On the island were six-packs of Coca-Cola and Barq’s root beer—the ones that came in little glass bottles.
She clutched herself tightly as everyone—Allie, Joe, Louis, and Ted—sat down, then glanced around, questioningly, at one another. When their eyes met hers, she saw confusion. The tension in the room was so thick it could be sliced with a knife.
Bitty knew that everyone probably thought that she’d lost it. The truth was, she had—but it had happened years ago, and now she was going to make it right. Even if it killed her.
Which it very well might.
Through her pain, she wore a big smile . . . one so big it hurt.
Big Joe was the first to speak. “You okay, Miss Bitty?” he asked.
She pretended not to hear him. Instead, she spoke to the table. “The Franken Berry cereal, well, it was hard to find. Apparently it’s now a special edition item,” she said, fearing her face would crumple at any moment. “Would anyone like some? Louis? Joe? How about you, Ted?”
“I don’t think I should, Miss Bitty,” Joe sputtered. “I’ve been doing so well with—”
“For God’s sake, go on. Just eat some! You know you want to,” she snapped, her smile straining.
The room went silent.
“Sorry, Joe,” she said. “Eating it will be fine. But if you would prefer me to make you a different meal . . .”
“No, Miss Bitty. This looks great,” he said, dutifully spooning food onto his plate.
After a while, she saw Joe finally—but hesitantly—break an egg yolk with one of the biscuits. It was clear he wasn’t comfortable with the situation, but she also knew that he didn’t want to upset her.
She watched Louis chew on a Pop-Tart. Ted ate some of the Franken Berry cereal and sipped coffee. Allie just sat with her arms crossed, frowning.
The old woman tried to strike up some conversation. She wanted them to relax and enjoy their meal. Especially him, the son she hadn’t lost once, but twice. First, when he was sixteen and admitted to killing a classmate, and the second time, when he was twenty-three and she had learned he murdered a woman who worked at their local Blockbuster store.
Swallowing hard, she accepted the fact she was about to lose him for a third time . . . the final time.
And this time would be the most painful.
She knew that she had gone overboard with the spread, but she wanted him to be able to eat his favorite foods in peace—and his favorite foods had, by far, always been breakfast foods.
He had never had a shot at lasting happiness. He’d been severely touched with mental illness, an illness that had plagued their family for decades. Miss Bitty’s own mother had committed suicide when Bitty was just six years old. Her grandmother had committed suicide when her mother was only ten. And most of the others in their family hadn’t fared much better. Whether it was bipolar disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder . . . most had suffered with something awful. But, as far as she knew, he was the only one who’d been violent toward others.
He had been her best work, and her worst.
She would never forget the night when it all started. He had arrived home late, his skin ashen. He stumbled in, vomited on the kitchen floor, then admitted what he’d done to one of his classmates.
Listening to him, she started shaking and didn’t stop for weeks.
She made him promise not to breathe a word about what he’d done to anyone; then a month later she moved them to a different town. She was doing what she, at the time, figured any good mother would do.
She was protecting her child.
It turned out that no one who saw the teenagers together on the bike path paid close enough attention to him to give an accurate description, so he got off scot-free.
But she didn’t.
She glanced at him and noticed he was staring at her now. He looked tense, unsure . . . maybe a little afraid. She smiled at him, the most genuine smile she could muster, and his countenance shifted a little. It seemed to relax him and he smiled back—a relaxed, trusting smile.
He still trusted her. Her insides twisted at the thought.
Her heart tumbled into her stomach . . . and shattered.
CHAPTER 57
WHAT THE FUCK just happened? he wondered as he pulled away from the house and onto the street, needing badly to drive and think.
Dark walls of trees loomed on both sides of the road as he raced down the curving, rural roads trying to figure out what was going on.
Why was SHE acting so odd? So nervous? The way she’d been behaving lately unnerved him. A sense of foreboding bloomed in the pit of his stomach as he thought of the food she’d prepared, of the strange good-bye as he walked out the back door. The lingering, too-tight hug she’d given him, the kisses she planted on his cheeks and forehead.
She also refused to look into his eyes.
Why?
After five minutes of aimless driving, he slammed on the brakes.
She didn’t believe him anymore. It’s why she’d served his favorite childhood foods at dinner. And why she had become so fiercely protective of the girl. Not because she knew a faceless killer was on the loose.
But because she knew it was him.
The realization jarred him like a blow to the stomach. The moment he had dreaded his entire adult life had finally come. She’d finally realized what he’d been doing . . . and that he’d been lying to her. And she was ready to do something about it.
She was going to turn on him.
Abandon him.
A cold panic washed over him. But what was she going to do? Go to the police?
Surely she wouldn’t—
Drawing a jagged breath, he realized he’d finally run out of time. She’d reached her breaking point.
Swallowing hard, he flipped a U-turn and sped to Hope’s house.
CHAPTER 58
HOPE PACED AROUND her bedroom. “Damn straight I’m scared!” she said into the phone. “A woman and teenage girl were murdered within just a few miles of me. Hell, I already walk around the house with a knife. I have ever since the rape.”