Page 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

Liam

With Jesse’s directions, we’re able to locate the exact address of the lake house. Michaels splits the team, sending half to Sadie’s house and the other half to the lake house that Gabriel and I choose to head to.

While driving, I muse, “I understand Sadie’s mask was torn, but why did she go outside without anything on and risk being identified at a murder scene?”

“I think she really was trying to get the dog. I wonder if it slipped out? Or maybe the dog was outside when she showed up?” Gabriel says. “We have to keep in mind this woman isn’t killing for the fun of it. Obviously, she’s going about everything the wrong way, but… it sounds like her sister was the only thing in her life. We’ve seen how far people will go for those they love. Hell… think of how far you’d go for me. It sounds like she practically raised Christa. And… it’s not like Christa died by accident… can you imagine going years questioning whether something else happened, running so many scenes through your head, and then when you finally figure out what happened, it wasn’t an accident… it wasn’t even some kids trying to cover up some freak accident. She was literally put in that position by people who caused her death and enjoyed it enough they recorded it.”

“If that happened to you, I would rip them apart piece by fucking piece. But I wouldn’t let them die. I’d make them suffer until they realized that death was the only option for them. Until they—” I notice Gabriel staring at me, eyebrows reaching for the sky. “I mean… I would… turn it in to the police first chance I got. Yes, definitely that one. One hundred percent that one.”

He snorts. “ Would you turn it in?” There’s more than a dash of sarcasm in that sentence.

“Yes… like… super… turn it in.” I grimace a bit. “I definitely wouldn’t… do anything else.”

“Liam, don’t even pretend… Honestly…” Gabriel seems to fall into thought for a second. “Like… I know I would turn it in to the police. I do know that… but if the police didn’t do anything about it, and I knew they were still out there hurting people… I wouldn’t be above stopping them in some other way… even if it was hard for me to do so, I’d probably do it.”

“Sadie removed Steven Wong’s eyes as a warning. My guess is she removed them and sent the tape of her doing so to one of the men. It was a clear warning to stop. And instead of stopping, it seems like they got more ballsy. They were trying to show her that they were unstoppable. They sure thought they were, but it’s apparent they’re not as she picks them off one by one.”

“I wonder if they were all still involved and active?” Gabriel asks as I turn when the GPS tells me to. “Obviously we know Cameron was, but were Mitch and Anthony? Abby seemed to trust Mitch. She wanted to protect him. Does she know what was happening or was she protecting one of the people who were involved in her friend’s death?”

“I think she knew,” I say. “I think she knew, and that’s why Sadie attacked her. She wanted her to take the fall for protecting Mitch. For not doing everything she could for her friend.”

“Why would she protect Mitch?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know Mitch’s level of involvement. Did he chance upon it when he was younger and they had something big enough to force him to keep his mouth shut? Or was he still involved?”

Gabriel is quiet for a moment. “I just can’t fathom she’d protect someone like that, would she?”

“It’s hard to say. Abby hasn’t had much support in her life. She latches on to people who give her attention because she’s lacked it. So if Mitch gave her just the right attention, would she forgive him even if Sadie told her the truth?”

“But in the hospital, she was wary of you getting involved because she didn’t want you to get hurt. Speaking of getting hurt, why would Sadie have attacked you at the barn? I guess she might not have realized who you were. It was dark, and when she saw a figure, she might have thought it was Cameron.”

“She might have. Or maybe she saw how sexy you were and wanted to off me so she had a chance for herself.”

Gabriel scoffs. “Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what happened. Damn, I feel dumb for not deducing that myself.”

I grin at him as I turn onto the road the lake house is on. “Please be careful and don’t do anything risky. Definitely don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and would do. Basically, just sit in the car and hunker down. And if you need to use Donna as a shield, you have my explicit permission.”

“Donna isn’t even here!”

“I’ll call her to come, then,” I assure him. “Chris is coming. He looks just like Sadie. I hope someone doesn’t tase him instead of her, mistaking the two.”

“They look absolutely nothing alike. I’m not certain one could look any different.”

“I’m just warning you that if you see someone you think is Chris, you should tase him just in case ,” I say as I see a car in the driveway of the lake house. The lights are on and it’s obviously running. I park my car in a way that blocks it in and grab my gun as I quickly exit the vehicle. Gabriel is moving with me while more police cars fill in behind us.

