15. Sage
FIFTEEN
SAGE
Ican’t sleep.
It’s not the bed. The bed is fine. Milo is starfished across seventy percent of it, one arm flung over my hip, dead to the world with the unbothered serenity of a man whose mother definitely hasn’t murdered anyone.
It’s the banana bread.
Gloria pressed it into my hands on the way out, wrapped in foil and still warm, and said, “I made this just for you, sweetheart. My special recipe.”
I thanked her, because what else do you do when a woman who may or may not have bodies in her backyard gives you baked goods?
You say thank you and you take the banana bread and you put it on the kitchen counter and you go to bed and you lie there at one in the morning thinking about whether you’re an accessory after the fact for accepting a loaf.
The house is quiet. Milo’s breathing is slow and even. I slide out from under his arm, ease my feet to the floor, and creep toward the door.
I need to see that banana bread. I need to look at it and decide if I’m eating it or calling the police.
The hallway is dark. I pad down the stairs in bare feet, one hand on the railing, trying not to wake anyone.
The kitchen light is already on.
Eli is sitting at the island with a glass of water and a thousand-yard stare, wearing a T-shirt and boxers. He looks up when I come in and we stare at each other for a beat.
“I can’t stop thinking about the banana bread,” I say, my eyes moving over the still-fresh cut on his cheek.
“Because you want to eat it? Or because you’re afraid it’ll eat you?” he asks. This is the first bit of “normal” banter we’ve had for weeks, and I feel myself almost smile, the expression rippling up like an aftershock.
“I’m not sure,” I say, standing in the doorway. The foil-wrapped loaf sits ominously on the counter between us. “Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.”
Eli gestures at the bread. “We could dissect it together,” he offers.
I step closer. “Do you want the honors, or should I?”
He shrugs, but he’s watching me with that peculiar intensity, like he’s memorizing this for later reconstruction. “Your banana bread. Your move.”
I pull the foil off. It smells incredible. Walnuts, brown sugar, a hint of cinnamon. It smells like something a grandmother would make, if your grandmother didn’t have a collection of shock collars and a yard full of suspiciously coffin-esque garden beds.
“Do we think it’s poisoned?” I ask.
Eli considers this. “If she wanted to poison us, she would’ve done it at dinner. She had access to all the food, and she controls three men who would’ve helped her hide the evidence.”
“That’s not comforting.”
He gets up and takes the bread knife from the magnetic strip along the wall, holding it out handle first.
Taking it, I cut two slices and pass one to him. We stare at the slices in silence.
There’s a creak on the floorboards. Then another.
Holden appears in the doorway in track pants and no shirt. He sees the banana bread. He sees us. He pulls up a stool.
“I ran some of those names Milo mentioned through missing persons,” he says. “There are six garden beds, and each was about a six-by-three dimension. The average male burial requires a plot of six-by-two-and-a-half minimum.”
“Hello to you too,” I say, smiling. Although my still-raspy voice makes the comment sound more ominous than I’d like.
“She has the acreage. She has the motive. She has three men who are too afraid to talk. I’m wondering if she should be on our list.” He cuts himself a slice.
“But then again, she’s Milo’s mom. And I couldn’t find any reports that cleanly match up with Milo’s list of dads who’ve ‘moved on.’” He breaks off a piece of bread and lifts it to his mouth, pausing halfway.
“So, do we give her a pass for Milo’s sake?
Or do we flag her and figure out what she’s really up to?
” He moves the bread to his lips then freezes right before tossing it in his mouth.
“Are we worried the banana bread is poisoned?”
I nod. “It’s been keeping me awake.”
“I’ve been sitting here staring at it for over an hour,” Eli says.
Another creak. Micah rounds the corner with his phone flashlight on, catching the three of us huddled around the loaf. He turns it off.
“Oh good. Emergency meeting.” He grabs a stool. “Are we all creeped the fuck out over meeting Milo’s family today? Or is it just me?”
“Creeped. The fuck. Out,” Holden says, still staring at the torn-off bite between his fingers.
“We’re eating the banana bread,” I say.
“We’re discussing eating the banana bread,” Holden corrects.
“Great! Are we also discussing whether Milo’s mom is a serial killer?” Micah cuts himself a thick slice. “’Cause I’m in the affirmative column.” He lifts the slice to his nose, inhaling deep. “Holy crap that smells good. Is that cinnamon?”
“And walnut,” Eli says.
A shadow fills the doorway. Knox. He doesn’t say anything. He takes the seat next to me, cuts a slice twice the size of anyone else’s, and before we can stop him, eats half of it in one bite.
“Wait!” I hiss. “It could be poisoned!”
Knox looks at me over the rest of the loaf. “She sent it home with her favorite son, who has the memory of a peanut. It’s not fucking poisoned.”
We all deflate.
“Damn. You’re right.” Holden tosses the bite into his mouth. “Bon appétit.”
For a beat we all dig in and do nothing but moan our appreciation.
“So,” Micah says, licking crumbs off his thumb. “We’re all agreed. Gloria’s a criminal.”
“Oh, she’s killed at least two of them,” Holden says calmly.
