Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
BONTE
“This place is cool,” I tell Naomi. I’m pretty sure she’s been put on babysitting duty.
It’s been well over a week since the whole car incident.
I’m going a little nuts, and she must have noticed, at least that was my initial thought.
Now that I’m standing in the infamous girls’ bunker, my spidey senses are telling me otherwise.
“It’s closer than our other hangout.”
“The warehouse?”
Naomi nods.
I’ve heard about it but have yet to see it for myself. I have been locked away at the farm and am really starting to go stir-crazy. I want to push back about Eros keeping me tucked away, but I can’t after what happened last time.
I also know I can’t stay here forever. I’m sure Eros wouldn’t agree with that. What I need is a way to get out of here so I can slip away and see my father. He has reached out one more time, but nothing has changed.
"You know, I'm good to stay back at the house if you have other things you need to be doing."
The house was fairly empty except for random men I'd met here and there who worked for the Marino family, and I don't mean a butler or cook.
The majority of the family attended the football game tonight. It's homecoming weekend. Both Damon and Jax are on the team, and Nix is now a varsity cheerleader.
Eros has had to leave more and more lately.
He has work. I'm not sure what all that entails, but he came back once with wet hair, and I knew he'd showered.
If Eros were any other man, I would have said he was washing the smell of another woman off him, but I know better.
He washed the blood off himself before coming home.
His red knuckles had really given him away.
All I asked was if it was related to me, and he said, “Not this time.”
"I want to be here." Naomi stares at me.
"Okay, why do you want to be here?"
"I like you." I have to admit her answer shocks me a bit.
"Are you trying to butter me up for something?"
"I am, but I do like you. I get a lot of outsiders who don't get me, but I can like people."
"I'm honored." I smile. "And I'm not even being a smartass."
I sit down on one of the couches. I wasn't lying when I said the place was pretty cool. It's a bit away from Cosima and Z's home, stationed closer to Ronan and Marks’s. Which makes sense because it's Marks’s father that is a doomsday prepper, and this is most definitely a bunker. I’m trying to get better at calling Ellie by her nickname, Marks, like everyone else but it’s taking some getting used to.
The bunker has a secret garden near it. We had to push aside a beautiful rose wall that revealed stone stairs that led down into the bunker. It might be a bunker, but it isn't a war room.
I take that back. It could be one, but there are also chandeliers hung from the ceiling and pink explosions everywhere.
I have no doubt Marks might have designed this place, but Cosima sure as fuck decorated it.
It has her name written all over it. The couch is even a soft velvet that I can't stop running my hands across.
"You believe me?"
"That you like me?"
"That I can like you." She tilts her head slightly, her eyes never leaving me.
"Yes, I mean, War is your father, and it's clear he has affection for his family." And I'm shacking up with Eros.
There are times around his family that he can appear cold, but it's how he carries himself. Not everyone is expressive in the same ways.
It's fascinating to watch them all together, which I'd done at their weekly Sunday dinner.
"And you have a lot of affection for your mother as well." Naomi softens around Tova. It was sweet to watch her mom fuss over her, and Naomi fully allowed it. I might say I enjoyed it.
"My mom is different." Naomi's mouth pulls up on one side. I wonder if I enjoy Naomi so much because she reminds me of Eros but is more chatty. Naomi's got questions, and she wants the answers.
"She's really sweet."
Naomi nods.
"I could potentially be sweet." Her brows pull together as though she's not a fan of her own idea. I'm a bit hung up on potentially. It's an intriguing use of the word there but also fitting.
"Don't force it," I laugh. "If someone inclines you to be sweet, it will happen. No?"
"Maybe." Again, she doesn't appear to care for her own response.
"So ulterior motives."
"Right." Naomi pauses.
"Girl, just spit it out. I don't need you to pretty it up for me."
