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Chapter 42

Richard

Ihadn’t slept all night.

Samantha had walked out the evening before, and I had spent the hours since preparing. As the sky began to lighten, I cut two lines on the bathroom counter and snorted them. The high cut through my exhaustion, but it wasn’t enough. I did a third to level myself out.

Then I stepped outside, lit a cigarette, and smoked it while I waited for Colin. He was bringing the bodies. Everything had to look right.

An hour earlier, I had handled the homeless man myself. He was about my height and build. Killing him took only a few minutes, and his body waited in the basement. Colin had agreed to handle the boys’ stand-ins. When he arrived with them, we would stage the scene and burn the house.

Colin had already prepared falsified dental records and arranged for the medical examiner assigned to the case to confirm the identities. By the time anyone outside the department reviewed the evidence, the bodies would officially belong to me, Seth, and Luke. Samantha would believe her family had died in the fire, and no one would question the conclusion.

I could have killed the boys and started over without them. I kept them because they belonged to me, and I wasn’t finished shaping them into what they were meant to become.

I crushed the cigarette under my heel and went back inside.

Seth woke first. He walked into the kitchen, his eyes scanning the counters and the duffel bags by the door.

“Where’s Mom?” he asked. His voice was quiet, but the worry was already there.

“She left,” I said.

Luke came in a moment later, rubbing his eyes. “Where did she go?”

“Away,” I told them.

Seth’s face tightened. “Why? When is she coming back?”

I kept my tone even. “She couldn’t handle this life. She’s gone.”

Seth pressed. “Is she okay?”

The questions were already piling up. I moved to the stove. “She left because she didn’t want a family anymore. That’s what women do. Eat your breakfast.”

I made them eggs and bacon. The boys sat at the table. Luke poked at his food. Seth barely touched his, turning the little toy Impala over and over in his hands.

Luke looked at the bags by the door. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Yes, and we aren’t coming back,” I said, irritation flickering beneath the cocaine calm.

Seth looked up. “What about our stuff? Our school? Are we really leaving everything?”

“Yes.” My voice hardened. “Stop asking so many questions.”

Seth wasn’t finished. “Mom said she loved me. She said she’d never leave me.”

I exhaled. “She lied. Drop it.”

Seth fell quiet for a moment, but the pain showed in his eyes. He loved her more deeply than Luke or I ever had. I would have to destroy that attachment too.

While they picked at breakfast, I told them what they needed to know.

“We’re moving far away.”

Luke looked up. “To a new house?”

“Yes.”