Gabriel shouts for her to step out of the vehicle because we can’t quite tell if anyone is in the vehicle with how dark it is. His flashlight hits the window and shines through, lighting up the interior and showing me that no one’s inside. But what’s caught my attention is a spiderweb crack through the window. There’s a clear bullet hole, and the blood splattered across the seat shows she was struck while inside the car.

Several other officers start moving toward the house as Gabriel alerts them of what we’ve found. Based on the trajectory of the shot, the person who pulled the trigger had to have been waiting on the porch. It’s dark, shadows offering protection to keep anyone from ever seeing them.

Seeing the blood smeared across the middle console, it’s apparent she slipped into the back seat and out the rear door.

“I believe she would have gone this way,” Gabriel says, and I smile when I realize he’s noted the same thing because he’s so smart. “I can’t fathom she’s in the house since the shooter was standing in that direction.”

“Let’s hurry,” I say as I start moving. I have to guess that the shooter is someone involved with Cameron and the others. Are they the person she’d sent the threat to? Did they figure out who she was and were waiting for her? They’d have absolutely no idea we’d be right on her trail, but it’s evident they were one step ahead of us. Or maybe they’d been watching Anthony’s house and figured out who she was and had set up their trap while we had distracted her.

Gabriel keeps moving, checking his surroundings as we make our way closer to the neighboring house.

“This way, I see blood here,” he says as he slips through the open gate of a privacy fence that runs between the houses and leads out to where the beach meets the edge of the lake.

Gabriel steps carefully toward the end of the fence line, but if she ran through here with the gunman coming after her, she’d be out in the open. She’d lose the protection of the house unless she made it to the end of the privacy fence and slipped into the neighbor’s yard, but that would require her to run for quite a distance out in the open. Instead, she had likely moved to the left, using the house and trees for cover. I turn left and move along the back of the house as I hear people inside it, searching for her.

There’s a shed back here and seeing me go for it, Gabriel heads over to help.

“The door is latched from the outside,” he notes.

“It is, but she could have locked it using the window here if she had something to help her. It would have thrown off the attacker if she had the time to do it,” I say as I notice the chip on the paint of the handle, like something metal was slammed against it.

Gabriel steps to the side as he slides the latch open. “Locking herself in a space with no way out means she didn’t think she’d make it much farther. Ready?”

“Yes.”

He swings the door open, and I move in. The shed is cluttered. There’s a zero-turn mower in here, along with boxes and a Christmas tree that seems to have been forgotten in a corner judging by the number of spiders making it their home. If Sadie has a gun on her, she’s at an advantage while I sweep my flashlight along the area. Gabriel has my back when I step onto the deck of the mower and see her tucked in the corner.

“Put your hands up where I can see them,” I say, though when she doesn’t move, I can’t help but wonder if she’s already dead. I can see that the only thing she’s holding is a hammer. Her other hand is pressed tightly against her chest where blood has bloomed out around the wound.

“Put your hands up,” I warn as I move in.

When I reach for the hammer, Sadie jerks back. “Please,” she whispers.

I pull the hammer from her hands and toss it. There’s really not much room to push her forward to cuff her, and even if there were, I don’t see much sense in it. She’s pale, her breaths are coming rapidly, and she can’t seem to even sit up straight.

Her eyes struggle to keep hold of mine. “They killed her. They killed so many. Please. You have to stop them. Please. They watched her die. They enjoyed it. They laughed when she begged for help. They’re monsters. They deserve this. They deserve worse.”

“Who shot you?”

“I don’t know… there’s one left. Please.”

Something about her desperation and the depravity of what happened feeds the darkness inside of me. It makes that desire to hunt wake up. “I’ll find them,” I say quietly before adding, “I’ll stop them and make them pay for what they’ve done. Do you know who they are?”

“I don’t know. None of the others would tell me. Please. Christa… I finally got her out of that horrible life with our parents. I raised her. They deserve this. They deserve it…” She leans against the cabinet, and I can see her mouth moving, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. Her breathing comes in gasps, like she can’t figure out how to find a single breath.

Gabriel is calling for medical personnel who descend upon her as I step out of the shed to meet up with him.

