three #2
He deserves it, operating Wonderland the way he does.
He deserves more than all the luxuries money can buy, even if he won’t get them for himself.
I wanted him to know that, to believe the words I always tell him, that he’s indispensable.
The comfort and status of this car are only small indicators of how much we value him.
As the head of our little family, it’s my job to make him feel important, even when I don’t understand why he doesn’t.
I think about that as I drive up the coast, following the road along the edge of the cliffs.
When I see the little pull-off where we parked the night I killed Jane, I turn into it and cut the engine.
My heart is beating slow and steady, but it feels heavy in my chest, each beat like the thud of an approaching footfall.
At last, I climb out and stand in the biting wind, listening for the sound of an engine over the shriek.
Nothing.
I hurry across the road and into the woods, not slowing until I’ve made my way deep enough into the pines that if a car passes, they won’t see me, even if they’re looking.
In the dark, I blend with the trunks. The deciduous trees are bare this time of year, but the pine boughs cast shadows on the carpeted floor beneath, helping conceal me.
I don’t need a tracker to remember where I left Jane.
I removed it before I left her, anyway, cutting it quickly from her arm when I pulled Duke’s shirt off her and checked her slowing pulse before I walked away.
I knew I wouldn’t need any help finding her.
My memory is impeccable. And even though I’d ensured that her tracking device paired only with my phone, I couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t malfunction when I was far away, unable to intervene if something went wrong.
Even if her tracker did become discoverable, though, no one would find her because no one would look.
No one ever filed a missing persons report.
She has no family to wonder where she went.
There is only Olive, and she doesn’t know what happened to her sister, and she never will.
Jane is lucky I kept her so long, paid her all that attention girls want so much.
If it weren’t for me, no one would have even known she existed all those months.
She would have lived on the street, selling her body and becoming a junkie until one day, she died in some alley and was tossed into the nearest dumpster like the trash she was.
A girl like her has no future. She would have contributed nothing of value to the world, left no mark when she was gone.
I gave her a purpose. One might even say she taught me things about human endurance that I wouldn’t have otherwise learned—at least not with firsthand experience and observation.
I let her die with a legacy: informing one of the world’s most brilliant minds.
When I leave my mark on the world, in some small way I’ve let her be part of it, even long after she’s gone.
As I make my way to the place where I left her, I try to picture what she’ll look like now, what’s left of her.
Though I like studying the human body, I haven’t studied it in advanced stages of decomposition, so I can only guess.
It’s freezing now, but after months of being out here, I won’t find her frozen corpse intact.
I want to increase my pace, but tonight is much darker than the night we left her, with only a sliver of moon to light my way.
I move methodically, and at last, I reach the spot.
My eyes have adjusted, but even so, under the canopy of trees, I can’t see much.
I can’t make out even a glimpse of white on the ground that could be bones.
The wind wails mournfully overhead, and in the distance, I can hear the crash of the surf, but no other sounds reach me in the night.
Finally, I reluctantly switch on the flashlight on my phone and shine it around the area.
Maybe I didn’t remember as well as I thought, because not only do I not see a skeleton lying there, but I don’t see the small trench I kicked in the dirt before I covered her.
I search for a few minutes before I find what I think marks the place, a long indentation that’s now filled with pine needles.
I crouch and sweep away the debris with a gloved hand, examining the ground where she lay.
I move out from the grave in a slow circle, searching for a bone, a scrap of cloth, any sign of her.
The area is remote, so it’s not impossible that an animal dragged her off—a bear or fox or some kind of wildcat.
Still, it’s more likely they would have torn her apart here.
I should have taken my time, dug a real grave for her.
But I’m far enough from the road that no one can see my light, let alone a person.
Even the stench of her rotting corpse wouldn’t reach the lookout, since that’s a good half mile up the hill.
For the first time since I left her body, I regret taking the tracker from her.
At the time, I was more concerned with Mabel’s disobedience than ever finding Jane again.
Leaving the tracker in her body didn’t make sense, since she wouldn’t be going anywhere, and I had no interest in revisiting her.
Worse, it could have drawn suspicion if anyone found it, possibly even lead to me if someone was better at uncovering digital connections than I was at erasing them.
It doesn’t make sense, though. If someone found her, I would know.
It would have been on the news, if only a line in the local paper about unidentified remains found in the woods.
I may not have wanted to see Jane again, but I monitored the local Havoc Harbor news even back in Tennessee.
It was important to know if the body was found, so I would know if I needed to be careful.
It was never found.
So where the fuck is it?
I expand my search, studying the ground for signs that don’t exist. She’s gone like a ghost, like the fog that blows up from the ocean.
Like Mabel.
It doesn’t make sense. I felt her pulse slowing.
But I didn’t wait for it to stop, did I?
I felt her windpipe cave in my hands.
But that’s not always fatal, is it?
She has to be here…
But she’s not.
At last, I’m forced to admit it. I make my way back to the place I left her, then back up the hill to the car, retracing my footsteps until I reach the road.
