Page 38 of X Marks the Stalker (The Hemlock Society #1)

Oakley

“ P lease tell me we’re not driving to a cabin full of corpses,” I say, watching moonlight flash across pine trees as Xander navigates another hairpin turn. The Berkshires loom darker with each mile, swallowing us into their wilderness.

He gives me a side-eye look, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “Would it change your mind about coming if we were?”

“Probably not.” I dig into my new coat pocket, extracting a pack of Red Vines with a crinkle that sounds obscenely loud in the car’s silence. “But I’d appreciate the warning. Corpse smell clings to hair like cigarette smoke.”

The winding mountain road narrows as we climb higher into the wooded hills.

Three hours from Boston, and the farther we get, the more my city-girl anxiety kicks in.

No streetlights, no cell towers, no witnesses.

Yet somehow, I’m sharing a car with a man I watched kill someone, and I’m more concerned about woodland creatures jumping in front of the car.

“So, what’s with the name?” I ask as we take another curve, the car’s headlights cutting through dense forest darkness. “The Hemlock Society? Sounds like a book club for people who hate Socrates.”

Xander’s mouth twitches. “Thorne’s idea. He has...preferences.”

“Like what? Poison?”

“Exactly like poison.” Xander slows as we approach a sharp turn. “Hemlock is his signature. Elegant, leaves minimal evidence. He appreciates the historical legacy.”

“How very civilized of him.” I squint at Xander in the dim dashboard light. “So your little murder club is named after your boss’s favorite method of killing people? That’s some corporate loyalty.”

“It’s not a ‘murder club.’” His tone carries genuine offense. “We’re highly selective. Think of it as the Ivy League of vigilante justice—our acceptance rate is lower than Harvard’s. We even rejected a CIA operative last year.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Dead serious. Pun intended. Details matter when you’re...you know, dealing in dead people.”

“What else does membership require?”

“Specialized skills. Adherence to a strict code.” He gives me a pointed stare. “Never compromising the group for personal vendettas. Well, until recently.”

I ignore the implication. “So each of you brings something different to your murder potlucks?”

“Each with different methodologies, backgrounds, motivations.” His voice takes on the clinical tone he uses when discussing his work. “Thorne founded it with Calloway. They approached each of us individually.”

I consider this as we pass a reflective sign warning of deer crossings. “And your family? Do they know about your...hobby?”

Something in his posture changes, almost imperceptible in the darkness. “My parents wouldn’t notice if I murdered someone in their living room.”

“That bad, huh?”

A sharp laugh escapes him. “My parents barely knew I existed. They were—are—very successful people with very demanding careers. I was raised by nannies.”

“Plural?”

“They cycled through quickly. My mother considered childcare providers like seasonal fashion to be refreshed regularly. Spring nanny, summer nanny, fall nanny. By winter, I’d scared them off myself.”

There’s no self-pity in his voice, just clinical detachment that somehow makes it worse.

“Did you like any of them? The nannies?”

“No.” He adjusts the heating vent. “They were performing a job, and I was an obligation. By age seven, I preferred being alone. Made my own lunch. Taught myself to use the washing machine. Learned how to forge my mother’s signature for school permission slips.”

I want to reach for his hand, but settle for offering the bag of licorice instead. He declines with a small shake of his head.

“When did you...” I start, unsure how to phrase it.

“Kill for the first time?” His voice remains steady, but something in his jaw tightens. “I was nineteen. A professor at my university. Dr. Hammond. English Literature.”

He pauses, and I notice his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.

“My girlfriend at the time, Eliza—she needed to improve her grade to keep her scholarship. He offered to help.” Xander swallows.

“She met with him during his office hours. Came back...different. Wouldn’t talk about what happened.

Stopped eating. Couldn’t sleep. Started flinching when I touched her. ”

The road stretches dark ahead of us, his face half-illuminated by the dashboard lights.

“She broke up with me a week later. Left the university not long after.” His voice turns clinical, detached. “Then I started noticing the pattern. Other girls, same behaviors. Same hollow look in their eyes. The university had received complaints, but he was tenured, published, connected.”

“So you did something about it.”

Xander takes a deep breath. “He had a severe peanut allergy. I got rid of his EpiPen and introduced trace amounts of peanut oil to his coffee.”

I swallow hard, imagining the scene. “That’s...methodical.”

