She sneered, then looked away, sweat dripping down her melted face, reminding Lucas of rain on a windowpane. Her mascara had long since surrendered, pooling beneath her eyes like bruises. When the silence stretched, August shrugged, steadying her other hand, preparing to take her other pinky.
“What are you doing?” she shouted, voice strangled.
“Oh, did we forget to mention that there was a penalty for failing to answer within the allotted timeframe?” Jericho asked. “Our mistake.”
“Wait!” she screamed as the blade pressed deep enough to draw blood.
“If we don’t follow through now, how will you learn?” Jericho asked.
“I loved my son. I—I did. Of course, I did,” she screamed.
“Loved? Past tense? Say love. Say Zane. ‘I love Zane.’ Be specific,” Lucas said again, getting in her face until they were almost nose to nose. “Nobody is falling for your bullshit.”
“I-I—” It was like even with her own flesh on the line, she couldn’t choke out the words.
“Let’s start with something slightly easier,” Atticus said. “Did you ever physically assault your son?”
The older woman had the audacity to roll her eyes. “Disciplining a disobedient child is a parent’s responsibility.”She gave them all another sneer. “One clearly Thomas should have utilized more often.”
Her scream ripped through the night air as another finger fell into the crisp green lawn. The grass glistened wetly, dew and blood indistinguishable under the floodlight.
“Oops,” August said. “My hand slipped.”
“It’s fine,” Lucas said. “I already know she lied. I saw it the first time I touched her.”
“Care to try again?” Atticus asked. “You still have eight perfectly good fingers left. We could always go back to question number one?”
“If you didn’t want him, why not just put him up for adoption?” Jericho asked. “Or did you just want him to be the cup you poured all your hatred into?”
“I already told you. My husband wouldn’t allow it,” she spat, whipping her head around to Lucas. “That’s the truth of it.”
“Why didn’t she love me?” Zane whispered over the comms. “Ask her that.”
“I doubt she’ll be honest,” Atticus murmured quietly.
“I’ll get the truth out of her,” Lucas said, angry on Zane’s behalf. “Even if I have to dig around in her brain with a psychic ice pick.”
“Zane wants to know why you didn’t love him like you did Gage,” August said.
A slithery smile spread across her face, similar to the slash that was Lucas’s joker smile. It looked equally ghoulish with her flaking, caked-on lipstick. She sat up a little straighter, like it hadn’t occurred to her that Zane could hear every word. “Oh, he’s listening?”
“Do you think he’d miss the opportunity to hear you scream for a change?” Atticus asked.
Bev’s chin tipped up, queenly reflex fighting the restraints. “He always was a little coward,” she said, “hiding in the shadows like a little mouse, letting Gage shield him.”
August’s green eyes looked pure black in the shadows. The wind stirred his cape. “Shield him from what, Beverly? You?”
“From life,” she spat. “He was always so pathetic, still is. Letting that husband of his abuse him.”
August didn’t give her the dignity of a warning. The knife was efficient; his grip was brick. The sound, again, was small. Wet and final. Her scream wasn’t. Atticus had the rag ready this time, pressed down hard, his mouth a flat line.
“Round two,” Jericho said, cheerful again. “Why the tabloids?”
Bev panted, face slick, eyes glassing with tears she’d probably practiced for years. “He forced my hand. He—he cut me off. He told lies about me to my friends. He—he’s vindictive. He wanted to ruin me.”
Lucas snatched her wrist. A flash, a glossy dining room, ten women at a luncheon leaning forward while Bev performed sorrow like a song—We don’t choose our children, do we?—and the way the table hummed with the thrill of judgment. Another flash: Bev scrolling her phone at 3 a.m., trawling her own name, deleting the comments that didn’t worship her. The dopamine hit of attention. The empty pantry Zane stared into at fourteen because she’d refused to pick up groceries while they were out of town; her new designer handbag sitting like a trophy on the counter.
“Lie,” Lucas said softly.
