Page 66

Chapter Thirty
“New York state authorities have now tentatively connected Daphne St Clair to an unsolved hit-and-run involving a twelve-year-old girl in 1974. The police have reason to believe that Gabrielle Hanks was the stepdaughter of Daphne St Clair, who was going by Daphne Hanks at the time. Shortly after Gabrielle’s death, her father Robert Hanks also died in an apparent suicide.”
Ruth was welded to the spot, watching the stream on her laptop. The story had broken after someone in Abrams had recognized Daphne on the news and contacted the police. She didn’t know what evidence the police had, but finding out that a victim of an unsolved crime was the stepchild of a serial killer certainly merited the police investigating further.
Her stomach rose up and she ran to the bathroom, gagging. When she was done throwing up, she curled up next to the toilet, feeling the cold porcelain press against her feverish forehead.
Daphne was a murderer.A child murderer.
It all made sense. Daphne had skillfully glossed over the years when her kids had been in high school as being uneventful, carefully maneuvering Ruth away from Robert and Gabrielle Hanks. She thought back to the picture she had found in Daphne’s things, the dark-haired girl in the photo.Gabrielle.Ruth realized once again that she was navigating unfamiliar terrain with an unreliable navigator, someone who might actually want to do her harm. She was putting a podcast out that could be full of lies, no matter how many background interviews she did and how much research she put into it. Ruth could end up more hated than Daphne herself.
Why did she think she could outsmart Daphne? There would always be another lie, another murder hidden away. Daphne had taken everything from her once before. And now she was doing it again.
StopDropAndTroll:
Scum. Fucking scum.
BurntheBookBurnerz:
This is completely different. I thought she killed MEN. I don’t understand. . .
StopDropAndTroll:
AWW did the serial killer disappoint u?
ShockAndBlah:
She’s lost me. I can’t like her anymore.
StopDropAndTroll:
Ur not supposed to like her, u psychopath.
ShockAndBlah:
Hey, didn’t someone mention that town before? In a discussion about unsolved murders Daphne may have committed?
BurntheBookBurnerz:
Oh yeah. . . you’re right!
PreyAllDay:
It was CapoteParty. . . u/CapoteParty, why did you ask that? What do you know?
ShockAndBlah:
CapoteParty?
After that, people really started to hate me. When everyone thought I had only killed men, I was interesting to them. Maybe in their heart of hearts, other people understood why you might like to smile to someone’s face as you slipped poison into their coffee. Maybe everyone just loved a murder story full of love, sex, and lotsa money.
But a child killer? That was no fun.
I had never felt so alone. And somehow that made me even more worried about stalkers. I’d already given them so much ammunition, but this would push someone over the edge. I was right to worry.
“The front desk wanted me to inform you that there was an incident tonight,” the Coconut Grove attendant said coolly, almost robotically. She handed me my medication, thrusting it into my hand with so much force that my arm ached.
“Is this you informing me? Because you haven’t told me jack shit,” I protested, clutching the pills tightly in my hand. My arthritic fingers ached with the effort. The girl sighed, as if to say:Oh dear, Difficult Daphne is at it again.