoffs. “Anyone who regularly goes by their three full names is usually a serial killer or a child molester, so that tracks.” He lifts his brows as he bobs his head, the fire licking at his silhouette, leaving traces of dark where details normally are. Sterling looks good by the fire. But then again, so does Dash.
“He deserved it,” Dash says, getting to his feet to grab us each a can of soda from the fridge. We’ve moved past tea and pie to Coke and popcorn. Recounting terrible men and their egregious acts makes you thirsty, apparently.
“And he was chipped?” Sterling asks, his eyes narrowed as if he’s taking mental notes of everything I’m saying. “I fixed the chipper not long after it broke.”
I nod. “Yes. I chipped him but I took him to the Bluebell-Oakcreek town line, out in the country.” I may or may not have just seen The Shawshank Redemption rerun on cable a few days before, and the thought of Red leaving something for Andy buried in a special spot resonated with me.
“I guess what I’m wondering now,” Sterling says, opening the can of soda Dash brought him. “Is how much paralytic did you get from the vet? At some point, Hudson had to realize he didn’t have it and pick more up, right?”
There’s a sore spot on the inside of my cheek from chewing it. There are parts of this story that I genuinely feel bad about, which I know is ironic because, hello , murder. I should feel bad about all of it, in theory. But I don’t.
The world needs less assholes.
I do, however, feel bad about robbing the Bluebell Veterinary Clinic. Poor Dr. Jones. “I was running out, yeah, and yeah, Hudson eventually started picking up his own stuff because… obviously.”
My gaze moves between Sterling and Dash for a moment as I search for the words to explain. I want to make them understand that I only used Dr. Jones because I felt I had to, not because that’s who I am. But Dash figures me out before I say a word.
“Derek Jones was your ticket to more paralytic and tranquilizers, wasn’t he?” Dash doesn’t drink his Coke, only holds it between his hands as he stares at me in the dim light of my living room.
I nod, swiping a tear that sneaks out. I have no right to cry. I’m the bad girl here. Still, I do feel bad.
“We got drunk at the bowling alley, and then I asked him for an after-hours tour of the clinic. He was drunk enough to say yes, and drunk enough that he didn’t notice I snagged his keys.” I glance over to the cupboard below the TV, where a normal person keeps DVDs and old VHS tapes.
“The rest is there. I’m running low.”
Sterling’s eyes come to mine, and I’m relieved to find they are free of judgment. “He had to know it was you that took them.”
I roll my lips together. “Well, around that time, Ink Time was nearly robbed. That was all over the Bluebell papers. I gaslighted him into thinking that they must've robbed him before they were unsuccessful at Ink Time.”
“He bought that?” Sterling asks incredulously.
I nod. “Yeah, he did.”
Dash rolls his eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“Uh, he wants to fuck you, that’s what,” he says, irritation coursing through him.
Sterling snorts, adding, “Definitely.”
“We didn’t— I was never going to—” I don’t need to defend myself because Sterling comes to sit next to me, kneading the tension from my neck with one large hand.
“We know, sweetheart. We’re just saying. He let himself get robbed and lied to because he wants to get inside you.”
His choice of words paints me in a flush. “I don’t know about that.”
“We do,” Dash says, looking over at Sterling, who returns his nod.
“The town line—” Sterling starts. “Did you keep burying them out there?”
I shake my head. “The disposal has proven the hardest. I couldn’t always get the time to drive that far out, and I was worried about the well, and all the other places, so I had to get creative.”
“More creative than a woodchipper?” Dash asks, and it surprises me that he’s somewhat smirking.
Nodding my head, I spill my guts about one of the things I feel guiltiest about, outside of using Dr. Jones. “Dash,” I start, hoping he isn’t angry with me. “Remember when you were telling us about the guy that sells hard drugs in Oakcreek?”
He doesn’t move, but his eyes widen, and Sterling’s hand leaves my neck, favoring my thigh. He squeezes me once. “Juniper,” he draws out, fear in his tone.
“Well, I went and bought drugs from him. I told him I wanted the baddest stuff. The bad stuff that’s on the news. Strong, powerful… dangerous stuff.”
“You bought drugs? But why?” Dash asks, nodding toward the cabinet I referenced a moment ago. “I thought you said you still have paralytic and tranquilizers and shit from Jones?”
I nod. “I do. I didn’t need the drugs for the jam. I needed them for cleanup .”
“I don’t follow, sweetheart,” Sterling says softly, now stroking his palm down my leg until he cups my knee. The touch floods my center with a pulsing, undeniable heat, and I wonder if there’s truly something wrong with me to be able to get turned on while discussing murder.
