“I’ve never once in my career wondered if I was on the right side of the law. Until today,” he says quietly.
Revenge killings always make us question our standing. “He won’t stop just at the ones who killed the kids,” I remind him.
“He opened some doors, but didn’t touch anyone. He stole some mirrors, put some ink in some water and played with some paint. He could have already killed numerous people. But he hasn’t.”
“He’s terrorizing them. It’s his form of revenge against the whole town. He knows how their minds work. They’ve been drenched in ten years of guilt for knowing this and doing nothing. They believe something supernatural is really going on right now.”
“Why do I feel like he’s just getting started?” Donny asks as we get in the SUV.
“Why doesn’t Kyle Davenport have the same surname as his father?” I ask.
He pulls up his iPad, reading something on it. “Says Jane Davenport was the mother. The sheriff didn’t know Kyle even existed until Jane showed up in town one day with Kyle in tow, and she handed over custody.”
My eyebrows go up. “What?”
He shakes his head, whistling low. “Hadley dug all this up somehow. Kyle is one sick fuck. Started torturing and killing animals at the ripe age of five. By seven, his mother decided she couldn’t handle him. He had a tantrum and cut her with a knife. She took him to the sheriff, who was all too happy to take away all her custodial rights, and she stayed in town, watching her son grow up from a distance. I bet her life was a living hell.”
“Where is she now?”
His brow furrows. “Dead. She died ten years ago, shortly after the trial for Robert Evans started.”
“Why do I feel like that’s not a coincidence?” I groan.
“Because everything in this godforsaken town is tied to that nightmare somehow.”
Just as I crank the car, I look up, seeing a flash of red. Quickly, I get back out, and I climb onto the hood of the SUV, reading the tops of the buildings in the distance. It’s the town hall I see from here.
Written in red on the side of the roof is one message: It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
Donny climbs up beside me, and he sucks in a long breath.
“First he quotes the bible and now Voltaire? What’s the purpose?”
“No clue,” I tell him as I hop down. “Even though I think it’s pretty clear what the messages separate mean.”
Just then, my head snaps to the speaker on the pole, because music starts filtering through it. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird. And if that mocking bird don’t sing, Momma’s gonna buy you a diamond ring…”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Donny says with a shudder as the nursery song plays on in a woman’s voice.
Everyone in the street turns to stare at the speaker closest to them, all of them paling.
“You think he’s going to cleanse the town?”
I tighten my lips. “He’s showing a lot of control. I don’t think he wants to cleanse, but I think he wants them to confess. He’s here because we are. Otherwise, he’d have killed the last name on the list that isn’t in this town. He came when we did.”
“But why?”
“When I find out, I’ll let you know,” I tell him, driving away from the house that dropped a bomb on us I wasn’t prepared for.
Chapter 2
To the wicked, everything serves as a pretext.
—Voltaire
LANA
“How’s your dad?” I ask Jake as he walks around the room, hooking up a final monitor.
“He’s taking the meds again. You know as well as I do how hurt his ego is that he’s sick. But it’s handled. Now we can focus on this.”
I watch the look on Logan’s face as he steps out of Diana’s house, and I know she told him all she knew.
“I’ll watch Diana’s house, in case they make their move,” Jake tells me, brushing my shoulder with his as he sits down beside me, his eyes flicking to the numerous monitors he has spread out on the walls of the old hunter’s cabin.
The FBI came through, did a sweep of all these, and then Jake set up our temporary headquarters in his father’s cabin that has been empty for years.
I nod appreciatively, but I can’t take my eyes off Logan, seeing the pain in his eyes. Pain for a girl he never knew. Pain for a boy he’ll never know. Pain for a past that has haunted me for ten years.
And he’s not even finished getting all his details just yet. There’s still more to learn.
“He’ll find the evidence he needs, Lana. You’re right about him. He’s the real deal.”
Too good of a man to be sullied by the dark thing I’ve become.
“I know he will. Then my father’s name will be cleared—at least to the people in this town who condemned him.”