"See, I knew I liked you." Naomi stands, and I watch her walk over to a wall that has a television mounted on it. She grips some latch, pushing the wall to the side to reveal another wall behind it. Only this one is covered in pictures with string things linking them together.
Holy crap. I feel like I’ve been transported to an FBI headquarters. I take everything in, amazed at how extensive this display is. This must have taken Naomi a fair amount of time to put together.
There are two pictures at the center. My father and me.
"At least you picked a good picture of me."
"It wasn't difficult. You're very pretty."
"I told you. You don't have to butter me up."
"I'm not; I actually like your style."
"I would offer to go shopping with you, but Nix might kill me."
"This is true," Naomi says with such confidence that if I didn't know Eros would lose his shit if anyone so much as touched a hair on my head, I'd say Naomi is dead-ass serious.
"Now to my murder board." She glances over at me.
"Sorry, we can choose a different name for it.
I'm open to suggestions." Again, she’s dead-ass serious.
"The murder board is good as long as not everyone on it ends up murdered."
"Let's hope not."
"Let's." I bite back a laugh. "So why are you stalking my father and me? I mean, I know it's a Marino characteristic, the stalking and all, but I'm flattered yours is on me."
"Mainly your father."
"Right." This time I can't suppress the laugh. I get up, walking over to the board and staring at the picture of my father. I find myself reaching up to touch it. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him in person.
His text messages race through my mind. I need to meet up with him sooner rather than later. Delaying it only continues to put the people I’m close to at risk. Plus, I will get some closure either way.
“I’m not going to lie, Bonte. I’m so intrigued by your father and his behavior.”
“I know.” She said that the first time I’d met her. “But is all this helping you track him down?” I’m not sure of the plan here. I’m also not sure I want them tracking him down. If I could only get that moment alone with him. Staring at his picture has me longing for it more.
“Oh, no?”
“Why does that sound like a question?”
“Because I’m more doing this out of my own curiosity, and it’s close to home, but I suppose you might be able to use it for that. I’m sure the FBI has their own board going and they’re profiling him.”
“I don’t know what the FBI does, but it’s never been good in my experience.”
“There are good agents and bad ones. Everything is tainted with bad apples.”
“Y’all work with the police, don’t you?” Naomi nods. I was always more passive about the agents that would get assigned to me.
“These three.” She taps the pictures she is speaking of. “Were financial-ish.”
“Ish?”
Naomi glances over her shoulder at me. “He enjoys the kills. It’s why he leaves the notes.”
“Right.” I sit back down on the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest.
“I’ve upset you?”
“No, my dad upset me. At least your family kills people that have it coming.”
“And you don’t think they had it coming?”
“That one looks like she should be baking cookies for her grandchildren.” I recognize the faces.
They’d been shoved in my face before when the FBI was trying to pull information from me.
They tied me up, and then they tried to imply I’d killed the boy I’d caught my father killing. I suppose in a roundabout way I had.
“Her?” Naomi pulls the picture down. “She’s a con artist who burned through many husbands.
” Her lips almost turn up in a smirk. “That is kind of badass, but she’d take the kids out too.
Insurance favored this one. While her kills were different, everything from poisoning to house fires, they still had a commonality. The means are the same.”
“Holy crap, Grams.” I take the picture from her. “How did my dad get money from her? I’m guessing he didn’t take out a life insurance policy.”
“Your dad is suave with the ladies, but no. Grams here liked to stuff cash away. Always worried she’d be caught and they’d seize her money.”
That was not what I’d been told. Is that partly why he might want to speak to me? He wants to tell me his side of the story? I want that badly.
“So he killed her and took the money.”
“Yep,” Naomi says way too perkily with a nod of confirmation.
“What about that one?” I point to the next picture and listen to Naomi tell me about another victim and then another.
"Okay, so he kills some shitty people that might have had it coming."
"Unless you count these." Naomi pushes the wall over farther, revealing another board with victims, but in the center is a giant question mark.
