Chapter Twenty
The lighthouse beam swept across the water in a slow, methodical arc as he emerged from one of the old tunnels that spiderwebbed around the island.
On. Off. On.
He counted the seconds between flashes without thinking about it anymore. Like he’d been doing it for years. Timing things like this calmed the mind. It gave chaos a rhythm.
The safehouse sat just beyond the reach of the strongest light, tucked into the rocky curve of the coastline where the trees bent low, and the land fell away sharply. A forgettable structure. Weathered shingles. Windows darkened against the cold.
Chosen because it felt hidden. Safe.
He almost smiled.
People always misunderstood safety. They thought it lived in distance, isolation, locks, and numbers. They thought it lived in walls.
It never had.
Safety lived in certainty. In knowing where everyone would go when things went wrong, and tonight, he intended to prove just how predictable they were.
He watched from the edge of the trees, his body still, breath controlled. Years ago, he’d learned that the less you moved, the less the world noticed you. He wore the night easily now, like a second skin.
A lone figure stood outside the cottage near the corner of the yard, his shoulders hunched against the cold. A member of the Hope Island Securities team. Alert. Tired. Human. Not yet aware of the danger close by.
The lighthouse beam swept again.
On. Off.
He advanced with a predator’s quiet precision, drawn toward the safehouse where the showdown he’d waited decades for was finally coming due.
◆◆◆
Maya woke to a sound she couldn’t identify.
The noise sliced through her half-sleep like a blade, dragging her upright with a gasp lodged painfully in her chest. For one disoriented second, she was four again—darkness, storm, something crashing where it shouldn’t.
Then she was standing in the safehouse living room, her heart hammering. “Asa?” she whispered.
No answer.
The cottage felt wrong.
Too quiet.
She could hear the wind outside, the surf pounding against the rocks below. She searched the darkness, her heart racing.
A shadow detached itself from the living room.
Her body froze. She couldn’t scream.
A man stood with his hands visible, posture calm, unthreatening in a way that made her skin crawl. His face was hidden in the darkness.
“Easy,” he said quietly.
Her mouth went dry. That voice. It wasn’t memory. It wasn’t imagination. It was recognition—violent and undeniable—tearing through her like a scream she’d swallowed for decades.
She had no doubt that this was the man who murdered Raymond Dutton. The one who had killed all those women. The one who had destroyed her mother.
He studied her with unsettling interest. “You’ve grown.”
Something deep in her chest recoiled. Her voice shut down, the same way it had after she witnessed Raymond’s murder, when the truth was so devastating it left her wordless.
Footsteps rushed toward her from the bedroom that they used as a command post. Asa. Almost as if he sensed her danger.
He stopped short beside her when he saw the man standing there.
Asa didn’t hesitate before raising his weapon. “Don’t move,” he ordered.
The man laughed. “You sound like your father.”
Asa staggered back half a step. “No!” The word tore from him.
The world narrowed as Maya tried to understand what was happening.
Asa’s voice broke. “No!”
The man tilted his head. “You really didn’t know?”
Maya pressed a hand to her mouth as understanding slammed into place. Asa knew the killer.
The man turned to her, his expression cool and assessing. “I let you live,” he said sadly. “That was my mistake.”
Asa raised his weapon, his hands shaking with rage. “Say your name,” he demanded.
The man smiled. “My name? You know it, Asa,” he said, stepping closer, “I’m your Uncle Jonas.”
Something ancient and irrevocable snapped into place. For the first time since the barn, Maya understood the truth with terrifying clarity. The monster had never been a stranger—he’d been someone Asa and Raymond both trusted.
◆◆◆
For a split second, Asa thought the world had tilted. Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Physically, like the floor beneath his boots had shifted just enough to throw his balance off.
His uncle. The man with whom he had shared his father’s case notes. The one who had been like a second father to him since Raymond’s murder.
All the while, he was speaking to the man who had taken his father’s life, and he was probably the one who had killed Vanessa and those other women.
The lighthouse beam swept the room, catching his uncle’s face. Not the same as the kind uncle he’d known all his life, but close enough that Asa’s chest locked tight and refused to release air.
The eyes were wrong. Too cold. Too measuring. But the structure—the bones, the angle of the jaw, the way the light caught the lines at the corners—those were familiar in a way that made his stomach twist violently.
Uncle.
Murderer.
He’d led him straight to Maya. Asa had no doubt his uncle had been tracking their movement through his phone.
