Voice spills from downstairs. So do shouts of horror and outrage. Footsteps echo on the stairs. “We’re unarmed!” I shout. “I have a child with me!”
The footsteps slow. A shadow passes over the door. The police lights flash red and blue across the wall, over and over, as one of the officers steps inside, his gun raised. I tense, but he lowers it when he sees us.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “What happened?”
“A madman,” I say, my voice shaky. I wish I could cover Oliver’s ears. Wish I could protect him from all of this in a way Theo didn’t see fit to do. “He’s down the hall. He’s?—”
I can’t say it. Oliver wails, and the cop drops his gaze to him, his expression dark. I squeeze Oliver tight around the shoulders.
“He’s a ghost now.”
31
CHLOE
SIX MONTHS LATER
“Ireally wish you’d just come stay with me.”
I slump down in the Adirondack chair on my back patio, my feet pressed against the railing. It’s warm and breezy for January, although it’s supposed to turn cold later this week. I think I’m looking forward to it. The warmth reminds me too much of summer. Of that night.
“You can stop asking,” I say numbly, watching the lake. “I’m staying.”
Abi sighs, the sound tinny on my computer speaker. I’ve got her and Penelope both up on a Zoom call, my computer balanced on the little table beside my chair. These weekly Zoom calls were the only way I could get Penelope to leave my house about a month ago. She showed up two weeks after that night, her backpack slung over her shoulder and her eyes hard and glinting.I’m not letting you stay in this house alone, she said.
Now, though, I’m used to it, being alone.
“I have plenty of room,” Abi continues. “Even with Rowan staying here. You know that.”
Rowan. Rowan’s her new boyfriend, and I know there’s a story there, although Abi’s keeping quiet about it. Honestly, she’s been kind of strange ever since this summer, too, like she’s keeping secrets. Penelope and I talked about it while she was here—probably in some attempt to distract me. But Penelope didn’t seem to think she needed to drive down to Texas to stay with Abi like she did with me.
Granted, I haven’t exactly been at my best since that awful fucking night in August.
“Dude, have you even looked at the weather forecast?” Penelope says now. I tear my eyes away from the lake to look at her face on the screen. “They’re saying you’re going to get snow.”
“You think I can’t handle snow?” I laugh mirthlessly.
Penelope rolls her eyes.“Youcan. But North Carolina can’t. What if you lose power? You’re completely isolated out there.”
I don’t say anything, mostly because I can’t argue with her. Penelope saw it firsthand for the few months she stayed with me: the way, one by one, every single person who had a lake house the night of the Verity Hollow Murders has moved out. We went for walks down the road, and I could see her counting the newFor Salesigns as they went up.
There are even more now, swinging disconsolately in the January wind. No one’s buying. And why the fuck would they? The subdivision now shares its name with a fucking murder spree.
The Verity Hollow Murders. Another notch in Theo’s axe handle, I guess, along with the Veritas Murders, the only other one of his sprees to get a name. I know because I keep looking them up, reading the names of all his victims, the way some people drag razor blades over their skin. Because I want to feel the hurt.
“Chloe?” Abi prompts. “What do you say? Just for a few days, to avoid the whole snowstorm situation.”
“There’s not going to be a snowstorm.” I glance over at the computer screen, my two friends frowning into their respective cameras. “Maybe a dusting, at most.”
Silence. I am almost certain that the two of them are messaging each other privately, trying to work out their next plan of attack. It’s been like that since that night.
That’s how I think of it. Not the Verity Hollow Murders, which sounds like something from a bad horror movie. That Night works so much better.
That Night Theo Shorn murdered five people and orphaned a child.
That Night I blew a hole through Theo Shorn’s heart. Fair play, though, because he certainly blew a hole through mine.
As for Oliver—well, he didn’t have anyone else, just like I guessed. Another social worker, a younger one, swept him up in the aftermath and sent him to live with a foster family that won’t even let me text him.
