Chapter Nineteen Rot in Hell #2
I turn to Dan, the words bubbling over before I can stop them. “How could you let me date him?” My voice cracks, and I don’t even try to hide the hurt. “You knew. You and Maggie knew my dad killed his mom, and you still let me get close to Everett. Why?”
He winces. “Ryan, I didn’t—”
“You didn’t what? Think it was important? Think I deserved to know? Or Everett?”
Dan rubs the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. You two seemed to really like each other. And what happened between your father and Everett’s mother, that’s got nothing to do with you, kid. You’re not responsible for it.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “That’s, like, the most rose-colored bullshit I’ve ever heard. You truly believe this is just going to be nothing if Everett finds out? You think he’s going to be fine knowing I’m the daughter of the man who killed his mother?”
“There’s no reason for him to ever know—”
“But I know! I know where I come from.” I suck in a calming breath.
Dan doesn’t back down. “You don’t have to pay for your father’s mistakes, Ryan. Those are his actions. You deserve a chance to live your own life, not one defined by his crimes.”
I shake my head, unable to process his calm reasoning. “You and Maggie knew, yet you still let me walk right into this thing with Everett. How could you not warn me?”
“Maggie and I talked about it and decided it would be better if you found out on your own, in your own time. We wanted to protect you. Everett’s a good kid. We didn’t want to take that away from you.”
I laugh bitterly, the sound harsh in the stillness of the woods. “Protect me? You think this is protection? I’m just supposed to keep dating him knowing my dad murdered his mother? How?”
“I don’t have all the answers. I wish I did. But I don’t believe in making children carry the weight of their parents’ sins. I suspect Everett might feel the same.”
My chest tightens with disbelief. “You really think it’s that simple?”
“It’s not simple. It’s complicated as hell. But you didn’t do this, Ryan. And you can’t keep carrying it like you did.”
“Are you feeling better now?” Connor asks, throwing a decorative crochet pillow at me when I emerge from my room before dinner. After my outing with Dan, I took a shower and did my hair, and now the entire house smells like Maggie’s pulled pork, and I’ve surprised myself by having an appetite.
“Yeah,” I say, sitting on the couch beside him. Life is moving on, whether I want it to or not. So I need to move with it.
Jasmine is in the recliner, absently channel surfing. She tosses her twin the remote and turns to look at me. “So, I heard a little rumor.”
I’m sure she did. She and her friends are like rumor central. “What?”
“Someone told me Chase Hedlund brought you home from the party.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“I never reveal my sources. So…spill. What happened?”
If she wants juicy details, she’ll be sorely disappointed. “I’ll tell you what happened. My cousins drove off and forgot me.”
Connor sits up. “Wasn’t my fault! Genius over here said you were getting a ride with Everett.”
“Well, she was supposed to!” Jasmine grabs a wadded-up paper towel near her and launches it at him. “But how did you wind up with the juvenile delinquent?”
“Out of necessity? It’s a long walk home.”
“I hope that’s all it is. Because remember how happy my mom was for you to go out with Everett? She wouldn’t be the same with Chase. He’s trouble.”
As much as I wish I wasn’t interested in Chase, as much as I wish I hated him as much as he hates me, I can’t help but be curious. “Why?”
“He’s constantly getting picked up by the sheriff for drinking or hooking up in public. He skips school so much, there’s no way he’s graduating on time.” Jasmine shrugs. “Like I said, trouble.”
“Well, it was just a ride home,” I tell her. “I had no choice. You guys left, and Everett was busy tending to Nikki.”
Jasmine nods, snapping her gum. “Poor Nik. She’s, like, broken right now.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Not really. I keep texting, but I get one-word responses.” Jasmine hesitates.
“Honestly, she and I have kinda been drifting apart. All she wants to do lately is get high or drunk or find older guys to hook up with. She keeps bailing on cheer practice. Didn’t even show up for the game last week.
Coach Keenan wanted to kick her off the squad, but I bet that won’t happen now.
People already feel bad enough for Nikki and Everett. ”
“Really?” I counter. “Because I’ve never heard a single person talk about it at school.”
“It was ten years ago,” Connor points out. “After a while, there’s nothing left to say. Like, their mom was murdered. We all know that. And Everett made it clear he wasn’t going to discuss it, so eventually people stopped asking.”
“That’s not the only reason.” Jasmine adopts the conspiratorial tone that tells me she’s about to spill some tea.
“Nikki told me that JP spoke to Principal Healey last year and told her to make sure kids weren’t bugging Nikki and Everett.
It was after that loser, Trevor, started his little Thorn fan club.
I think the teachers all banded together to stop people from talking to them about it. ”
“So what happened to her?” I ask. “Leah, I mean. She just went missing?”
The unexpected grief that hit me after my father’s suicide has clouded my head so much that I haven’t even gone online yet to research Everett’s mother. Now the curiosity is eating at me.
“Yeah. She was Uncle Psycho’s last victim, and she just disappeared one day. Picked up dry cleaning downtown and was never seen again.” Jasmine pauses as if to search her memory. “I think Leah and JP didn’t have a great relationship.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Mom said they were always fighting. And there were rumors that Leah was having an affair, so people thought she might’ve run off with another man.”
Connor pipes up, “But after they arrested Thorn, the police cleaned out his studio—”
“—and found all his drawings of her,” Jasmine finishes, glaring at her twin for interrupting. “Stashed away with portraits of the other women who’d disappeared. And a bunch of items that belonged to her too. That’s when they realized she was one of his victims.”
I think of the cabin, picturing all those sketchbooks hidden beneath the floorboards. His secret little nook for his sick trophies. I can’t stomach the thought that I sat on that floor, playing with my toys and painting my birdhouses, when right beneath me were drawings of murdered women.
Suddenly I’m not so hungry anymore.
I go to our bedroom and grab my phone, typing in “Leah Devereaux and Gabriel Thorn.”
One of the first images that pops up is a photograph of the sweetest little kids with dark hair and blue eyes. A boy and girl, clad in all black, standing at a funeral service.
Everett and Nikki.
I try to suck in a breath, but it’s bordering on impossible. My throat is clamped tight. My father is the reason they don’t have a mother.
I click to close the image, but that does no good.
Those two heartbroken children are all I see.