But no one’s perfect.
“For numbers six, seven and eight, I fed them the jam laced with both paralytic and the drugs in case they were tested, then put the drugs on their person, or in their home, so that when they were found, it would look like an OD. And if they were tested, all they'd have in their system would be more drugs.”
“You weren’t worried about them finding out each man’s stomach contents contained jam?” Dash asks, making sweat bubble on my neck.
I shake my head. “Not really. Everyone loves my jam.” Smiling, I add, “And I made sure to leave a jar of Smucker’s in the fridge, with no sign of Juni’s Jams anywhere.”
Dash lets out a sigh, scrubbing a hand down his face as he processes. “You’re good at being a criminal.”
“I don’t like that word,” I admit, feeling like it doesn't fit me at all.
Dash comes to sit next to me, and I relish sitting between the two of them. Being the center of their focus makes everything else in the world A-okay.
“If you have to label me,” I say quietly, caught between the desire to continue my spree of coming clean and getting back to what we started the other night at their place. “Just call me a bad girl. ”
The groan rumbling through Sterling’s chest has my cunt pulsing. Dash lets out a deep sigh.
“Okay, bad girl, tell us about six, seven and eight. But first, start with five.”
Donald Taylor, number five, was a man lingering near Bear’s elementary school, asking kids if they needed a ride, telling them he had fudge and candies. There was a week when Hudson went out of town, leaving Dolly and I to help with picking up Bear from school.
I saw Donald at the school every single day. I had Dolly ask the woman working reception if he had a student there. She said they were unaware he was even out there.
I told myself that if I went back on a random day and he was still there, I could act on my suspicions that this man was an unsuccessful pedophile in the making. On a normal Tuesday, I drove past Bear’s school just a few minutes shy of the bell ringing and there he was, Donald Taylor, clinging to the chain-link fence near the jungle gym, his blue van hugging the curb.
“Getting Donald was the most challenging. He didn’t want to talk to me at all. I think he knew I was full of shit when I showed interest in him,” I recall, remembering approaching the man with a large jar of jam. “I said I’m the local jam maker and told him I was giving away jars, and asked if he wanted one, and he said nothing.”
“If he didn’t eat the jam, how’d you get him?”
I chew the inside of my mouth a second and try not to relive every moment as I recount what happened. “I had to stab him in broad daylight with the syringe. It was risky but…” I trail off, remembering what I saw in the back of his van the day I made the choice to get rid of him. “There were teddy bears and blankets and Barbies in his van. It was a total trap and I—” I shake my head, nausea rolling through my insides. I’m not sick at the idea of what I did. I’m sick at the idea that he existed.
Sterling and Dash each take one of my hands, linking them. “He didn’t deserve to live,” Sterling says, consoling me.
“I remember seeing Taylor on the news, a missing person,” Dash says, stroking our joined knuckles with his free hand. “He was, what, six-four? How’d you get rid of him?” he asks, amazement shining in his eyes.
When I first started to come clean, I feared I’d lose them. That they’d rightfully not want to hitch their wagon to a monster. But the pale coloring and uneasy stomachs seem to have dwindled, replaced by understanding and… maybe even affection.
“I got him to sit in his passenger seat before he completely went under. And since he was already out, I gave him two more shots in the thigh, then fed him through the chipper.” I swallow before admitting the next bit, but don’t consider keeping it secret. I said I’d come clean, no matter the cost. “He was conscious by the time I got him in. Not able to talk but his eyes… he was aware.”
Silence falls on us as they likely imagine me running a live man through a woodchipper. “He was a pedophile,” I remind them quietly.
Sterling edges forward on the couch, facing me, and Dash does the same. “I’m just honestly trying to wrap my mind around how you got him up to the chute.”
“I made a pulley,” I tell them, remembering having to traipse back to the barn for rope. “I hooked rope over the tree above the chipper, tied him up and yanked until he was resting on the machine. The rest was just moving him around until he fit.”
“And his remains?”
I nod toward the sliding door, where a firepit rests in sight right off the patio. “Burned the remains, cleaned up the ash and bones, and buried it under the patio.”
Their gazes idle on the patio outside the sliding door, likely imagining everything resting in that soil. There’s a lot of hatefulness buried there, and exactly why I chose under the patio and pergola. No roots in that soil, nothing trying to grow or bloom. The perfect place for toxicity to stay until the end of time.