“And Marcus will have his vengeance from the grave,” he adds quietly, cueing the music that has everyone in town pausing almost immediately.
Only the ones too young to remember the sound of my mother’s voice singing that song on the church stage are able to shrug it off. But everyone else is growing increasingly terrified.
Terrified of the dead coming back to haunt them.
“You ever wonder what we might have become if my father had never been convicted of those murders?” I ask him softly.
“No. Because if I start wondering, I’ll never stop,” he says without hesitation.
The musty smell of the cabin will have to be washed off me before I leave.
“I’m putting him in danger by letting him go on this egg hunt,” I tell Jake as I turn up the volume on the monitor with the sheriff speaking.
“You have his back,” Jake says, his lips twitching as we see the sheriff turning a precarious shade of white, hearing the music play through the speakers.
He remembers that night. The night my mother sung that song on the church stage for a very important play. Almost the entire town was there.
“It’d better be enough, Jake. If he gets hurt because of me, I’ll fall over that edge, forget what this is all about, and kill without prejudice.”
My hands shake just thinking of the monster I’d become if I lost my entire soul.
Jake’s hand covers my trembling one, and he leans toward me. “I’ll reel you back in.”
I stare at him grimly. “If Logan is hurt because of me—or for any reason—you won’t be enough.”
I feel it when the tear escapes, and Jake tenses, seeing the single bit of wet proof of how vulnerable I am because of one man. His lips tighten.
“Then we’ll both make sure he stays safe.”
I wipe away the tear, and I return my attention to the panicking sheriff as he shuts and locks the door of the town hall, turning to face SSA Johnson.
“That’s Jasmine Evans singing on that speaker,” Sheriff Cannon hisses. “Unless a ghost has come back from the dead, you’re missing something.”
Then the sheriff turns to one of his deputies. “Kill that damned music! Find out how he got into our town speakers!”
Jake smirks. “Good luck with that, Sheriff. I dare you to out hack me,” Jake says smugly.
This is the part he’s been waiting for. The part where we show them what sheep they all really are. The part where we show them how weak their minds are.
The part where we fuck the whole town up.
“I told you this was not going to be easy,” Johnson growls as the sheriff turns back to face him.
“Oh? Because I remember you saying you could control this team. So far, they’ve asked too many fucking questions, and they’re hanging flyers all over my town. It’s just a matter of time before someone gets the courage to talk.”
Gotcha, you stupid bastard.
“Logan Bennett is your problem. The rest of the team, I can handle.”
My gut clenches as dread unfolds in me. I’ll fucking kill him before time if he goes after Logan. And I’ll make an example out of anyone he sends.
“You sure you can get to Kyle without anyone figuring it out?” Jake asks me, his eyes trained on the screen too.
I don’t answer, because I’m busy listening to what’s being said.
“If he takes me down, you’re coming with me. Remember that, Johnson,” the sheriff snarls as he shuts the door to his office, giving them privacy.
Johnson narrows his eyes. “I never told you to go after those kids. This psychopath is targeting you because of them. He’s not targeting you because of Evans. That sick fuck of a son you have needed a leash, and instead, you turned him loose, told him to do his worst. That team is here because you gave that monster free reign.”
The sheriff’s face twists in anguish, and Jake mutes all the other screens, focusing on this one with me. We knew the sheriff wasn’t the original killer, but we never expected to see any remorse, because we profiled him as a sociopath.
“He’s not sick. He was hurting. He saw his sister all spread out like that, brutally raped and murdered.”
Johnson points a finger in his face. “I went along with Evans, because that cunt lawyer from New York got wind of his case and was already well on the road to proving the case was beyond biased. The trial was never supposed to be here, and too many jury members were affiliated with you. He would have gotten free, and my career would have been ended for all the strings I pulled. You have no idea what I had to do just to get on this case so I could clean up this mess. I gave you the real profile. Find the fucker who is killing your people before Bennett finds out what we buried.”