44
“My father is Roy Bellings.”
The name niggles at the back of my mind. Why does it sound familiar?
“He’s a serial killer who murdered six women before he was caught and jailed. The media called him The Checkmate Killer because he left a chess piece with each victim.”
My entire body stiffens in shock.
It’s a moment I’ll always remember. The warm sunlight streaming through the living room window. The carefree laughter of children racing their bikes down the street. The low rumble of cars finding their way home.
Ordinary life against the backdrop of an extraordinary, terrible revelation.
“He copied Ted Bundy’s tactics,” he tells me, his voice gone distant, as though he can only speak by stepping outside the horror. “He’d choose someone and learn her routine. Then he’d stage an injury—a limp, a sling, bags he couldn’t carry—and ask for help. Their kindness cost them their lives.”
Disbelief tears through me with grief in its wake, a rising swell I can’t seem to ride out. I sit in stunned silence, trying to gather all the pieces of what he’s said and hold them in one place long enough to understand.
“What happened to your father?” I ask at last.
“He’s in prison. Life sentence. No chance of parole.”
“You changed your last name?”
“As soon as I could.”
I meet his eyes. “You told me your parents are dead.”
“They are.”
“But your father is still alive.”
His throat works a little. “He’s dead to me.”
“Joel, I’m so very, very sorry,” I say softly, helplessly, blinking back the hot rush of emotion in my eyes. He doesn’t need my tears right now. He needs me to listen.
“I kept this from you because I wanted you to see me ,” he confesses, his voice fraying. “I didn’t want you to look at me and see the son of a serial killer.”
“I don’t see the man you were born from,” I say fiercely. “I see a good man who is more than the worst thing in his family story.”
Suddenly the pieces click. Why he’s reluctant to form any kind of friendships and why he holds himself off from romantic relationships. He’s trapped in the lie that he’s guilty by association.
“How was your father caught?” I ask.
“I turned him in to the authorities as soon as I discovered what he was doing. When the cops showed up, he came at me with a knife. That’s how I got the scar.”
My breath hitches. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
A wave of sorrow washes over me, my heart breaking for the boy who had to be a man too soon.
“What about your mom?”
“She died in a car accident when I was six.” He scrubs a hand over his face, looking tired and ashamed. “I’ll understand if you want nothing to do with me. Loving someone with my family history... I know that’s a lot.”
It saddens me that he thinks I’d turn away because of this. I want to reach for him, but I make myself read him first. Slowly, I rest my hand on his thigh, trying to ground him with my touch. “Joel, you’re not your father.”
He has to clear his throat before he can speak. “The world hates Roy Bellings for what he did. Some people hate me because they think they see him in me. Others, no matter what I say or do, can’t help but be afraid of me.”
Realization hits like a shock wave. “Your foster parents.”
He nods. “They took me in and were kind in their way. They made sure I was educated. I did my homework, had my own bedroom, but I made them uneasy, like they feared that inside me lurked my father.”
I squeeze my hands together to stop them from shaking in outrage. “I can’t believe they thought that. You stopped him, Joel. You stopped him from murdering other women when you went to the authorities.”
“What kills me is that I look like him.” An uneven breath shudders out of him. “Every time I look in the mirror, I see his eyes, the shape of his nose. I even have his hair color.”
His gaze drifts past me, and I realize he’s a thousand miles away, caught in the riptide of his past. It keeps pulling him farther and farther from me. I want to bring him back. I refuse to lose him to those black, bottomless depths.
“You might look like him on the outside,” I say, “but you are nothing like him inside.”
Shame swims in his eyes. “I’m doing everything I can not to look like him.
Roy kept his hair short; I keep mine long.
He was skinny, which is why he used drugs to subdue his victims. I lift weights to build size.
” His hands clench in his lap. “I don’t want anything of him in me, but his blood is in my veins. ”
I press my palm to his chest. “Your heart is all your own. You don’t share it with him.”
My chest aches for him, for the hurt and the damage done by someone who should have been safe. I grew up wrapped in love and laughter. Even when we clashed, I never doubted my parents’ love.
He bows his head. “I read once that nobody is only a hero or only a villain, that we have it in us to be both. But I don’t believe that about Roy Bellings.”
I notice Joel is careful never to call him father , only Roy Bellings . I don’t blame him.
“No matter how hard I looked,” he continues, “I couldn’t find a single heroic thing in him.
” His hands clench and unclench. “Even keeping me alive wasn’t a kindness.
He liked having someone small to pick on.
” His voice catches. “Not once did he ever tell me he loved me. But he used to say, ‘We’re blood. The only thing that matters is blood.’”
Tears blur my eyes. I’m filled with a mix of fury and fear. Fury for the boy who only wanted his father’s love. And fear that Joel will believe the words of a father who never loved him over the woman who loves him with all her heart.
“You do not live in his shadow,” I say urgently. “You’ve stepped out of it a long time ago. The only shadow left is the one in your mind.”
Joel closes his eyes, like he needs to get himself together. “That’s not the end of it,” he says bleakly. “It gets worse.”