“Okay, bad girl, who’s number six, what did he do, and where are we on Juniper Sky’s timeline?” Sterl hedges after peeking at his watch. It’s nearing midnight now, and Hudson will be up in a matter of hours. If they want to dig up number ten, I know I’ve gotta get through this a bit quicker, else we’ll have to wait.
“Howard Cox. Two years and eleven months ago.” I remember Howard well, not that I want to. I always want to forget, but out of sight, out of mind is kind of a lie. When you watch someone's life drain away, no matter how evil or cruel they are, you never forget them, not really.
They wait, knowing his story is coming. I finish my Coke and return my hand to Dash’s, Sterling and I are still linked. “We went to Bluebell High together. He was four years older than me, but I remember him pretty well. He was always a jerk. Married his high school sweetheart, Judy Ross.”
“Two years and eleven months, that happened right before I moved to Bluebell,” Dash says, thinking it through. “What happened?”
“I saw him with Judy at the baking supply store. She started up her own little cookie decorating business, and was apparently getting supplies for her first major order. Anyway, we chatted in the shop, caught up, she told me she was recently divorced but again, thriving due to her new business. That was all it was.”
I pinch my eyes closed as I remember leaving the bake shop, dropping my case of canning jars onto the cement the moment I heard her. “When I left the shop, Howard was waiting outside. I guess Judy didn't want to talk to him—she had a restraining order against him and everything.” I remember the piercing cry that came from Judy, held against the wall by his hand on her throat. Her eyes came to mine, full of panic, silently begging for help.
“He was choking her and he punched her in the stomach once, too,” I recall, hating Howard all over again, even though there is no more Howard. Still, my body burns with anger for him.
“Fucking prick,” Dash says.
“Yeah, well, I knew right then I wanted to kill him. But the bake shop has security cameras. And I didn’t have my supplies, plus Judy was right there. I couldn’t have a witness.”
“So what did you do?”
“I waited until the next farmers market. Judy said he always goes, follows her around, bugs her. She also let me know that part of the reason they split was infidelity, so from there I made a plan.”
“I know it’s in the past, but I hate the idea of you using yourself to bait these fucking monsters,” Sterling says, voice husky with concern.
“Same. I wish you—I wish you would’ve come to us,” Dash says, exasperated. Shaking my head, I smile sadly at him.
“I didn’t want to involve anyone. Even Ivy and Dolly don’t know.” I shake my head, staring down at my hand. “Anyway, he showed up to the farmers market. Hudson wanted to escort him off the property, but I said I’d walk him out. I talked to him, pretended to understand, gave him a few jars of jam because of the way Hudson handled him. Told him I was on his side.”
“That had to hurt, pretending to like him,” Dash comments.
“It was awful, and giving him jam was awful, too. I mean, even though it was spiked, still, giving a man who hits a woman anything feels like too much.”
“So he went home and ate the jam?” Sterling asks, breaking our connection to get to his feet. “Hold that thought, I’ve gotta take a piss.”
“Same,” Dash comments, getting to his feet, too.
“You guys going together, or?” I smile, trying to infuse the space with humor after so much murder chat. Sterling’s cheeks flush and Dash’s head rears back.
“What? No. You have two bathrooms, don’t you? If you don’t, I’ll wait. I’ll just wait,” Dash says, his words smashed together, eyes wide. Sterling moves past us down the hall, and a moment later the bathroom door shuts.
It is quiet between us. Dash’s eyes linger where Sterling just stood. Quietly, I broach the topic. “Do you admit it to yourself, or do you never admit it?” I ask Dash, the soft sound of the exhaust fan trickling down the hall.
“Admit what?” he asks, blinking up at me with tired but beautiful gray eyes.
“That you’re attracted to Sterling.”
My heart races as the words float, hanging with zero ambiguity between us. If he isn’t ready to face this, who am I to push him? Then again, I’m massively outside my comfort zone right now, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to pay off.
“I didn’t want to tell the truth about all the terrible things I’ve done,” I whisper. “But now that I am, I feel a lot better.”
“But if we’d have stormed out of here in shock and disgust, you wouldn’t feel better. You’d be miserable. And you’d say to yourself, why did I do that? Why didn’t I just keep it inside? ” he says, insecurity wavering in his voice. I fall to a crouch, draping my hands on his knees, locking onto his timid gaze.
“He will not feel disgusted if you share how you feel,” I tell him.
“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he finally says after his eyes search mine for a baited, quiet moment. I don’t want to push, I really don’t. But I see things that Dash doesn’t.
