Head thumping, I leaned away from him. “You . . .”
Jason cocked his head to the side and widened his eyes. “Yeah. Me.” Slowly he knelt down in front of me, and I jerked back against the fridge door, putting space between us. The sadistic smile fixed on his face. “You and I have spent some special time together before. Kind of disappointed that you never realized it.”
My stomach soured and my head spun as I scooted to the left.
His gaze followed me. “Just think,” he murmured. “You’ve lived all these years thinking you helped put the Groom in his grave. That you got away.” His hand snapped and his open palm caught my mouth. I cried out as I fell to the side. “But this whole time, you only put one of us in the ground. I’ve been having fun this whole entire time. I just made sure there was no pattern. I strayed far from home and picked women that no one would miss. Remember what I said about serial killers?”
I pulled myself away, my gaze flickering wildly around the room. Panic threatened to dig in deep, but I couldn’t let it. I needed to get help. I needed to get a weapon. My phone was on the counter, but that was of no use at this point.
Jason’s fist closed around my hair. “Do you remember?”
Blood trickled down the corner of my mouth as I focused on getting my tongue to work. “Th-They’re smart,” I forced out, and my words sounded mushy to me.
“That’s my good girl.”
My stomach turned. “I am not your girl.”
“Yeah, you’re just a dumb bitch, and there’s nothing more I hate in life than a bunch of dumb bitches.” He sighed as he rose, pulling me up with him. I staggered to my feet. “You should ask my wife. Then again, she’s dead, so that’s not going to happen.”
“My God,” I whispered.
“Cameron was different,” he said, dragging me toward the kitchen island. “At first. I think I might’ve actually loved her. Then one day she decided she wanted kids. I didn’t. We fought. Obviously, I didn’t take that well. She never really kept in contact with her family. Lucky me. No one even gives a damn she’s gone.”
I closed my eyes. That wasn’t true. Someone gave a damn.
“Then you came back home. Couldn’t believe it when Miranda told me you were coming back. Fucking pissed me off. You were here, prancing around, and I just couldn’t deal with that. Fuck no. You should’ve stayed away.”
My hands flew out as he slammed my head forward. A crack of blinding pain stunned me as my forehead hit the edge of the counter. My legs gave out, and I crumpled to the floor.
Jason stepped back. “Just think. Let it sink in. Every single time you hugged me. Every single time you called me and asked for a favor. You opened your doors to me. Left me alone in here. I’ve had free rein of the place.” He laughed. “I helped your mother do dishes.”
Moaning, I twisted onto my side, pressing against the base of the island. I was going to be sick. God, I was going to be sick.
“This whole entire time I was punishing you, making you regret coming home. Dragging it out so you can feel just the tiniest measure of pain that I’ve felt.”
Head spinning, I looked to the side and blinked rapidly. He was going to kill me if I didn’t get up. He was going to kill Miranda. Wet warmth ran down the side of my face. This wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to be his victim again. I was going to get out of here. Miranda would be okay. I would hug my mom again. I would get to tell Cole that I loved him.
“You don’t even know why,” he said, as my cellphone started ringing.
My lips felt weird. “I . . . I don’t care.”
“Oh,” Jason laughed. “You do. You want to know why. Everyone always wants to know why.”
I reached up, gripping the edge of the counter. Get up. Get up.
He was suddenly in my face. “You got my father killed.”
I froze as I stared at him. I didn’t want to believe what I heard. His father?
“Vernon was my father,” he repeated. “My real father.”
It clicked into place slowly, painfully. Jason had come here all those years ago to find his real father. He’d told us that he’d never found him, and we never had a reason to not believe him. “The . . . the fire that killed your mom and stepfather . . .”
“That was me.” He winked, and my phone started ringing once more. “It’s amazing how people, even law enforcement, will see what they want to see. I mean, no one wants to believe an all-A student who watches Star Trek and marathons of Firefly is capable of murdering his parents.”
Jason was a monster.
“I found my father pretty quickly and you know what I found?” he said, curling his hand around the back of my neck. “I really take after my dad. Must be a genetic thing.” Lifting his gaze to the ceiling, he shrugged a shoulder. “Except he was a lot calmer than me. More patient. You did get that right. My father wanted to spend the rest of his life with his brides,” he said, lips twisted into a cruel semblance of a smile. “I just wanted to see what their insides looked like.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“He doesn’t have a thing to do with this.” Jason rose and dragged me with him. “Oh, and thank you for telling me that I had yet another relative here. Good ole Mayor Mark Hughes.”
A new horror filled me.
“He had no idea we were related, that Vernon had a son. I doubt he would’ve welcomed me into the fold if he did,” he said, laughing under his breath. “I paid him a little visit, made sure he took the fall for everything. Come to find out he really did vandalize your car and did that really weird shit with the deer and your mother’s truck.” Jason chuckled again as he pulled me back from the counter. “What a dumbass. He about pissed himself when he realized who I was, when I made him hold the gun to his own head. Man, putting that kind of fear into someone is a beautiful thing.”
I swallowed. “They’ll figure . . . it out. That it wasn’t a suicide.”
He snorted. “No. They won’t. Not these dumbasses. But now I’m going to have to get real creative about this mess.” He paused. “And you know who is a really great suspect? One Cole Landis.”
“You—”
Jason grunted as he shoved me forward. My upper body slid across the island. Pots and pans scattered across the island, clanging off the floor. A container of uncooked rice Mom had left out flew across the room. My cellphone went flying, and then I was falling. I twisted at the last second, hitting the floor. My hip smashed into a pot, and sharp pain flashed down my leg. I reached out behind me, my hands smacking along the floor as my phone starting ringing once more.