The team fans out, moving out from the direction of the shed as they search for Sadie’s shooter, who was also involved in killing her sister. She seems to be confident they are the last one, and I’d love to hear what her reasoning is, but at the moment, I’m not quite sure she’s even going to live. When I get tired of looking for someone who clearly is no longer here, I head back to the lake house and let myself in, Gabriel following close behind me.

“You’ll want to see this,” Chris says as he leads me back to a room where Matthew is staring at a wall covered in photos. The blur in each picture makes me feel like they’ve been pulled from videos. Most are just hints of people. Arms, legs, anything that she could use to identify a person. I examine them, looking for hints that she was able to run with. A scar on an arm that matches one found on Mitch’s body, a smattering of moles… this woman scrutinized every inch of what she was given. She tore it apart and slowly pieced together who had taken her sister from her life.

“She should have gotten a job in homicide. Maybe she can take Donna’s position if she lives,” I comment as I examine every single photo. “Anyone know where Jesse is? I have to assume he’s here by now.”

Matthew’s head snaps up. “Is he out back? He shouldn’t be out there alone. They really cared about each other, so he doesn’t need to see that.” He hurries off, concern written across his face.

“I wish she’d have worked with us,” Gabriel says. “We could have done something.”

I rock back on my heels as I survey it all. “Going through the foster care system, I met a lot of people like Sadie and Abby. They were children who had to become adults because there was never an adult in their life that they could trust. They had to grow up and fend for themselves. In Sadie’s case, her whole world likely revolved around her sister. Raising someone when you’re only a few years older than them is hard enough, but becoming their whole world and then having that ripped away… I’m not surprised she still assumed she had to do it all alone. The police definitely didn’t do her justice when they wrote off Christa’s death as an accidental drowning.”

“It never should have been overlooked,” Jesse says from behind me. “It was a medical examiner who was already convinced that what they saw at surface level was the answer. They never bothered to look deeper. A troubled girl with a record of underage drinking found dead in the ditch… what else is there to look into?”

“Are you okay?” Gabriel asks him.

Matthew’s hand, which is on Jesse’s shoulder, tightens. Jesse reaches up to it and squeezes it gently before he takes a deep breath and moves forward. “This one is Mitch; the scars line up. This one is Steven. So then we have a tattoo… did the guy who died today have a tattoo?”

“His name was Anthony, and I don’t think so.”

“Cameron didn’t either. Might be your final guy. You said Abby and Sadie’s sister had tattoos. Could Abby tell you who did the tattoo? If they were all in the same friend circle, there’s the possibility the same person tattooed them.”

I notice Michaels standing in the doorway listening in, and my mind drifts back to Abby talking about monsters and the fact that her father died meant that another “monster” was created—or maybe got free.

“Michaels, can you look into the people that Abby’s father Ted was keeping an eye on before he was killed?”

“I can, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to find specifics if it’s not explicitly documented,” he says.

“Can you send up the videos that were found in Anthony’s place? I want to watch them,” I tell him. “But I’m going to stop by the hospital first and see what Abby has to say.”

“Okay.”

I take another look at the photographs before turning toward the door. Gabriel reaches over and gives Jesse a hug, and I feel like I should say or do something, but I don’t know what. He catches my eyes, and I realize that I’m not getting out of this awkward situation.

“Did Sadie say anything?” Jesse asks.

“Just that she needs us to figure out who it is and stop them.”

“I don’t know what to think about it,” he says.

“About what she did? What’s there to think about? Sadie did what she thought she had to do to avenge the person she cared about more than anything. She went to the ends of the world for her. She was willing to die for her and she might. I guess that’s what love does to a person.”

Jesse looks conflicted. “Sadie and I realized we were better as friends, but she’s a good person. She really is.”

“Good people can do questionable things, and horrible people can do good things. That’s what makes people so unique,” Gabriel tells him. “You never know what someone is capable of until you take away the thing that keeps them moving.”

“And because of a senseless death too,” Matthew adds. “It’s one thing if someone you loved died because of a true accident. It’s another to find out there was pleasure taken from their death.”

Jesse sighs. “I wish she’d come to me, but I guess we weren’t that close. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’m going to look over these photographs and pinpoint which ones relate to Anthony and confirm that the tattoo would belong to the final person. From what I can see here, it does look like a man’s arm. Likely Caucasian, from what I can tell, but I’ll know better when I examine the photographs and the body from today. I’ll let you know.”