Low clouds have covered the sky, and the wind off the ocean is biting enough to steal my breath.
I listen for a minute to make sure no traffic approaches, then hurry across the road and into Duke’s car.
My fingers are numb, but I get the car started, and once the steam clears from my glasses, I drive back the way I came, obeying the speed limit, careful to stay within my lane around the curves.
The last thing I need is a policeman pulling me over, questioning my whereabouts this evening, wondering why I’m out so late, why there’s dirt on my shoes and gloves.
I pull into the driveway of Mabel’s house and shut off the engine. Sitting there, I take a deep breath. I’m shaking with cold, but also, with rage.
Inside, I find them curled together in sleep, Mabel in Duke’s arms. I drag her from the bed and slam her against the wall before she can blink the sleep from her eyes. She cries out in shock, and I slam my hand around her throat. “Where is she?” I demand.
This feeling coursing through me is unfamiliar—consuming and… Reckless.
I do not lose control.
I loosen my grip enough to allow Mabel to answer. Her wide, blue eyes skate back and forth, as if looking for a way out. I drag her forward and slam her back against the wall again.
“Where did you take her?” I snarl.
“Who?” she manages.
Her pulse is racing like a scared little bunny under my fingers, and it makes my cock harden feeling it, seeing her terror, her helplessness.
But Mabel Darling has never been a harmless little bunny.
“You know who,” I growl. “You avoided the question when we brought it up, and we stopped asking because you stopped killing, but it was always you. Wasn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?” she croaks, clawing at my fingers helplessly.
I squeeze tighter, watching her face darken, blood pooling under her skin.
“Dude, let her go,” Duke says from behind me. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Are you the fucking Black Widow Killer?” I demand of Mabel.
She winces, prying at my fingers, unable to speak. Her mouth opens and closes as she mouths a denial.
“Then where the fuck is Jane?” I demand.
She can’t answer, though. Her face is purple now. This is how I wanted my kill, looking right into her eyes, watching the realization dawn, the life slip away.
“What does that have to do with the Black Widow Killer?” Duke asks, scrambling up from the bed.
He grabs my shoulder and wrenches me back.
My fingers stay locked around Mabel’s throat, but when Duke drags me back a step, she comes with me, and she manages to drag in a wheezing breath through my grip.
“Let her go,” my brother barks, slamming his elbow down inside mine.
Mine buckles at the force, and Mabel is jerked forward, her head colliding with Duke’s forearm.
The three of us wrestle for control for a minute before they free Mabel.
She stumbles back and slides down the wall, her hand at her throat, the other bracing against the floor for balance.
She looks defeated, beaten, but I know it’s all an act. She’s not the helpless little princess she wants us to believe she is. She’s a silent predator, sleek and deadly, a ruthless killer waiting motionless in her web, planning her attack.
“What the fuck,” Duke says, shoving me aside and kneeling beside her. “You could have killed her.”
I look down at my hands. I could have. I was thinking about it. Wanting it.
Planning it?
I’m not sure. I don’t lose control like that, but something about this, about her fucking with my kill, when she’s racked up dozens…
Sneaking around behind my back when I’m supposed to know where she is at all times…
Managing to evade the question each time I ask if she’s behind the killings…
It got to me. I spend every fucking day running myself ragged trying to stay on top of everything—maintaining my rigorous courseload at school, monitoring the news to make sure nothing incriminating surfaces, growing the operation that funds our lives, giving her the life she deserves, balancing Duke and his moods at every turn, so she doesn’t feel like we’re ganging up on her again.
And now this.
“You okay, Duchess?” Duke asks her, his voice gentle, that fucking nickname he gave her grating over my frayed nerves.
Her breath hitches, and tears pool in her eyes as she stares up at me, though she swipes them away each time they spring back, refusing to let them fall. At last, she nods.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at my brother.
“What?” he asks, blinking up at me with apparent bewilderment.
“You went back for her,” I say. “For Jane. You took her, didn’t you? I saw you in the woods with her. You didn’t have the stomach for it, so I got rid of her. But you stayed, didn’t you? You came back and got her once I was done with her.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks. “I was with Mabel that night when you got back.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a protective embrace and scowling up at me with a wounded look, as if I hurt him too.
He’s done this before, trying to make it into a competition, to make Mabel take “his side,” even though we’re all on the same side—the side of making it work.
The three of us against everyone else. I thought he understood that, but maybe he still can’t quite grasp the concept of us all needing each other, providing for each other.
“Are you lying to me right now?” I grit out. “Because if you are…”
“I’m not,” he says, scowling. “We don’t lie to each other. Neither of us did shit to Jane. You did. And if she wasn’t there, it’s not our fault. You just don’t want to admit that you fucked up.”
I stare down at him a long moment, wanting to turn it back on him, to deny what he said. But I can’t. Not without lying, and we promised we wouldn’t do that, no matter how easy it is.
So instead, I do something I only ever do for Duke.
“You’re right,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Then I turn my attention to Mabel. “But I’m going to need a straight answer here. Are you the Black Widow Killer?”