Chapter 47
Lyam stares down at me, no trace of the playful young man left to be seen. His brown eyes burrow into me—flat and lifeless, as if he doesn’t see me, only what I can give him. Only what he wants to take.
“You?” I say, too shocked and afraid to make sense of his presence. Logically I understand why he’s here, but the pieces of the puzzle didn’t add up to him. Not him. Young Lyam, with the sweet smiles and helpful disposition.
He’s so young. Too young. If he killed the little girl when Ric and Noah were teenagers, then how old was Lyam? He can’t be thirty yet, not that much older than Luci.
Luci.
I remember the day in the courtyard, how Lyam reacted to Luci’s flirtation with Andre. He wasn’t being protective.
But possessive.
The polaroids flicker in my mind, like cards being shuffled. I close my eyes and swallow, afraid I’m going to be sick.
I take deep breaths. Over and over. Finally, I roll my head and shoot him a look of pure disgust. “I know what you’ve done.”
“Yes.” He lifts a shoulder. “That’s why you’re here.”
“I’m not just talking about Rose and the girl and the other kills recorded in your journal.” I clench my jaw, anger and fear blending to make me reckless. “I know what you did to Luci.” I pull at my straps. “When she was just a child!”
The thought of Luci chills me again. “Where is she? What have you done to her? And to Alice?”
“Hmm. Do you really want to know? Won’t it be more fun to find out for yourself?” He twists his mouth to the side, playing with me. Because he likes the game.
“You can’t do this. My agent knows I’m here. How will you cover up two missing women? Two women who lived in the same apartment?”
“Who said you’d go missing?” He goes to the head of the table and leans in.
He looks down on me, eye to eye, but his grin is upside down.
“You’ll be found in the bathtub with your wrists slit.
It will all be very sad. So, so tragic. Maybe you were afraid you wouldn’t get that movie role. That your career was over.”
He clicks his mouth, making a that’s-too-bad kind of sound. “All of the failure combined with the drama surrounding your last movie, well, you just didn’t see a future for yourself. And, of course, you’re still grieving your dead mother.”
How does he know so much? Everything about me. My private life and private thoughts, as if he’s crawled inside of me.
I tear my gaze away, refusing to look at him.
My eyes land on a table against the wall. Tools splay across the top: knives, straps, strange black masks. And metal implements I’ve never seen before. Some spiked or curved. But all of them sharp.
Someone whimpers.
It’s me.
Lyam trails a finger down my cheek. I cringe away, but he keeps talking. “Then there will be the text to your agent, telling her how deeply sorry you are.”
I blink back tears. “That’s what you did to Rose. You took her phone and faked the social media posts.”
He moves into my line of sight and nods. “I’ve had a lot of practice, so I know how to cover my trail. But to tell the truth, it is sad. Truly. I liked you, Brooke, from the very start. I watched, but I might not have ever touched.”
His voice turns sweet, like the Lyam I knew before. As adept at slipping into character as any actor I’ve known. “But you just couldn’t stop digging into our family’s past. Asking questions, searching online—”
My muscles clench. “How could you possibly know that? My laptop is password- protected.”
He tosses back his head and laughs. “Brooke, Brooke, Brooke. Not very tech savvy, are you? As soon as you connected to our WiFi, I had access to everything.” He winks at me. “I’m a skilled hacker. Started learning at a young age.”
I shake my head. “But why?”
He puts his mouth next to my ear and licks the lobe before whispering, “Control. Why else?” He stands up. “Money brings power and power brings money. And people like us, we never let go of either.”
As he pulls away, I glare at him. “People like you. You mean sick, depraved people. The kind who write down the evil things they do, so they can relive them again and again.”
One side of his mouth lifts in a confused half-grin. “What are you talking about?”
“Your journal. Someone left it for me.” As he continues to stare blankly, I say, “You know. My Hotel Peculiar.”
Lyam only shakes his head, his smile wilting, as if he’s confused.
Behind him, a rustle, then a new voice carries from the doorway.
“That’s my journal,” Dora says, sitting in her wheelchair. “And I want it back.”