26. Kennedy
I sit, dumbfounded and confused, as Jake Findlay, our sheriff, and my boss, Maya, tell me what happened to Mallory. I try to care. But after everything she helped Royal do, I can’t.
“How did she die?”
“There’ll be an autopsy, of course,” Jake explains as gently as he can. “But she was found in the bathtub, and it appears that she drowned.”
My fingers clench the arms of the chair so tightly that I feel the tips go numb. I swallow, trying to get past the knot in my throat, but I can’t. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
Royal’s warnings start to replay through my mind. Every single threat he made against my family. My friends. Linc.
Don’t run, Kennedy.
If you leave me, I’ll kill you.
I’ll find you.
I’ll kill your sister.
Don’t leave me, Kennedy.
I love you too much to let you live without me.
Don’t make me hurt you, Kennedy.
This is all your fault.
If you come back, it’ll be different.
You stupid whore.
I’m going to kill you.
His voice. The reason I still have nightmares unless Linc is there in bed with me. The worst thing I can ever imagine, coming to life.
“I have to go,” I mutter.
When I try to stand, my legs give out from under me.
“Kennedy?” Maya reaches out gently, trying to offer comfort, but I don’t want to be touched. Can’t stand to have any sort of physical contact. I need air. I need to leave. I can’t be there.
“Here.” Maya holds out her hand, leaving it in my eyesight, giving me the time I so desperately need to get my head on straight.
“Do you understand what’s happening here?” Her voice covers me like a blanket, offering protection from what I can see on the horizon.
My nod is broken, hesitating, and fractured. Immediately, I think of Linc and whether he has told anyone what I confided. But just as quickly as the thought enters my mind, I know he won’t. He’ll never do anything like that. He’ll never tell a soul.
I take Maya’s offered hand, needing the strength she gives me. “I think so.”
“Royal Prince is a person of interest, Kennedy. But so is Linc. Royal’s official statement and alibi state that he caught Mallory and Linc having sex. That he was out drinking to forget about the pain of losing not one but two women to him.”
“Linc was with me,” I say quietly. Stubbornly. “All night. I got off work at four p.m., which you know.” I look Maya straight in the eyes. “After work, we had dinner at Lucy’s, then went home.”
“Whose house?” Jake is scribbling down notes on my statement, and that’s when I freeze up.
“Is this you notifying me of what happened?” My tone turns deadly, and I drop Maya’s hand. “Or are you interrogating me for an alibi?”
Jake’s expression turns hard, and I watch as a silent battle takes place between him and Maya. Right in front of me, they argue. And then there is a knock at the door. It opens to reveal Brian, Maya’s husband and chief deputy of Birch County Sheriff’s Office.
“Hey, Jake. Maya.” He steps into the room and shuts the door, then looks directly at me, ignoring both of them. “Kennedy.”
“Why does everyone seem to know something that I don’t?” I snap. “Someone just spit it out already.”
“I was raped,” Maya says bluntly. Both Jake and Brian wince, but Maya’s knowing eyes, staring right into mine, tell me that she’s seen the truth. “And I was stalked. When he couldn’t kill me, he decided to come back and try to finish the job. I won, and now he’s in prison for the rest of his life.”
“What she said,” Brian adds. “We let her make the decisions for herself, and she suffered for it.”
“We weren’t proactive enough,” Jake adds. “Neither of us. I was the deputy on record, but Brian loved her. We’re not going to make the same mistake with you. We’re not going to fail you, too.”
My throat seizes up, and my hands start to tremble in my lap. They can’t know. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie hurts more than the pain Royal put me through, but I can’t do it. I can’t let them in.
“You lied to Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department. When you told them you were mugged. Your hospital records don’t match that statement, and they were taken as part of the investigation, which you signed off on.” Jake taps a manila folder on his desk, and I think I’m going to be sick.
“Lacerations on your wrist, like someone took a small knife to it, carving into scar tissue.” He opens the file, but Maya is the one who speaks. Like she’s memorized the file. “Lashes, like you’d been beat with a chain. Photographs, Kennedy. Ones that you didn’t want your father or brother to see. Ones that would destroy them. Blood-soaked clothes that had to be cut from your body. That’s not a mugging. That’s rage, pure and hot, and you’re lucky that you survived.”
“I was mugged,” I lie again, but there is no conviction in my voice. There is no commitment, nothing but pain at the truth being revealed.
“They don’t know, do they?” Brian asks gently. “Linc doesn’t know.” He scoffs quietly. “Of course he doesn’t. He’d have tried to kill the man.”