“It was reported as an unfortunate accident—failure to carry proper medication.”

“How did it feel?”

His eyes flick to mine before returning to the road. “Like justice. Not pleasure, not regret. Just the satisfaction of solving a problem no one else would. Of making sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else like he hurt Eliza.”

The silence stretches between us, broken only by the rhythmic swish of windshield wipers against a light drizzle that’s started. I watch the droplets race down my window, merging and splitting like the decisions that brought me here.

“My parents were different,” I say. “Too present, if anything.”

Xander glances at me, but says nothing.

“My dad was a detective. Mom was a forensic psychologist. They met at a crime scene. Mom always joked it was the most romantic blood spatter analysis ever conducted.” I smile at the memory. “Our dinner conversations were basically homicide tutorials.”

“That explains some things about you,” Xander says.

I shrug. “They were good parents. Present. Involved. My dad taught me to fish and throw a proper punch. My mom helped with science projects and made Halloween costumes from scratch.” I twist another Red Vine between my fingers.

“Dad was investigating Blackwell when everything happened. He was getting close—money laundering, political bribes, evidence tampering. Then, he was the one under investigation.”

“Framed,” Xander says. Not a question.

“Internal Affairs claimed he was on Blackwell’s payroll.

Evidence appeared in his accounts. Perfect evidence.

” I swallow against the tightness in my throat.

“My mom didn’t believe it. She kept saying it wasn’t true.

Then one night I came home from a friend’s house to police cars and crime scene tape. ”

Xander’s breathing changes.

“Official report says my dad shot my mom, then himself. Murder-suicide.” My voice sounds flat even to my own ears. “I was sixteen.”

“You didn’t believe it.”

“My father could barely kill spiders.” I shake my head. “And he loved her. The way they looked at each other even after twenty years of marriage... You don’t fake that.”

A strange flutter moves through my chest as I catch Xander’s eyes. Sometimes, when he doesn’t think I’m looking, he watches me with that same expression, like I’m the answer to a question he’s been asking his whole life. Like my dad looked at my mom.

It’s crazy how fast this thing between us has developed. A month ago, I was hunting down a story. Now I’m running away with the subject of that story, and somehow I’m not terrified by it.

Maybe I’ve always been a little crazy. Maybe that’s why I became a crime reporter, why I kept digging into Blackwell when everyone told me to stop.

The seeds of this were planted the night my parents died, waiting for the right person to come along and help them bloom into something dangerous and beautiful.

Xander nods. “What happened to you after?”

“My aunt Caroline became my guardian. She tried, but she had her own kids, her own life in Springfield. I was just extra. Another mouth to feed, another person to find space for.” I press my fingernails into my palm. “I stayed until I was eighteen, then got a scholarship to BU.”

“No other family?”

“Grandparents were gone. Dad had a brother in Seattle who sent birthday checks but never visited.” I shrug. “I got used to being on my own. ”

“What about holidays?” Something in his tone shifts.

“First couple of years, I’d go to friends’ houses, but it’s awkward being the charity case at someone else’s family dinner.

” I stare at the trees outside. “Last few years, I’ve worked through most holidays.

Double pay, plus my editors feel less guilty about assigning the murder reporter to holiday shifts. ”

I don’t add that I still buy myself a present each Christmas, wrap it, and place it under my sad little artificial tree—a tradition that started my first year alone. Some habits are too pathetic to share, even with someone who’s seen me vomit at a murder scene.

“Do you miss them?” Xander asks.

I touch my mother’s locket, now hanging around my neck again. “Every day. But it’s been twelve years. The missing becomes part of you after a while.”

His eyes stay on the road, but I see his throat work as he swallows. “What would they think? About this?” He gestures between us. “About what we’re doing?”

I consider this longer than I should. “My dad believed in the system until it betrayed him. My mom kept looking for justice after everyone else gave up.” I take a deep breath. “I think they’d understand that sometimes the system fails, and when it does, someone has to step outside of it.”

“We need gas,” Xander says, slowing the car as we approach a lonely service station glowing like a neon island in the darkness. “Unless you want to push this car the last ten miles.”

I peer at the small convenience store attached to the gas pumps. “Perfect. I need to pee so badly, I’m considering your empty coffee cup as an option. ”

He gives me a scandalized glance that makes me laugh.