“Sounds good,” I say as I head out the door with Gabriel.

The two of us drive to the hospital where we go up to Abby’s room. She’s sleeping, so I walk over and snap my fingers in her face.

“Maybe just like a gentle, ‘Hey, Abby’ would be better?” Gabriel suggests.

“Hey, Abby, wake the fuck up,” I say. “Was that good?”

“Not really,” Gabriel says as Abby opens her eyes and looks at me in surprise.

“Liam? What are you doing here?”

“I need you to be up front with me. Sadie has been shot and is likely going to die, so your idea of protecting her has gone out the window. Not sure why you’d protect someone who tossed you off a balcony, but still. We’ve all done dumb shit. Not Gabriel, but definitely everyone but Gabriel.”

“I’m not sure I’m excluded from that,” Gabriel says.

“Sadie… Sadie’s been shot?” she asks in shock.

“She was shot by one of the people who killed her sister. You done pretending like you can’t remember shit so you can talk to us?”

Abby watches me for a long moment, but her eyes don’t seem to focus. “My head hurts. Who shot Sadie?”

“I don’t know, but we’re hoping you do. Anthony is dead. Mitch, Steven, and Cameron are all dead.”

“Mitch wasn’t involved. He changed. He didn’t know what they were doing. I told Sadie to leave him alone. She said he was in a video, but Mitch said he didn’t know what they were doing, and that they told him they’d kill him. He didn’t know they were still doing it.”

“He knew they killed someone.”

“He… he thought it was a prank. He didn’t know Christa… they were using him to bring people to them. He didn’t know what they were doing to them.” She sounds so desperate to protect the image of a man who is already dead.

“What the fuck did he think they were doing?” I ask.

“They… they offered him drugs in exchange. He… he would go to college parties with the group of them. And he said Cameron would pick out a girl or a guy and it was Mitch’s job to go flirt with them. Then he would be instructed to take them someplace. If he did, they’d give him the drugs and he’d leave. I didn’t know him at the time, and he didn’t know what they were doing, he really didn’t. If he did?—”

“I’m pretty sure he could take a guess,” I say. “At the very least, you’d have to assume it was assault of some kind.”

“You don’t understand what drugs do to you. You dealt with your demons a whole different way than Mitch and I did. The euphoria, the peace… the addiction. What if you could only get that feeling if you handed someone over first? Would you do it?”

“Of course not,” I respond, but I also don’t know what would happen if I was never allowed to kill. I went a year between when Gabriel caught me and when I was allowed back on the force, and I felt like I was in constant turmoil. I was irritable. I sought out different things to fill that gap but nothing could. I would hunt men and women and just watch them. I would lie in bed at night and think of how to kill them.

“Well, maybe that’s the difference between us… you’re stronger than either of us ever were,” she says.

I don’t have an answer to that.

“How long did Mitch work with them?” I ask.

“I don’t know… he was very vague about it. And I… I think guilt kept me from asking too many questions. Mitch stopped after a short while. He started to speculate what was happening when he saw an article naming one of the women he’d been instructed to deliver to them. Her body had been found… she’d been hit by a car, and he knew… he knew they did it. He was paranoid the police would know he was involved. Mitch hid himself in his house for days until his addiction won out and he went back to them. He told them he wasn’t going to be involved and they showed him that they had photographic proof of every single person he’d interacted with that was now dead. He couldn’t go to the police.”

“So it was better for more people to die than to go to prison?” I ask, wondering if I’m understanding this correctly.

“It was a long time before I knew what he had done. I never fathomed it was still happening,” Abby says.

“But you knew when this started. You could have told me at any point. Hell, you even protected him before.”

“Because he wasn’t guilty. I really thought it was him. And then I realized it was Sadie. When I saw her… when she shot at me back at Mitch’s… she didn’t realize who I was. She was trying to scare me off. I was afraid she was going after Mitch and was convinced I could explain to her how he wasn’t involved anymore. So… I wanted to protect him too. I told her that he wasn’t involved. I told her that Mitch never meant for any of that to happen because he didn’t know .”

Abby closes her eyes like she doesn’t even want to talk about it anymore. Like closing her eyes will fix everything.