The bathroom door clicks open. I get to my feet, joining Dash, his chest grazing Sterling’s as they pass in the hall.
“You’re brave, doing all the things you’ve done,” Sterling says, standing with one arm poised above the sliding door as he stares out into the early hours of a new day.
Coming up behind him, I have the strongest urge to loop my arms around his waist, to press my shoulder to the center of his strong back, and feel his hands come down over mine. I need him in that way, I always have. But it wouldn’t be complete without Dash, and as he returns from the bathroom, it’s not the right time.
“He ate the jam, and then what?” Dash asks, settling into his spot on the couch, his cheeks still flush from our private conversation a moment ago.
“So I showed up, planning on convincing him to taste the jam, you know,” I admit, a shiver rolling down my spine. I didn’t want to seduce him to kill him, but I would have if it came down to it. “Good thing is, Howard Cox’s impulse control didn’t stop with Judy. When he didn’t answer the door, I went around the back and slipped in through his mud room window and found him passed out on the living room floor.” I look between them, remembering the jar of jam open on the counter, the preserves I worked so hard to formulate spread over an assortment of male sex toys. “He ate it, but he was also using it with a few male toys…” I trail off, disgusted by just the flashback.
“Male toys,” Sterling repeats. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”
Bless him, I believe that. And it does nothing for the pressure brewing in my ovaries. “I didn’t either.” I look at Dash, whose neck and cheeks go cherry. “I’m only thinking you may know because you’re younger,” I tell him, fighting back a smile.
Amidst many sleepless nights, I’ve thought about this. How they touch themselves. What face they make at the beginning and how it evolves when they orgasm, the sounds they may make, what they watch, the way they twist their wrists or don’t. Do they stroke fast? Hard? Slow and long? I. Have. Thought. About. This.
“I don’t—” He sinks into the couch, sifting a hand through his hair before reaching behind him to yank off his hoodie with one hand. As he does, his t-shirt rises up, and I watch Sterling’s eyes flash on the strip of bare skin before coming back to mine. “I don’t use toys—I don’t really want to talk about this,” he says decidedly, his knee bouncing as he looks between us.
“I masturbate,” I say, pulling my hair off my face, quickly twisting it into a loose braid. “Sterling masturbates, too.”
Sterling’s jaw falls open and Dash’s eyes go dark.
“Everyone masturbates. Not everyone uses toys, but toys are not something to be embarrassed about.” Dash still says nothing, so I don’t press. “Well, it was this sleeve thing. Like a silicone or rubber thing, he was clearly having intercourse with. And he was using my jam as lube.”
“That sounds… sticky,” Sterling comments, a grimace twisting his features.
Dash shakes his head. “Jam as lube?”
“Probably fantasizing about you,” Sterl adds.
Dash nods. “Fucking prick.”
“He also had a lot of alcohol in his house. There were empty bottles everywhere. I took some of the drugs and planted them in his house. Then I planted more drugs. Nightstand drawer. Some in the kitchen. Put some in his car. Then I put some in his pocket, for good measure, held a couch pillow over his face for two minutes and thirteen seconds, and left. I banked on him having enough assault arrests and charges pressed against him from Judy that finding him overdosed in a sea of booze and drugs wouldn’t warrant any real investigation.”
Dash tips his chin. “You were right. We only have a few open cases in Bluebell, and none of them are linked to the Missing Misters, somehow.” He pauses, almost impressed. “I’ve never heard the name Howard Cox until tonight.”
“Damn, that… worked out well,” Sterling says. “I feel like I need a cigarette after all this.”
“You don’t smoke,” I tell him as I get to my feet and shove another log onto the fire.
“No, but Jesus, Juni.” He shakes his head, turning to face Dash. “How you doing with all this?”
Dash shrugs. “Acclimating, I think.”
“Yeah?” Sterl questions, and I watch as he studies Dash, taking in his body language, the pinch of his brows, and the way he strokes a hand down his jaw. I even catch Sterling following Dash’s gaze. He knows him well, and he’s deciding now if Dash is being honest.
“Yeah,” Dash confirms, turning to hold eye contact with his roommate. For a moment, I feel like I’m interrupting a private moment between them, but then they cast their gazes my way at the same time.
“On to seven?” Dash asks.
I take my place between them on the couch and stare at the old copies of People magazine littered over the coffee table. On the cover of one is the star of a reality TV show about being a wealthy housewife. I SURVIVED ADULTERY reads the headline, along with a lot of other sentences revolving around how she got her strength back, and how she’s so brave.
