Chapter 27 #2
Careful not to lose sight of her, I took a few steps back until I bumped against the cold concrete wall. Then I slid down into a sitting position. The floor felt gritty beneath me.
Arguing with her about what she’d done tonight would lead nowhere.
Cynthia wasn’t grounded in reality anymore.
She probably didn’t even remember trying to kill me.
The monster would take the blame. He always did.
Maybe it was how she survived the weight of what had happened.
Maybe as long as she believed he was still alive, she could pretend she wasn’t the one who’d killed Michael.
It was a coping mechanism, one that had blurred over time until she truly became him when the wind howled and the past returned.
Who knew? I wasn’t a therapist. Maybe even a therapist couldn’t reach whatever fractured part of her had taken root years ago.
Cynthia kept rambling, her words spilling fast—about Hudson, about how it couldn’t be, about the “bad, bad monster.”
“Mom?” The word slipped out before I even realized I’d said it.
That shocked her almost as much as it did me. The trance broke. She blinked fast, like she’d just woken up.
“Can you tell me anything about my real dad?”
She huffed and waved it off. “Pfff. Who cares about him?”
“I do.”
Her brow lifted, and then she shrugged. “All right. He was a loser. Died of a heroin overdose in prison. Got caught breaking into some senator’s home in D.C. High on crack.”
My chest tightened. “I already know that. Is there anything else? Anything that’s not . . . awful?”
She stared at me for a second, then shrugged again.
“He did love you. In the way he could, I guess. He was obsessed with little pig figures. His favorite animal, for some reason. He gave you pig figurines on your birthdays and at Christmas. When he remembered, anyway. That stopped when he overdosed.”
At least it was something.
“That’s why I like pig figures,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah. You started collecting them. Then you started giving them to others too. Mostly to me, I guess. I never liked them much. Always reminded me of your father. But I didn’t want to tell you that, so I just took them.”
A memory flashed behind my eyes: me handing my first pig figurine to my old therapist, the one who’d later started collecting them.
Cynthia was her name. And now it made sense why I’d liked her the moment she’d told me her name.
I must have been drawn to people with that name all my life.
Maybe, somewhere deep down, I’d always known.
Daniel came back through the doorway, carrying a heavy cutting tool—the kind that looked like oversized scissors designed to shear through thick chains.
“Stretch your arms,” he ordered. His voice was clipped. Not cruel, but cold. Understandable, considering everything.
He knelt beside Cynthia and went to work. The tool clanked sharply against the metal. Daniel cut the chains from her ankles and wrists. The shackles remained.
“And those?” Cynthia raised her shackled hands in protest.
“I don’t know, Cynthia,” Daniel said tiredly.
“I don’t have the keys. Right now, I need to throw my dad into the ocean and figure out how to lock the stone door to your room so you can’t sneak out again.
After that, I’ll try to deal with it. You can walk, eat, drink, even shower.
Be glad this is the worst coming your way right now, after everything you did. ”
“I saved your life,” she snapped as she brushed past him, walking into the shrine room. “From that monster.” She spat on the floor, maybe even aiming for what was left of Michael. “That’s what I did, and nothing else.”
Cynthia slipped out into the hallway. Daniel and I followed her.
We walked her back to her small apartment. A faint sourness lingered near the sink where dirty dishes sat in a stack.
“You’ve got enough food for a few days?” Daniel asked.
She nodded.
“Good. I’ll check in when I can.” He shook his head. “And take your meds, goddamn it.”
His eyes flicked toward mine, as if he were asking me if I had anything I wanted to say to her.
But I didn’t. I had nothing left.
I looked at my mother. A woman who’d made choice after choice with the wrong men.
A beauty queen who’d fallen first for a heroin addict, then for a sadistic millionaire.
She’d tried to fix things. Tried to protect me.
She’d sacrificed more than I could probably ever understand.
Daniel had told me that she’d stayed here for years, thinking I was dead—just to be close to the place from where I’d vanished.
Standing in front of her now, I felt quiet, cold sadness. A heavy ache carved out my chest from the inside.
She didn’t deserve this life. And yet, this was the one she’d ended up with.
“Thank you, Mom,” I said softly. Then I turned to leave, unsure if I’d ever come back down here. Would Hudson wake up and tell the police everything? Would my mentally ill mother be locked in a cell for the damage that someone else had caused? For the cruelty that had driven her mad?
I didn’t know.
Just as I reached the door, with Daniel close behind, her voice stopped me.
“Emily!”
I turned around.
“Don’t come back here,” she said. “It’s not good. Not for me, not for you.”
I held her gaze for a few seconds, then nodded. The tears pushing at the back of my eyes stayed where they were—for now.
Daniel and I stepped into the stone hallway and closed the large rock door behind us.
Once it settled into place and blended with the wall, he began tapping along the surface.
A dull knock echoed back until a hollow tone returned.
Daniel traced his fingers along the seam, then popped open a plastic cover that matched the stone perfectly.
“Hudson told me right before the storm that there was a lock here,” he said. “To calm my nerves, probably. But I guess he never actually used it, figuring she couldn’t get past the yellow door anyway.”
Daniel pulled a small lock from his pocket and hooked it through the metal loop.
The click of it snapping shut was sharp.
He replaced the plastic cover and sealed it again.
“I’ll close off the pantry door permanently later today,” he added as we started walking back toward the fork.
“We have bricks and concrete in the garden shed.”
Then he stopped. I did too.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
His eyes stayed on the hallway ahead—the place where his father’s body still lay.
“I’m going to take his remains and put them in the ocean,” he said.
I nodded. The day had been brutal for all of us. I still felt betrayed. Still sad. Still angry. However, I also felt something else: a quiet and complicated gratitude.
“Can I come?” I asked.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” I said. “But I want to. I want to be there with you. For you.”
His expression softened. A small, tired smile touched the corners of his lips. Then he nodded.
Together, we walked down the dark hallway. Daniel had brought a flashlight, and its narrow beam bounced ahead of us as we went.
We’d carry out what was left of his father.
Maybe, just maybe, that would be the beginning of a real end to this nightmare. Or at least a first step in the right direction.