“But Mitch still had tapes? He wasn’t involved but he had tapes? Because someone removed something from his air duct.”

“He got them from Steven… Steven claimed he had them to blackmail the others if they ever went to the police.”

“So he knew Steven was involved. Who else was?”

“The only ones I knew about were Steven and Anthony. I don’t know this Cameron guy. Maybe I came across him at a party or something, but I don’t remember him. And I don’t know who else was involved. Neither did Mitch. Mitch just delivered the girls to Steven. That’s all I know.”

“Last time you swore you knew nothing,” I say, quite sour. “And here you knew exactly who killed your best friend.”

“I thought she drowned. I really thought she drowned in that ditch, and when I learned what they’d actually done to her… it’d been fucking years . I was in love with Mitch. I wanted to protect him. I thought we could have a life together. I never had a family, Liam. I didn’t know what it was like for someone to care if you came home at night. I used to think about the fact that if I just… died , there was absolutely no one who’d care. But Mitch would.”

“Yet now he’s dead. You tried protecting him, but at what cost?”

“Don’t you think I fucking know that?” Abby hisses. “Don’t you think I regret that? I regret everything I’ve done. I truly don’t remember everything from the night Mitch died. I asked to meet with Sadie and… next thing I remember, I was waking up in my bed covered in blood. She did something to me. It was a threat to keep me quiet. It was supposed to be my comeuppance for protecting Mitch instead of her sister. She didn’t want to kill me, but she wanted me to suffer for it. She thought having me take the fall for Mitch would be enough since I was Christa’s friend, but after you two left, I saw Sadie. And I was so upset over what happened to Mitch… I wanted to make her hurt like I did. It was so selfish. Everything was selfish.”

“Who did the tattoo on your wrist?”

“My wrist? What does that have to do with anything?”

“I believe they’re connected. There have been multiple people with identical tattoos who have been targeted. Whose idea was the design?”

“Anthony’s… but Christa and I wanted something that matched. And he was an artist. He drew it for us. There wasn’t anything else to it.”

“There was at least one other who died. Who knows how many were never identified.”

“I mean… I don’t know the tattoo artist…”

“You can’t remember a name?” I ask.

“Fuck if I know… you remember the name of the person who waited on you at a restaurant last week? He was friends with someone in the group, I guess… I remember seeing him at a party a few times, but I never spoke to him.”

“Was he at the club that time I met up with you?”

“I don’t know… I don’t think so.”

“What did you mean when you mentioned your father’s death and the whole monster thing? Was your father tracking them down?”

“Not for this… but he was trying to bust the guy Steven was getting his drugs from. If Steven had been stopped… maybe I would never have gotten wrapped up in drugs. Maybe Mitch would never have brought those men and women to the others if my father had caught them.”

“You think what your father was doing should have gone on? There is a lot of bullshit in all of this. You think if your father had caught Steven, it could have fixed it all? They would have just found someone else. Try to think about the tattoo artist. Anything you can think of, let me know.”

I head out of the room with Gabriel. “I don’t blame Sadie for tossing her off a balcony,” I grumble.

“Uhhhh… I don’t think you’re supposed to say that out loud.”

“Yeah? Well, apparently she thinks that Mitch saying he was done with it should win him good guy of the year. That asshole Kenny who held me hostage and stole my money did the same fucking thing. They think there’s some magic button that fixes it all. All they have to do is turn around, and suddenly, they’re absolved of everything. They’re a good guy.”

“I know… It doesn’t make sense. But we’re going to end this before anyone else gets hurt or dies. We just have to figure out who else is involved.”

“I want to speak to Anthony’s older brother. He could know how deeply Anthony was involved, or more about Anthony designing the tattoo. Hopefully, he knows something that could get us the answers we need.”

When I reach the department, I harass the team until they have the videos set up. Then I park my chair in front of the screen and start watching every single video that Anthony had lovingly added to his collection. Each one is a version of his own trophy. They aren’t all videos of people dying. Many are of people before they were taken. It’s clear that whoever was in charge of recording them enjoyed watching their target for a long time. In some cases, seasons changed around them. They weren’t rash. They were meticulous and paid attention to the smallest details. That doesn’t mean all of the videos are like that. Cameron obviously didn’t spend much time researching his victims before he took them. I wonder if that’s why Jane Doe ended up being tossed from the bridge. Was she just a rash choice that Cameron made and the person who records them didn’t approve of it?