“Howard cheated on Judy,” I say softly, staring into the eyes of the woman who got her husband’s millions because he came inside the nanny.
“You mentioned that,” Sterl says.
“He put his hands on her a lot,” I say, pulling at a loose thread on the hem of my nightie. “And that’s why I did what I did. But when I found out he was also cheating…” I look between the two of them. “You’d never cheat on someone you loved, would you?”
Sterling’s eyes glitter as our gazes idle, my question brimming with subtext. “Never,” he rasps.
“Never,” Dash agrees.
“Number seven was a cheater, too. But his cheating impacted me personally.”
Dash arches a brow. “You had a boyfriend? And he cheated on you?”
I shake my head. “No, and his cheating isn’t why I did… you know, what I did. His cheating was just a single sprinkle of a bigger cupcake of issues.”
“Only you can turn a murder admission into a sweet metaphor, Juniper,” Sterl says, a soft smile on his face.
“What else did he do?” Dash asks.
Looking at Sterling, since Dash moved to Bluebell shortly after this kill, I ask, “Do you remember Rhett Heard, Ivy’s boyfriend from two years back?”
Sterling’s eyes hold mine, flitting, searching, a rumple in his forehead as he clearly thinks. At once, he sits up and his eyebrows lift. “Oh yeah, he was that local telemarketer, right?”
“Yes,” I say, turning to Dash to explain. “Before Ivy met Trace, she dated this guy, Rhett. He was always kind of an asshole to her, in my opinion, slamming on her art, telling her tattooing is for guys, not women. Shit like that.”
“Gross.”
“I know. And to make matters worse, like Sterl said, he was a telemarketer. And he always talked over her. He never had cash on him, so she was always paying. And he cheated on her multiple times.” I clench my jaw, imparting the worst detail is on the way. “In the bathroom at the bowling alley.”
“Ewwww,” Dash drawls, his face scrunching up in disgust.
“I know,” I tell him, glancing back at Sterling who shares the same repulsed expression. “I saw it with my own eyes, too. I’d gone to the alley to take Sally some jam, and just to hang out, you know? You were visiting your brother,” I tell Sterl, because we’ve been close for so long, there is overlap with my bad deeds and hanging with him. “I went to the restroom and in the stall next to me, people were clearly… you know, doing it.”
“How’d you know it was Rhett?” Dash asks.
“I didn’t until I returned to the bar to finish my root beer float, and I watched the door to see who it was. When I saw it was Rhett, and he saw me, he came up to me and he threatened me. He said, ‘Don’t you dare say a word of this to Ivy.’ Then the girl with him said, and I quote, ‘You’re dating that witchy weirdo?’”
Sterling sucks in a breath, sloping forward on the couch to rest his elbows on his knees. “Yikes.”
“Yeah, then Rhett laughed and said, ‘Witchy weirdo, I like that name.’ I wanted to punch his lights out right then and there but… I didn’t. Instead, I followed him home.” I split a cautionary glance between the two of them. “Rhett told Ivy he lived alone. But he didn’t. He lived with his father.”
They don’t speak, and I haven’t told them how the story ends, but they’re aware there’s no happily ever after for Rhett and his dad. I see that in their eyes, the understanding of who I am and what I’ve tasked myself to do.
“Keith Heard was his father’s name, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree at all.”
Sterling’s voice is hoarse, and though he must know it ended okay for me, still, worry and stress line his features. “What happened?”
“Well, I knocked on the door expecting Rhett to answer. Had he answered, my plan was to invite myself in on behalf of Ivy. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but both fortunately and unfortunately I never had the chance to find out.” I lick my lips, my pulse nervously thumping in my throat. “Keith answered. He said he recognized me from the market, and I guess I kind of did recognize him a little, too. It had definitely been a few years since I’d seen him, but he did look vaguely familiar.”
“How’d you manage to get inside and get them to eat jam?” Dash wonders aloud.
“I told him I was there to see Rhett, and he let me in. Rhett was in the shower, but I was told I could wait. He was… really eyeing me. I was beyond uncomfortable, so to make small talk I took out the jam and told him who I was, that I was Ivy’s older sister and I wanted to talk to Rhett about their relationship and that I came with a peace offering. The jar of jam.”
My eyes fall closed for a brief moment as a vivid memory dances around my head, causing an image of Keith Heard to appear. Shoulder-length blond hair stringy from grease, his gaunt frame and tattered old whiskey t-shirt, the way his worn eyes scraped over my body unabashedly—a shudder racks my torso from just the memory.