“I know I did,” Jake says quietly. “When Ray tried to murder Margot. When he trapped her in a burning building.” He leans forward, closing the folder. “We’ve all nearly lost someone we love or have almost died at the hand of someone who wanted us gone. Our lives… I think they come with a price that not many are willing to pay, nor are they able to. But, Kennedy, you can’t let this go. You can’t let him get away with it.”
“I know you,” Maya whispers while she reaches back over and takes my hand. “I know you’re not going to recant your statement about what happened that night. I know you’re not going to implicate him. Because if you do, that folder becomes public knowledge. But I want you to think about it,” she says forcefully. “I want you to think about saving the next woman who might become one of his victims. One who might not be lucky enough to survive like you did.”
I don’t know when I start crying in earnest or how long it goes on for. I don’t even care at this point. If Maya knows what is in the file, and Jake has seen the pictures, everyone will know.
Everyone.
“I’ve got to go.” I get up, but they have plenty of warning. Jake leans back and Maya doesn’t try and hold on to me as I let her go.
“Here,” she says. I pause and look down to see she is handing me the file. “Take it home. Remember what he did, from a clinical point of view. It’s something I wish I had done. Instead of living in the memory of the pain he put you through, look at it… And think of what you’d tell a loved one who was in your position.”
I take the folder with trembling fingers and open the door to go back to work.
“You’re on administrative leave for the next week,” Maya says to my back. I hadn’t flinched through anything else they said. Through any of the tears I shed. But that, being forced away from my work because of something like that, it breaks me. “Not as a punishment, Kennedy. Take the time. Decide what you’re going to do. But I hope you do the right thing.”
I walk out without looking back. It isn’t until I’m locked in my house, away from everyone, that I finally break down and open the file. I have both of my machetes next to me on my bed, ready to use if I need them.
Photo after photo spills out onto my bed as I shift the file around, and I mentally walk back into the nightmare that was that night, with eyes wide open for the first time.
Maya and Jake are right. The story I fed the police about a mugging doesn’t match. It’s no wonder that they kept all the evidence. DNA samples taken from the attack are documented in the file, and I know what they will find if they test it against Royal. I know what they will see if they look deep enough into his alibi.
My phone rings after I’ve been staring at the photos for hours, and I’ve almost dried my tears completely.
Linc.
“Hey.” My voice almost breaks on the single word.
“Where are you?” He doesn’t sound angry or frustrated like I think he may. Not Linc. He sounds worried, like he doesn’t want to admit it.
“I’m at my house.” I sniffle.
“Do you want me to come over?” He wants to ask more; I can feel. “If not, it’s okay. I just… I could really use your company tonight if you’re up for it.” He doesn’t mention the fact that we haven’t spent a night apart since we became a couple.
“Linc.” I pause, still holding one of the photos from that night in my hand.
I don’t know what to say. What to do. So I let the silence sit between us while I put my thoughts together.
If I don’t change my statement, Royal is going to get away with Mallory’s murder. I know enough about law enforcement to know that since they lived together, his DNA will be all over the place. I’d been her. I’d been the one he held under the water in the bathtub while he got off on my pain. I should have died.
And I’m the only one who can keep it from happening to anyone else.
“Actually.” I clear my throat and swallow down doubt that I can already feel rising in my chest. “I need to talk to you. Can you meet me at my parents’ house?”
“Sure.” He hesitates. “Is there anything you need?”
“No.” I stare down at the photo. “Oh. You might want to tell my father that he needs to be there too. Since you’re probably still at the office right now.”
“Okay.” He pauses. “And Remy?”
“Yeah.” I close my eyes against the migraine I can feel forming. “Casper and Cole, too. Everyone. Except Emma. Don’t let Emma come over.”
“Kennedy?” For the first time since we were teenagers, there is uncertainty in Linc’s voice. “Kennedy, is everything going to be okay?”
“No,” I tell him honestly. “It’s really not. But… I have to do it anyway. I’ll see you there, Linc.”
“Hey.” His voice cuts through the phone, coming across a lot harsher than he intends. “Kennedy. I’m not there with you, so I can’t make you look me in the eye when I say this. I love you. I am going to spend the rest of my life with you. Nothing is going to change that. Nothing.”
I see him, even with my eyes closed. He’d press his forehead right against mine and promise me forever. If it were anyone else, I’d think that they were lying to me. Not Linc. He’d destroy the world if it meant that he could save me.
But when I open my eyes and stare down at the folder that holds my darkest secrets, I wonder if I might be the one to destroy him.
“I’ll see you soon, Linc.”
For the first time in my life, I have the power to take back the control Royal stole from me. I have the ability to change my world.