Chapter Nineteen — Which One? #2
Elliot swallowed. Ronan stared. “Which ones?” There.
The chapter title. Not how many. Not did you kill anyone else.
Which ones? Ronan backed away. “Oh my God.” Elliot moved toward him.
Ronan pointed. “Stay there.” He stopped.
“How many, Elliot?” “I don’t know what answer helps you.
” “The fucking number.” Silence. Then Elliot gave it.
“Five.” Ronan stared. Five. His brain refused.
“Five including Mason and Lucas?” “Yes.” Three others.
Three people whose names Ronan might have seen in newspapers.
Three families. Three funerals. Three lives Elliot had ended and then come home from.
“Who?” Elliot shook his head. “No.” “Who?” “It doesn’t matter.
” Ronan laughed. The sound broke somewhere in the middle.
“It doesn’t matter.” “That’s not what I mean.
” “You killed five fucking people and their names don’t matter?
” “They matter.” “Then say them.” Elliot’s eyes filled.
Not tears. Not yet. “Ronan.” “Say their names.” A long silence.
Then: “Tyler Ames.” Ronan didn’t know him.
“Twenty-three. He worked at a bar downtown.” Another.
“Grace Holloway.” Ronan’s stomach twisted.
A woman. “Twenty-four. Graduate student.” Another. “Benjamin Cole.”
Elliot swallowed.
“Twenty-two.”
Ronan stared.
“Mason.”
“Yes.”
“Lucas.”
“Yes.”
Five. Men and women. No physical type. No obvious connection. Except Elliot.
“What did the first three do?”
Elliot’s expression hardened slightly.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Tell me.”
“They hurt people.”
“How?”
“Tyler drugged women at the bar.”
Ronan went still.
“Grace?”
“She blackmailed an ex with private pictures.”
“Benjamin?”
Elliot looked away.
“He beat his boyfriend.”
Ronan stared. There it was. The rule. The justification. Bad people. People cruel when nobody important watched. Exactly what Elliot had been feeding him as a theory. Not because he’d discovered the pattern. Because he’d created it.
“You weren’t investigating.”
Elliot looked at him.
“You were explaining yourself to me.”
Silence.
“Every conversation.”
Ronan’s stomach turned.
“The videos. Mason. Lucas. You kept telling me what kind of people they were because you wanted me to understand why you killed them.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I was trying to—”
“To what?”
Elliot stopped. Ronan laughed.
“You wanted me to think whoever did it had a reason.”
“They did.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
The word came out differently. No defense. No lie. Just truth. Ronan looked toward the ceiling. He couldn’t breathe in this room.
“I need to go.”
Elliot’s entire body changed.
“No.”
Ronan looked at him. There. Fear. Real. Immediate.
“I need five minutes away from you.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to tell me no.”
“Someone is outside.”
“There’s a police cruiser.”
“Ronan.”
“I’m not running to Vance.”
Elliot stared. That was the question, wasn’t it? Not whether Ronan needed air. Whether he would tell. Ronan understood.
“You think I’m going to turn you in.”
Elliot said nothing. Ronan laughed bitterly.
“Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good. Neither do I.”
Pain crossed Elliot’s face. Ronan hated that too. He moved toward the door. Elliot stepped in front of him. Ronan stopped.
“Move.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Please don’t leave.”
The words came out broken. Ronan stared. He had never heard Elliot sound like that. Not once. Even now, after everything, the instinct rose. Comfort him. Fix it. Tell him everything was okay. Ronan hated himself for having it.
“You killed five people.”
Elliot’s eyes glistened.
“I know.”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“You do.”
Ronan stared. Elliot stepped closer. Slowly.
“I’m still me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“The person I knew didn’t murder people.”
“You knew everything else.”
“That is not the same.”
“I know.”
Ronan almost shouted again. Stopped himself. Elliot continued.
“You knew I was jealous.”
“Yes.”
“Possessive.”
“Yes.”
“Cruel.”
“Sometimes.”
“You knew I could hurt people.”
“Not like this.”
“But you knew me.”
Ronan shook his head. Elliot’s voice softened.
“You knew the pieces.”
“No. You gave me the pieces you wanted me to see.”
That landed. Elliot looked away. Ronan continued.
“You made me think I was special because I knew the real you.”
“You are.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“How?”
“Because everyone else gets the lie.”
Ronan stared.
“And I get what?”