“How would it be working with a group like this?” I mutter out loud. Gabriel understands what I mean, and Matthew just thinks I’m talking about the fact that a group of people would have to share the same desires. The same sick obsession with watching someone suffer and die.

“Hell, history is full of people… I guess you just generally don’t see it nowadays,” Matthew says. “And it goes on for a while. Like… this started twenty or more years ago. It almost seems like a tradition… like the person who picks them out records them for weeks or even months and then once a year or something, they get together and kill someone. We don’t have any dates, but we can see the evolution of tech as the videos progress.”

“So Sadie set them off, right?” Gabriel asks. “Sadie’s threat made them kill more and faster.”

“Seems like it,” I agree. “From what I’ve noticed, they all seem to be people who are better off, at least in the more recent tapes. Some of the older ones are random, but that makes sense. Killers don’t always start off knowing exactly what they want. But as the years progressed, it’s clear they’re targeting people who are well off or appear to be. They’re generally stylishly dressed, well groomed, and aren’t afraid to show it.”

“This is… so fucked up,” Matthew says. “I need a break.”

I glance up from the screen I’ve been fixated on for hours and see Matthew getting up and Gabriel looking upset.

“I agree. Why don’t we all take a quick break?” Gabriel asks as he sets a hand on my shoulder.

I look over at him, positive a break is the last thing I want. No, I need to see every fucking shot of these videos because I’m going to destroy this person. I’m going to tear them apart. I’m going to hunt them like they’ve hunted these men and women.

“Why don’t I keep watching while you two get some sandwiches for us,” I say, implying that the more I watch alone, the less they have to watch. I have to assume I’d catch most things.

Matthew looks highly interested in this idea. “Are you sure, man? This is… a lot. This is… I mean, I’ve seen some fucked-up shit and it’s a lot for me. I feel like you shouldn’t have to watch them alone.”

“Just get me a cookie to make up for it,” I order. “At least twelve cookies. Brownies are fine too. I’m craving chocolate.”

“I thought we were getting you a sandwich,” Gabriel says.

“Yeah, and cookies,” I tell him.

“Alright. Sandwich and a dozen cookies to share, coming right up.”

“I never said they were to share.”

“A dozen cookies for you to eat while looking everyone else in the eyes, coming right up.”

“Perfect.”

Gabriel grins and then pats my head before leaving the room. He understands me enough to know that I can separate myself from what’s happening, unlike the two of them. To me, this is a means to get answers. These people all died for no other reason than to fulfill some sick desire.

I suppose some could say I share a similar sick desire, but it’s different. It’s very different.

Quickly, I start the next video. The older ones are a bit rougher, with no rhyme or reason to the people they pick. But the more recent ones follow a pattern, like I told Gabriel and Matthew. There’s a similar look about them and the way they die gets more… creative. Some are meant to look like accidents, while others couldn’t possibly be seen as anything besides homicides, making me wonder what they did with the bodies. They don’t record any part after their death.

I grab the next one and slip it in. It’s clear these are copies someone made for Anthony because they’re older videos on newer tech. It at least makes my part easy. I press play, and suddenly, I’m looking at myself… my sixteen-year-old self.

“Oh?” I ask, interest piqued.

There are very few videos of people who didn’t end up dying.

“This motherfucker had me on their kill list. Oh, how fucking hilarious.”

“What’s hilarious? I feel like I should be concerned that my other employees left to get a break and you’re in here laughing,” Michaels comments as he enters.

“I know, right? Look at this,” I say as I go back to the beginning of the recording. “This is hilarious. You see this?”

He watches it in silence, oddly not finding it as funny as I do. “You were literally being targeted by this group… you realize most people would feel uneasy about this?”

“You know why it’s hilarious? Because all I have to do is think about where I was this night… and who I was with and who was recording.”

Michaels gives me a look. “You know who it is?”

“You know that issue I have where I really only seem to care about myself and Gabriel? I really wasn’t much different at sixteen.”

He stares at me for a long moment. “You don’t remember anyone there, do you?”