“Once I told him who I was, he started to talk about Ivy. Called her a gothic bitch who wants to be a man.” My bottom lip wobbles remembering the violence that took place in those four walls two years back. “I wanted it to be peaceful, you know? I mean, I know smothering someone I’ve drugged isn’t peaceful for them, but all things considered, for what they deserved, it is peaceful. If it’s loud and messy and scary, that’s when I really feel like I’m doing something wrong. That’s why the jam worked so well. It was so peaceful. So simple. But after he insulted Ivy, I just… I don’t know. I became someone else entirely.”
“A very bad girl,” Sterling says, not seductively despite the flare of heat between my legs at the smoky curve of his words.
“Yes,” I say slowly, nodding, still playing with the hem of my nightie until Dash clasps his hand over mine. I look over at him, finding his silvering eyes unsettled. “I’ve been very bad.”
“What happened next?” Dash presses. Sterling drapes his hand over my thigh, and even though he’s touched me more tonight than I could argue he ever has before, my body reacts like the first touch. Clenching and pulsing privately, arousal pricking through my limbs, I place my hand on his and answer Dash.
“I took off my dress, right there in the living room, with his filthy words about my sister still hanging in the air, I showed him my bare body.” I shake my head, feeling disgusting all over again. “I used myself because it’s all I could think to do, and then when Rhett came out I told them that if he got back together with Ivy, I’d let them have me. For one night, together.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that they wanted to do that, and agreed?”
I nod. “Yes. I told them before we were going to have sex that they needed a snack for their stamina. I told them I wanted peanut butter and jam, and they wanted some too.” I shake my head, in disbelief of what happened next, still surprised by it years later. “Keith was onto me. He asked why I wanted them out of nowhere, why Ivy cared about Rhett so much anyway. And then he asked what might be in the jam.”
“What did you tell him?” Sterl asks, completely on edge now.
“I told him they needed their stamina, and I agreed to eat the jam too, to prove that it wasn’t dosed with anything. We ate sandwiches, I told them I was going to freshen up before we did it, and then I purged as much as I could in their bathroom. I knew not all of the paralytic would be out of my system, so I had to work even faster. When I came back out of the restroom a few minutes later, they were both unconscious on the floor. I started to feel… funny. As quickly as I could, I smothered them with a pillow until I lost track of their respective pulses. I got my dress back on and the traces of paralytic hit. I made sure to sit upright, and then I had to sit in the house with their dead bodies at my feet, paralyzed, staring at them for two hours before I regained my strength. It was horrible.”
“Get up,” Dash says, surprising me. “C’mon, up. On your feet.”
Sterling and Dash both stand, so I join them, tears in my eyes. That night was awful, and if I’m honest, Keith and Rhett are the only two of my victims that I’ve ever second-guessed.
Immediately I’m sandwiched between their arms, heat and muscle keeping me safe, the familiar scent of them bringing much-needed comfort. With so much safety, I unravel a little, my shoulders trembling as my legs grow weak. I hadn’t anticipated growing so emotional, recounting all of these things, but as heavy sobs leave my belly and fill the air, I’m just grateful for my guys.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Sterling soothes, pressing his lips to my hairline.
“You’ve been strong and you’ve been so brave,” Dash adds, stroking his hand down my braid tenderly.
“I killed ten people. I’m a murderer. Even if they deserved it and even if Bluebell and the world at large is a better place without them, I killed them. There are stains on my soul. And now I’ve involved the two of you.” Tears blur my vision as I cry against Dash’s chest, my back shaking against Sterling. “This was wrong. I shouldn’t have gone to your place last night after the guy in the ravine. I’m so sorry. If you want to pretend I never told you and you guys want to stop talking to me, I completely understand. I’ll never tell a soul that I told you both.”
Someone says something, but my cries are only gaining momentum and volume. I stand between the men I love, crying and shaking, snot and tears making a mess of whatever beauty lingered in my truth. They allow me to cry, though I know I have no right to tears after all that I’ve done, regardless of my reasons. They hold and soothe me, and when my face is sticky with drying tears and I’m able to breathe without my entire core shaking, we step apart.
Sterling smiles softly, his mannerisms a direct contrast to the sheer size of him. “We do have some things to figure out but everything is going to be okay,” he says, holding my gaze for what feels like forever, making sure I know he’s serious.
“That’s right. We’ve got some work ahead of us but… it’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay,” Dash says, not fidgeting with his hair but looking me dead in the eye before looking at Sterling. “The three of us, we got this.”