Page 28

That wasn’t an answer. I didn’t know what the fuck was even real. My delusions and my present were blending so much that I was losing a grip on my true reality.

Is this how Judes feels all the fucking time?

I growled, refusing to believe my world was that fucked up. This had to be real.

Centering myself, I looked up to the sky. I felt the rain hit my face, my boots sink into the mud, I heard Fallon shushing the baby, and I listened to the beating of my heart.

This was real. It had to be.

“Ya know what brother? Why don’t you come get her, yourself? I’ll leave her gift wrapped for you next to a corpse I need to turn in soon, so you have an hour.”

Goliath cursed. “Pharaoh Samiel Masters. What the fuck did you just say? Bro, what did you do?”

“I don’t have time to go down that road. Just get the fucking loon back in her cage before you lose your damn job.” I took a deep, steadying breath.

Goliath sighed on the other end of the line.

“Man, I am fucking telling you there is no way out of the asylum. This shit, I built with my own hands. I know how we think. I know all the shit I got into myself alone. I did not leave room for anyone to escape. Joe is gone, brother.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep it together.

“Roe, the killings that are happening now are not connected to anything with my place. I expect a bit more trust from you, for fuck’s sake.

I will humor your grump ass and go to the hole you’re bitching about.

But Roe, I say this with all the brotherly love I can without taping you to a goddamn bed and stapling your eyes shut. You. Need. Sleep.”

My anger simmered inside me, ignoring him and hanging up. I shoved the twin into the hole, her body rolling down the mudslide next to the deceased mother.

Fallon walked over to me, shrieking with her hands thrown up. “What are you doing?”

The baby woke up, and she groaned, exasperated. She started shushing the baby again, walking away from me.

I sent the coordinates to my brother, looped my arm around my Little Voyeur, and started heading out of this damn graveyard.

Wherever that shit stain ran off from, they were gone.

Joe’s snide remarks haunted me in my mind.

‘It’s not like you could have killed them even if you had found them. You’re weak. Will you falter when you face the truth about Xenia’s death, too? Stand face-to-face with the person who killed your child. Will you run then, Little Roe Roe?’

We finally found the exit. Fallon had called an ambulance, and they were waiting in the parking lot for her and the baby. A familiar squad car was here, too.

I had to say goodbye, leaving Fallon to tell them about the events. Lith would have time to retrieve Emmy from the hole before the cops were able to find it and piss their territory of yellow tape everywhere.

Micah Quinn stopped me on my way out of the lot.

“Roe? Do I wanna know why you are linked to my ‘Funeral Director’ case?”

I furrowed a brow. “Funeral Director?”

Micah shook his head, clapping me on the shoulder. He gained some baby weight with his little rugrat and husband’s life. His beard was thicker, too. The usual clean-cut Micah Quinn was a bonafide family man with a growing dad bod to top it off.

His little family had all moved to our little hell town in Texas ever since his past collided with his present.

Now, they all sang Kumba-Fucking-Ya together.

“Don’t you ever read the paper? You are surrounded by teenagers all day, yet don’t keep up with the gossip. I guess I commend you,” Quinn said, chuckling.

“I happen to like keeping my fucking nose out of everyone’s business but my own thanks,” I retorted.

Quinn laughed harder.

“Yeah, okay then. The ‘Funeral Director’ is the new serial killer. They always leave their victims laid out on display. Hands on their chest. Eyes open, on their backs.”

As he was talking, Xenia appeared.

My heartbeat quickened with my memory of her laying on that bed in that pose…

Xenia giggled, twirling her dress.

“You almost found me, Daddy! Keep looking.”

“You okay, Masters?” Quinn was holding my arm, his body keeping me from landing on my ass.

“I…” I shook my head. “No, man. No.”

Quinn frowned, giving my arm a squeeze. “Talk to me, Pharaoh. I’m here.”

I tried to find the words, my mind tingling with the images plaguing my thoughts with Xenia. Her image danced around me, hiding behind trees and running with her freshly picked sunflowers like I was chasing after her.

Her ghostly form was overly vibrant.

“I found…I found Xenia like that, Micah,” I said numbly.

Micah’s baby blue eyes widened before he composed himself in his soldier way—his own mask. He cleared his throat, pulling a pen and pad of paper out of his pocket.

“Pharaoh, tell me exactly how you found her. I know this is hard. I am sorry to ask, but if her…passing has anything to do with this new threat, that would mean…”

“Joe didn’t kill her. He was already dead when she was being murdered, wasn’t he?”

Quinn was silent. That was in itself an answer and the one I needed to shatter the thin veil of my world.

My daughter’s killer…was alive.