“I just need to jog my memory. It’s a video of me at… what looks like a party. I went to a grand total of like… no parties because parties meant people and I hated people. The only parties I ever went to were when I was being forced to drag Abby home. I wonder if anyone ever tried leading me off to my death and I just hated dealing with them so much that they gave up. That’s a hysterical thought.”

“Your idea of humor is vastly different from mine,” Michaels says.

“Anthony’s brother is… Jack, right? Have we gotten ahold of him yet?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m going to call Abby, then. Let me know if you reach him at any point. I’d like to speak to him one way or another.”

I call Abby, who answers pretty promptly.

“Hey,” she says quietly.

“You done pretending you have amnesia?”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“So they had a video of me in here but for the life of me, I can’t remember a time when I was at this party. I’m going to record it and send it to you because I’m lazy and don’t feel like wasting time driving to the hospital. While I’m doing that, can you think of any instance when I was at one of your parties?”

“I don’t think you ever willingly went.”

“You’re right, but Lisa sent me out more than once to go find you, and other times I went out to find you just out of the goodness of my heart,” I say as I send the recording to her. She’s quiet while she watches it.

“Hmm…” She falls silent for another second. “It’s very fixated on you. I can’t really see too many other people… wait, there’s Christa.”

I nod as I watch it again. “Her hair is short. She cut it after she caught Anthony kissing someone.”

“Kissing someone? He was kissing you.”

“Someone ridiculously sexy.”

Abby snorts. “You’re as much of an idiot now as you were back then. But you’re right, she did cut it after that. How the hell do you remember these things?”

“What about Jack, Anthony’s brother; was he ever involved in the parties?”

“Sometimes he got weed for Anthony or alcohol, but the parties were generally not his style. Okay… this is Beth’s house.”

“Who’s Beth?”

“I don’t know. Carl’s girlfriend… it was her house.”

“You act like I remember who Carl is… Wait, this was the night before you were moved to another home, right? Lisa threw a fucking fit because you came home high and climbed into my bed.”

“Was it that night? I thought Carl broke up with that chick by then.”

“It was. I remember trying to smother you with a pillow, and Lisa was convinced we did the dirty when she went to talk to you the following morning.”

“She was so fucking weird. I’m glad I got out of that place. She didn’t like either of us. I think she was convinced we were both Satan’s spawn.”

“What about the guy who tried drugging you? You know his name?”

“Fuck if I know. Sorry. I was never good at keeping track of things. Hell, I couldn’t even keep track of my own life.”

“Yeah. I noticed,” I say. “I’ll call you back if I think you might be more useful. Likely not. You seem pretty useless.”

“Thanks, Liam.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, I reply, “You’re welcome.” I look up as the door opens and Gabriel comes in with a box and a bag, followed by Matthew.

“Cookies and burgers from your diner. I took Matthew there to show him what happens when you neglect a place. They’re nominated for awards and stuff. The place is booming.”

“Matthew… you can have that diner if you do one tiny thing for me.”

“Absolutely not,” Matthew says. “But I did get them to give us free food. And I plan to eat there for free for the rest of my life as compensation for the torture you’ve put me through.”

“I will make sure you’re banned,” I promise him.

He doesn’t seem to care or possibly thinks I’m not telling the truth.

“So what did you find?” Gabriel asks.

“The funniest thing,” I say as I start to play the video. “Look how dumb I looked in those clothes.”

Gabriel quickly looks over at me. “You think this is funny? A serial killer had their eyes set on you.”

“Hilarious, actually. I mean, it’s not like they ever went through with it or even tried.”

“Did your personality scare them off or something?” Matthew asks.

“Possibly,” I say.

“Do you remember this night?”

“I think so.”

“Can you tell us about it? Maybe something will jog your memory,” Gabriel suggests.

“Once I start telling Matthew stories, he’s going to begin thinking I need to tuck him in at night as well.”

“You are probably one of the last people I’d ever want to tuck me in at night. Your mere presence would cause me to have nightmares.”

I smile, pleased that he understands this. “Let’s see, it all started with me being perfect.”

“This is going to be awful and highly biased,” Matthew says before stuffing a huge bite of his sandwich into his mouth. “Damn, this is good. So glad I get to eat there for free for the rest of my life.”

Ignoring that, I start telling them about that night, of course leaving out all the little bits about offing Abby’s father and the threat I made her. I’ll tell those to Gabriel in private later.