"They weren't bad. At least I couldn't find anything on them.
I think convenient and easy marks. Except her.
" She points to a pretty brunette in her forties.
"This was personal. One of those FBI agents' wives.
It's said that he'd come to kill Agent Anderson, but he wasn't there, so he killed his wife. "
"It's said?" Naomi sounds as though she doesn't believe that. "You know he killed a few people linked to me." She steps back to the other board, pulling off a paper to uncover a picture. It’s then I notice there is another picture still covered up.
"Yes, the boy. Good kill." Naomi grabs a file. Good kill? Not sure what to do with that comment. "I dug into him. You weren't the first girl he tried to force himself on, and he enjoyed fire way too much."
"Is it bad to enjoy fire?" I’m learning lots of shit tonight.
“There is a link to fire and sexual assault when it comes to males. They're after destruction. All they want to do is destroy. Then, we also have your mother."
“What?” My eyes flick to the paper covering another picture. “Is that her?” I’m back on my feet.
“Fuck.” Naomi pauses. “I thought you knew about her.”
“I know of her, but I’ve never seen a picture. My father never spoke of her, but those FBI agents told me he killed her.” I pull the paper off myself. I stare at her. I don’t remember her at all. I don’t bear any resemblance, either. “Tell me.”
I’ve pieced together that the pictures in the center of both boards aren’t motivated by money, but Naomi has clocked my father for the killings. Which I knew because I saw the boy being killed myself.
“A one-night stand that produced you. Your father tried to make it work, but crazy is crazy.”
“Like insane crazy?”
“I mean, kinda. I don’t think she was savable; it wasn’t postpartum either. She was nutty before pregnancy, and I could be wrong, but I think she might have tried to drown you. I found this police report. Not a lot to it, but that’s what I’m thinking, also because she’s the only person he drowned.”
"So my mother was a nutcase, and my father is a serial killer."
"Hold on." Naomi spreads her arms out like she is protecting her giant board that I swear is growing. "I don't think these are all his kills. I think the board to the right, the one with the FBI agent's wife and a handful of others, aren’t your father’s.”
"But still a serial killer."
"Yeah, I suppose."
"Are you trying to spare my feelings?" She gives a slight shake of her head, one of her curls falling out of her hair clip.
"It's rough to find out your mother tried to kill you, so your dad killed her. I'm sure you're wondering if you're not all sane up there." She taps her temple.
"I kind of was, but I didn't need you pointing it out."
"I'm only trying to relate. People do that to bond and make others feel better."
"Your mom's a saint."
"This is true," she confirms. "But when you boil it down, we're all still killers."
"Not me. I only have one kill, but give me time," I joke.
"Yes! See, we're bonding and relating." Naomi's response is again rather cheerful, especially from her. Anyone else would think she's joking, but she's not, which only makes it that much funnier, so I do the only thing I can do. I burst into laughter.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm sane either.
“Wish we could talk to your dad. He could really clear this board up for me.” Naomi steps back toward it, grabbing a folder and flipping it open. That would be helpful because the board only has me wanting answers to more questions.
I reach into my bag and pull out my own laptop. While she’s engrossed in reading whatever is in her folder, I send a message to my dad.
Me: I’ll have to sneak out of the Marino compound to see you.
Dad: Is that possible?
I check the time. Now wouldn't be the worst time. I’m away from any of the main houses and close to one of the stone walls that wraps around most of the land except for a giant wooded area. I’d surely get lost, and it’s getting dark.
Me: Maybe. How long would it take you to get here?
Dad: I can come now.
Me: Give me fifteen.
I close my laptop, putting it back into my bag.
“I think I’m going to head back to the house,” I tell Naomi.
“I’ll drive you.”
“It’s fine.” I wave her off. “I could use the fresh air and a walk right now. My head is kind of spinning.”
“You need alone time?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.”
“See you later,” I tell her. Except maybe I won’t.