Elliot looked at him. For the first time all night, there was no control left. No golden boy. No perfect expression. Just Elliot. Scared. Possessive. Fucked up. In love with him.
“Everything.”
Ronan’s chest hurt.
“You didn’t give me everything.”
“I’m giving it to you now.”
“Because you got caught.”
The words hit. Elliot flinched. Ronan looked away.
He wanted to hate him. That would have been simpler.
He wanted disgust to erase every kiss, every touch, every night in this house.
It didn’t. That frightened him more than the murders.
His phone vibrated. Both froze. Ronan pulled it out.
Vance. He stared at her name. Elliot stared too.
The entire future seemed to sit inside that ringing phone.
Answer. Tell her. Five murders. Mask downstairs.
Everything ends. Or— Ronan didn’t know what the other option was yet.
He let it ring. Elliot’s breathing changed. The call stopped. A text arrived.
VANCE: We need to speak. Now.
Another.
VANCE: The mask recovered at North Ridge is not the mask from the Mason Kerr footage.
Ronan stared. Elliot moved closer.
“What?”
He turned the screen. Elliot read. His face changed. Ronan watched. Not confusion. Recognition.
“What?”
Elliot whispered, “Someone copied it.” Cold moved through Ronan.
“What do you mean?”
“The mask at North Ridge.”
“You said yours is downstairs.”
“Yes.”
“Then whoever took Dylan had another one.”
“Yes.”
Ronan stared. There were two killers? No.
Not necessarily. One killer. One watcher.
One imitator. Someone who knew Elliot’s mask well enough to reproduce it.
Someone who had filmed Mason before Elliot killed him.
Someone who knew Mason screamed. Someone who had been inside their house.
Someone who had taken Dylan. The horror expanded beyond Elliot.
Ronan looked toward the storage-room door.
“Show me.”
Elliot’s face tightened.
“The mask.”
“Ronan.”
“Show me the fucking mask.”
For several seconds, he thought Elliot would refuse.
Then Elliot walked toward the storage room.
Unlocked nothing. Just turned the handle.
Opened the door. Darkness. Ronan followed.
Elliot moved boxes aside. One. Two. Three.
Black storage container. Ronan’s stomach twisted.
Elliot crouched. Opened it. The mask stared upward.
White porcelain. Black eyes. Stitched mouth.
Crack running across the left cheek. Mason’s crack.
Ronan had seen it on television. Seen it in photographs.
Now it sat three feet away inside his house.
Real. Elliot reached toward it. Ronan caught his wrist.
“Don’t.” Elliot stopped. Ronan stared at the mask. Then at the gloves beneath it. Black hoodie. Shoe covers. Everything neatly folded. Everything prepared.
“How many times did you wear this?” Elliot’s voice came quietly.
“Five.” Ronan closed his eyes. Of course.
Five. He released Elliot’s wrist. “Vance needs to know someone copied it.” Elliot went still.
“If she sees this, I’m done.” Ronan looked at him.
There it was. The choice. Not abstract anymore.
Not someday. Now. Police outside. Evidence in front of him.
Five dead people. A killer he loved. And another person somewhere in Bellweather who knew exactly what Elliot had done.
Ronan stared at the cracked porcelain face.
Then at Elliot. “What happens if I tell her?” Elliot swallowed. “I go to prison.”
“Probably.”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t?” Elliot said nothing. Ronan’s voice dropped. “What happens?”
“We figure out who’s watching us.”
“We?” Hope appeared too quickly in Elliot’s eyes.
Ronan hated seeing it. “Yes,” Elliot whispered.
Ronan looked back at the mask. Five bodies.
Five. His stomach turned. He should call Vance.
He knew that. There was no moral confusion about what the correct answer was.
Five people were dead. Ronan pulled out his phone.
Elliot’s face collapsed. Not dramatically.
Just enough. Ronan looked at Vance’s text.
Then opened the reply field. His thumb hovered.
Elliot didn’t beg. That somehow made it worse.
Ronan typed: I haven’t seen another mask.
Elliot hasn’t either. We’re both home. He stared at the lie.
Then hit send. Elliot inhaled sharply. Ronan locked the phone.
Neither spoke. The mask stared up between them.
Ronan felt sick. He had crossed something.
Not as far as Elliot. Not remotely. But far enough that going backward would never be as simple as it had been five minutes ago.
Elliot whispered:
“Why?”
Ronan looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth. The only one he had left. And for tonight, it was enough.