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Landon looked at his feet. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that. He’s a yeller. It’s like the only thing he can physically do with gusto anymore. He’s just worried about Geneva. We’ve been through this with her before. I’m seeing some of the same signs. She’s quiet. If she’s not doing something for Dad, she’s holed up in her room. This is how it was the last time. Right before she left home. I know she’s gotta do what feels right for her. It just feels like Derrek Sidney is reaching beyond the grave to hurt my family again. She doesn’t have friends anymore. Things got sorta weird after that night at the cabin. I always got the impression that the parents of the rest of those girls resented Geneva. Not that they blamed her. Just ... watching her grow up when their daughters were gone. It was a reminder, maybe.”

“You had to grow up pretty fast yourself,” I said. “That can’t have been easy for you.”

Landon shrugged. “You do what you gotta do. Anyway, I don’t wanna take up any more of your time. I just thought maybe you could talk to Geneva.”

I didn’t know what use I’d be for Geneva’s mental health. But I’d hurt her when she thought I didn’t trust her.

“I’ll come out tomorrow if I can,” I said. “I’ll call Geneva first.”

“Good plan,” he said. “I can maybe get Dad out of the house so you can talk in private. Thanks, Ms. Gale.”

“Please call me Mercy.”

In some ways, Landon still looked sixteen. I hadn’t exaggerated when I said he had to grow up too fast. In a lot of ways, this kid had to hold his entire family together with his bare hands. I knew a little about what that felt like.

Landon thanked me again, then showed himself out.

I took a deep breath, then headed back to the conference room.

Dad had done some organizing in my absence. He had all the letters spread out over the large conference room table. What didn’t fit, he’d found a couple of folding tables and filled those up as well. “Trying to group them chronologically,” he said. “Sidney started getting fan mail right after he was taken into custody for the Ohio murders. He keeps getting them all through his time on death row and right up until his execution. There are a couple that were delivered posthumously.”

“Seven years’ worth of correspondence,” I mused. “We have a lot to get through.”

“The feds pored through this for years,” Dad said. “You’ve seen the reports that were part of your FOIA request. They never found anything of value in these. All of his incoming and outgoing mail was screened. Still, to have access to the entirety. There has to be something they missed.”

I started picking up random pieces of mail. The subject matter ran the gamut. All of it was disturbing. Hate mail. Love letters. Marriage proposals.

I found a letter written by Zoe Oleson. That shocked me. She’d written it to him six months prior to his execution. I read it out loud.

Dear garbage,

I hope you’re spending your last miserable days on earth in abject fear. You should. If there is a heaven, you won’t find it. I know you’re bound for hell. Think of how terrible your particular hell will have to be. I do. It brings me comfort. If you meet oblivion, perhaps that will be even worse for you. Think of it. You’ll become nothing. It will be like you never existed.

Know this. If my sister can haunt you, she will. As her twin, I’m still connected to her. I can feel her. You couldn’t take that away. And I know she’s waiting for you. Because she is in heaven. And part of her heaven means she gets to give you what you deserve. We’ve been planning it together. I promise.

“Whoa,” Dad said. “As far as curses go, that’s a monster. I hope it worked.”

As far as I could tell, Zoe’s was the only letter Derrek Sidney received from a victim’s family member.

“This is some weird crap,” Dad said. “I think the love letters are the creepiest. This gal in New Mexico sent him a lock of her hair and put a self-addressed stamped envelope for him to send a lock of his back to her. Obviously, he never did.”

For the next three hours, we pored through the cards and letters. Sidney got birthday and Christmas cards from all over the world.

My eyes started to bleed as the scrawled handwriting of every letter started to swim in front of me. I focused on the letters Sidney received in the year prior to the Deadwater Lake murders while Dad tackled the year after.

Letter after letter, I couldn’t find a pattern. “No wonder the feds gave up,” I said. None of the correspondence seemed to be from anyone Sidney knew on the outside. No family or friends. There was just nothing.

I picked up a letter from the February of the year of the Deadwater Lake murders. I did notice one similarity with a small group of them. They might have been written on paper about half the size of standard letter size. The paper was textured and soft, maybe a linen blend. There were no watermarks or other identification, but each of seven letters on the same paper appeared to be torn off at the top. There was no way to know if they were sent by the same person, but it was a good guess.

“He’s got sycophants,” I said.

“Yeah,” Dad agreed. “I’ve found six different people who think Sidney was the Second Coming. They’re waiting for Judgment Day and think Sidney’s gonna lead them to salvation. They’re waiting for instructions.”

“If anyone would have wanted him out,” I said. “it would be one of them, right?”

I read the letter on the torn linen paper in front of me.

“There’s art in what you do. Others might not see it, but I do. Please don’t worry about your legacy. The comparisons people make to butchers like John Wayne Gacy or even Bundy are an insult. I see that. I’m not alone.”