Lorna continues, “She has been through a lot.” I can tell her compassion is a mask for something else. I can tell as her middle finger comes up to scratch the side of her cheek—an emblematic slip. “I see that. Her mother’s suicide. In and out of foster care. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even the girl who stole you from me.”
I deadpan. “I was never yours.”
“No.” Her throat closes up with emotion, so she clears it. “But I was yours. Wasn’t I?”
“Now you’re free.” I stare at her, completely unreadable. “Why were you looking through Fawn’s files? I know everything about her.”
“I wanted to find something…” Her sad voice trails to a pause. She looks at me, genuine pain ghosting across her eyes. “Something imperfect. Something that might sway you from her. I even considered fabricating it.”
“It would not have worked.”
She nods slowly. "I must have realised that at some point. I’ve never seen you so… affected by another person before. I suppose I was miserable after that call." She examines her nails, lowering her chin, hiding her shallow breaths while assessing the red varnish. “That was cruel, even for you.”
“I was never cruel to you.”
Her eyes close. “That was cruel.”
And you’re here for vengeance?“Was the message received?” I ask, curt.
Opening her eyes, now pooling with tears, she spits out, “Yes, loud and clear.”
"Then I shan’t need to be cruel to you again, Lorna.” I plucka tissue from the wooden holder on my desk, offering it across the polished surface. “Here.”
She takes it, sniffling. A single tear collects in the corner of her eye.
I feel nothing.
"I stumbled upon a missing person's report," she says, dabbing her lashes, delicately collecting the bead without smearing her mascara. "Her foster brothers. Two missing. One dead. That is quite a statistic, Clay. Messy, really.”
There it is.
"Hm." I stand and walk to the bar. Her eyes follow me, though I can’t see them; I can feel them. I pour her drink—a martini dry with a slice of lemon—and rejoin her.
Handing her the glass, I shadow her, waiting for the point of this conversation. Blackmail? Insight? It could go either way at this point. A woman scorned is never good to have as baggage or history.
She takes the glass, red nails curling around the stem, and stares into the liquor, her escape and salvation, as she says, "Does she know?" Lorna's whisper fills the room, a daring and sassy thing just like she is.
I leave her side, returning to my seat opposite her, giving her space to continue. "Does she know what?"
"That you killed them?” Our eyes snap together and hold. Such a statement is a punch to any normal man—to me, her knowledge of this, her questioning, is a mere disappointment. “The two that are missing?” she goes on. “Landon and… Jake, I think it was."
I watch her sip her martini, humming. I made it perfect for her. "The words have never been spoken,” I admit, “but my little deer is no fool. And what of the report, Lorna?”
She sets the glass down. “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why did you kill them?”
I recall the day I murdered the two boys who took turns raping my little deer in a basement. Recall every second of her pretty little revenge at my hands.
“Did they hurt her?” she presses. “Rape her?”
Now, how do you know that?
“She was pregnant when she came to you.” She takes another sip of her martini. “It was one of theirs, wasn’t it? Her foster brothers’?”
The thing about loyalty is that it is black and white. You’re either loyal or you are not.
