I exhale with a sigh. “You should have told me, Dad. Whether it was then or–”
Rusty starts to shake his head. “No, I did exactly what I was meant to. You needed to keep your focus on your girl, and I, I needed to try to find out who the sick motherfuckers were who were targeting women, torturing them, and dumping them in that lake the same way your mother had been over a decade ago.” He throws his arm behind him toward the lake at his back.
Everything in me freezes over.
“It was the same one?” I ask. “The one she loved, the one she lived for?”
He nods. “The same one.” Then he drops his chin to his chest before his eyes flick back to mine again, and a tear rolls from his bloodshot eye. “The same fucking pier, too.”
He exhales heavily. “And let me tell you, son, I tried everything to find out who had hurt Cherry, and I couldn’t find fucking anything. I was going mad. And that’s why I didn’t tell you. You would have had hope for answers about your mother, and you needed to keep that hope focused on finding your girl.”
My limbs tremble because he’s right.He’s always right.I would have lost focus, because I made a promise to myself all of those years ago that one day, I would find out who had murdered my mother, and I would tear them limb from limb.
And now, we finally knew.
And now, I knew exactly what Ihadto do.
The Next Day
I’m sitting in the backseat of Rusty’s truck, nestled deep in the night of the woods, staring at the shadows of an old, obsolete shipping warehouse. It’s dark and the wind howls around the vehicle, shaking the metal.
My eyes narrow on Keaton, who is cutting his engine next totheirline of Harleys.
Three.
Their masked shadows lean against the building, though they aren’t masked now. They’re exposed,the way me and Laney always were.
“I can’t believe he’s doing this,” I breathe, and I don’t realize the air around us has turned cool when the shadow of my breath comes out like white steam.
Rusty’s wrist hangs over the old steering wheel as he watches the interaction closely. “Don’t worry. Your brother is the toughest motherfucker I’ve met. He’s got this.”
Chase nods from the passenger seat. “That prick scares me, honestly.” He turns over his broad shoulder to look at me. “I still can’t believe he’s your brother.” Chase jerks his head towardHarlen, and there is a light grin that tilts the corner of his mouth. “Surprised he didn’t eviscerate this fucker, to be honest.”
Harlen chuckles. “She’s definitely worth losing an organ for.”
And even through the seriousness of the situation, I find a small smile stretching across my face. I always knew Keaton was crazy, so that’s no news to me, but Chase is right. Keaton took that part kind of well.
After the rotted bones of our truth crawled out of their shallow graves in the early hours of yesterday morning, all four boys had sat down to make a plan. And though their initial instinct was to make these motherfuckers bleed immediately, it was very clear that death would be their end game, and calculation and patience, and a speck of planning needed to happen to execute the depth of intention. No one slept, no one even blinked an eye.This was personal. This wasn’t only just about what had happened to me and to Laney, but to Summer, Harlen’s mother, and all of the other women we didn’t know about.
There was one plan.
Have them collate and catch them off guard.
I had spoken up when the decision was made.
“I want them in the exact same place they held me.” My voice is low, trembling but abrupt, and so sure.
Rusty, Keaton, and Chase all turn their gazes on me, and Harlen exhales against my neck.
I clear the lump of fear in my throat. “And I want to be there.”
They didn’t question me.
Keaton did what he needed to make it happen.
I came to know that Keaton was close with Manic,very close, the trust Manic had for him was unmatched. After all, Keaton was the man who kept everyone off his back, and Keaton knew that he could use that to his advantage. It took Keaton one phonecall with Manic. He had told him that he knew he was up to something, that he saw them talking all those months ago, and he wanted in.
This is why they were meeting here.