Asa tightened his grip on his weapon, arms locked, stance drilled into muscle memory—just like his uncle taught him. He didn’t lower it. Didn’t raise it. He held it steady because if he moved even an inch, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t pull the trigger.
Maya made a slight, broken sound as the truth dawned on her as well. Asa felt it like a hand closing around his spine.
Asa didn’t look over at her. He couldn’t. If he took his eyes off Jonas for even a second, he might lose control of something he wouldn’t be able to get back. “You killed him,” Asa said, each word scraped out. “You killed my father.”
Jonas exhaled, as if bracing himself. “Yes.”
The confirmation landed harder than any denial could have.
Asa’s vision tunneled. Heat roared in his ears.
Every memory—every late-night conversation, every lesson, every quiet moment at the kitchen table—collapsed inward, crushed beneath that single word.
“You don’t get to say it like that,” Asa snarled. “You don’t get to stand there and say it like it was a decision you weighed.”
Jonas’s mouth tightened. “It was.”
That did it.
Asa took a step forward, his weapon still trained on center mass. “Say another word,” he warned. “Give me one reason not to put you down right now.”
“Asa, no.”
He barely registered Maya’s voice.
Jonas didn’t retreat. He didn’t reach for a weapon either. “You’d shoot an unarmed man?”
Asa knew it was a lie.
“That’s why you’re dangerous,” Jonas said. “You always were.”
Asa laughed once, harsh and humorless. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Jonas’s gaze flicked briefly—just briefly—toward Maya.
Asa’s pulse spiked. “Don’t look at her.”
Jonas’s eyes lifted a fraction. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, Asa, but I’m afraid this must end tonight. For both of you. I can’t have you telling the world the truth about who I was.”
The words hit like a blade sliding between his ribs.
Maya inhaled sharply next to him.
Asa’s voice dropped, deadly quiet. “You killed my father. He loved you like a brother.”
“He was already dead,” Jonas snapped, the first crack in his composure. “The moment he decided to protect her.”
Silence slammed down between them.
Asa felt the truth of it—felt how long Jonas had been carrying that justification, polishing it, turning it over until it fit neatly enough to live with. “You murdered those women. On the mainland. You hunted them.”
Jonas smirked. “They didn’t matter to anyone, but I made sure they mattered to me. I made sure they were remembered through the mementos I kept from them,” Jonas said, his eyes bright. “I made them immortal.”
Asa shook his head. “You’re sick.”
The wildness went out of his eyes. “I was sick, but I stopped.”
Asa’s grip tightened until his knuckles burned. “You don’t get to claim recovery after that.”
“I stopped after Raymond, I promise,” Jonas said. “Because of you.”
The room felt like it was closing in.
“That’s a lie,” Asa said with steely calm. “You killed Malone, and Hale after my father. The adoption worker.”
Jonas shook his head. Malone got too close to the truth, so I had to put him down.
And Hale, well, he’d served his purpose as Kathy Zalansky did.
They helped me accomplish what I needed, but I couldn’t leave them alive to grow a conscience and rat me out.
” Jonas swallowed. “But killing your father, well, it broke me.”
Asa stared at him and shook his head. “You expect me to feel sorry for you?”
“No,” Jonas said, his voice quiet. “I expect you to understand.”
“I don’t, and I never will.”
Jonas’s gaze sharpened. “That’s why you both have to die.” He looked at Maya. “Neither of you can ever understand, and I can’t afford to have you destroy my carefully constructed world.”
The words landed without heat. Without drama. A statement. A conclusion reached long ago.
Asa felt Maya’s terror from where he stood. “No,” Asa said. “You don’t get to decide that either.”
Jonas tilted his head, studying him. “You could have walked away. I tried to give you that chance.”
“You erased Vanessa,” Asa said. “You burned Maya’s past. You hunted her mother and killed her because she could identify you. You don’t get to pretend you were ever the good guy.”
Jonas’s mouth twisted. “I tried to be a good uncle.”
The words hit harder than anything else.
“You watched me grow up,” Asa whispered. “You sat at my table.”
“Yes,” Jonas said. “And I loved you.”
Asa felt something tear loose inside his chest. “You loved me, and you still murdered my father. That’s not love.”
Jonas took one step forward.
Asa matched it without thinking, gun unwavering.
“You don’t want to do this,” Jonas said.
Asa’s voice was steel. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”
Jonas glanced toward the window, then back at Asa. “This ends tonight.”
“Yes,” he said. “It does.”
In that moment, standing in front of the man who helped make him the adult he was now, but also the one who’d destroyed his childhood, Asa knew there was no version of this where both of them walked out alive.