“At least,” Knox agrees.
“And do we believe Milo has no idea?” Eli adds.
Micah shrugs. “I think he believes what his brain is comfortable believing.”
I nod along. “Did you see the way he froze up when we asked about his dad?”
Holden makes a displeased sound. “He definitely knows more than he’s letting on. But I don’t think it’s out of malice,” he continues, glancing at me. “I think he’s protecting his own headspace.” He breaks off another piece and eats it, chewing thoughtfully.
“The collars,” Knox says. “Those were Dogtra units. The 1900S. I recognize the shape.”
We all stare at him.
“It’s a good collar,” he adds, like that’s the part we were confused about.
“Why do you know shock collar models?” Micah asks.
He gives him a pointed look.
“Ah. Military shit. No further questions.”
Knox takes another bite of banana bread. “Point is, those units have a half-mile range. Gloria can zap them from anywhere in the house.”
Micah puts down his slice. “She’s running a perimeter.”
“She’s running a prison,” Holden says. “Those men are inmates. They serve her food, they check her face before they speak, and when one of them steps out of line—” He mimes pressing a button.
“Dennis.” I shudder, remembering the full-body jerking.
“He was about to disagree with her,” Holden says. “In front of guests. In front of her son’s partners.”
“And she lit him up like a Christmas tree,” Micah finishes.
The kitchen goes quiet. We all look at the banana bread.
“It’s really good banana bread though,” Micah says.
“Exceptional,” Holden agrees.
We eat more of it.
I look around the island at these four men, all in varying degrees of undress, illuminated by the amber under-cabinet lighting and nothing else.
The counter littered with crumbs, the air thick with walnut and cinnamon.
Nobody has said Stephen’s name since we left Gloria’s driveway, I notice. I don’t say it either.
“So, what’s the plan?” I say when I’m done chewing. “We just . . . hope Gloria never has a reason to take out an insurance policy on one of us?”
Eli drains his water. “We could flag her,” he says, deadpan. It’s the same voice he uses for threat assessments and chore rotations. “Keep her on the radar. But unless Milo gets a sudden inheritance and a mysterious rash, I say we leave it alone.”
My eyes meet his across the counter.
I miss him.
“Agreed,” Knox says. “We can’t make Milo see it if he’s not ready.”
“You’re right,” I say. “We just . . . keep our eyes open. And maybe don’t eat anything she sends home that we haven’t watched her make.”
“We’re literally eating her banana bread right now,” Micah points out.
Everyone looks down at the loaf.
“This is some Kool-Aid cult shit,” Knox mutters.
Holden takes another small bite. “At least it’s moist. It would be a real tragedy to get taken out by a dry crumb.”
“So we die together.” Micah raises his slice. “Cheers.”
We tap banana bread slices like champagne glasses.
“Well,” Eli says, taking another slow bite. “If arsenic tastes this good, I kind of get why people do it.”
“To a lovely funeral,” I murmur around a bite exploding with brown sugar. “I hope she bakes for that, too.”
When we finish, Micah wraps the remaining loaf back in foil, and Holden wipes the crumbs from the counter.
We drift back toward our respective beds. Micah goes first, tossing over his shoulder, “If I die in my sleep, tell my mom she was right about everything.”
Holden’s right after him, but pauses long enough to clap Eli on the shoulder—a heavy-handed reassurance, maybe, or the brotherly gesture of men who’d rather bleed than talk about what hurts.
Knox waits for me at the edge of the kitchen, posts himself in the hallway like a sentinel. Eli lingers at the counter, the empty glass turning slow wet circles under his hand.
I stop on the threshold, looking at the both of them—the man at my back, the one at the counter. Neither speaks at first. Then Eli, in a voice soft enough that the words have to cross the whole room to reach me, says, “Sleep well, little savage.”
There’s a knot in my chest, strange and tight, and I don’t know if my body wants to cry or punch or both.
I press my lips together. “I haven’t forgiven you yet, Eli.”
He flinches. It’s small, but I see it—the quick scrunch at the bridge of his nose, the way his eyes flick down to the counter like there’s an urgent message in the pattern of the wood grain.
Then, softer, I say, “But I’m glad you’re here.”
He looks up. Sometimes his face is just a face: handsome, symmetrical, the kind of classroom heartthrob there’s a market for on teacher meme Instagrams. And sometimes he looks at me and I see the man who cleaned blood from my face, who sat vigil in the hospital, the man who keeps making me coffee even when I don’t speak to him, who fucked up and knows he fucked up so thoroughly he can feel it in every cell. That’s the version staring at me now.
He nods, silent.
I turn away and walk past Knox without looking up, but his arm wraps around my middle before I can even reach the base of the stairs.
He doesn’t just pull me in; he bends at the knees and scoops me up, one arm under my ass, the other banded over my shoulders, lifting me clean off the ground in a single, tidal movement.
“Knox—”
He grunts, the syllable vibrating against my hip. It’s both hey and I’ve got you, all compressed into one sound.
I hook my arms around his neck.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
“Bed.” His mouth is level with my ear. “Mine tonight.”
I rest my head against his chest. “Always.”