Twisted by Hannah Jayne(62)

Cold betrayal shot goose bumps down Bex’s arms, and she shook her head again, then stepped into the car, belting herself in.

“He was just a man, you know?”

They drove in silence for a few moments, until the truck’s tires began to spin under the dusting of sand on the blacktop of the beach parking lot. He pressed the car into Park and killed the engine.

“Is this your car?”

He shook his head. “You know…my circumstances, don’t you, Bethy?”

Bex bit her thumbnail and looked away, nodding curtly.

“I was so glad when you reached out to me.”

She turned back with a start. “When I reached out?”

“On the site.” He touched his chest.

Bex’s tongue went heavy in her mouth, her muscles liquid. She knew that he was GAMECREATOR, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d hoped it wasn’t true, hoped her father wasn’t lurking on a page that praised a madman. “So that was definitely you.”

“Well, yeah.”

“He’s a narcissist, Bex. He’ll be trolling the sites, enjoying that people worship him.”

“Why?” There was anger in her voice, and Bex could feel her nostrils flare.

“I wanted to find you.”

“That’s not why. You had no idea that’s where you would find me.”

He shrugged, his shoulders bigger and meatier than Bex remembered. “But I found you just the same.”

They stared at each other in dark silence for a beat until her father unclicked his seat belt. “What do you want to know?”





Thirty-Two


At first, Bex didn’t answer.

“You want to know if I’m guilty? You want to know if I did it?”

She didn’t know her father well enough to read the intonation in his voice—was it angry? Exasperated? In the darkness, the planes of his face were shadowed and Bex couldn’t read him at all. It didn’t matter because she couldn’t look at him. She stared at her hands in her lap.

“Did you?”

“Of course not! You know me, Beth Anne. I’m your daddy!” He touched her shoulder awkwardly, trying to get her to face him. “You know I couldn’t do something like that.”

But Bex didn’t know. This man was a stranger to her.

“How come you never wrote to me or tried to call?” The anger was softening, her words going from sharp and deliberate to a softer, more needy tone. Bex hated it.

“I thought it would be better for you if you just forgot about me, you know? Got on with your life. Tried to be normal and all.”

“So why now? Why did you decide to show up and come find me now?” Again, Bex was getting worked up. She could feel the hot blood pulsing through her veins, her every cell on high alert.

“I heard that your gran had died. I knew that they were going to put you in the system. I couldn’t let that happen.” He slid a single finger under her chin, edging her head up to face him. “I couldn’t let that happen to my little girl.”

Bex didn’t realize she was crying.

“If you didn’t do this, Daddy, why didn’t you fight? Why did you run?”

“You don’t think I was going to try that? I couldn’t afford a good lawyer, and they had the best and the fanciest lining up to have my head based on what they said I’d done. I knew then that you can’t fight the law, Beth Anne. They wanted to put someone in jail. And I just happen to fit in wherever there were holes. I had to go.”

Bex inched back. “What are you talking about?”

Her father looked down at his hands, then up at Bex. There was moisture in his eyes. “You know I’m innocent. I was framed, Beth Anne.”

Bex felt like someone had sucked all the air out of the truck’s cab. “What?”

“I was on that website because I was looking for the real killer.”

“They’re masters of manipulation…”

“I know who it is. I was sure that he would show up on one of the sites, but of course, I got distracted.”

“Dad, if you know who framed you… I mean, this is huge. This could change everything.” Bex got up onto her knees on the bench seat, feeling herself bounce as excitement mounted. “We can go to the police and—”

“Bethy, Bethy, hey. Settle down. Look, I’d love nothing more than to do that, but I can’t just go to the police. I’ve been on the run for ten years, and in their book, that makes me guilty.”

“I can go. I can tell them that I talked to you… Maybe, like, say you emailed me and then you can come out of hiding when they catch the guy and, and—” The tears rolled steadily now and Bex could taste them on her lips. “Dad, this is great.”

“We can’t go to the police. The man who did this—the man who killed all those women and framed me for it, Bethy—he’s a police officer.”

Bex was struck dumb. Though her tears were hot and she was covered in the sheen of a nervous sweat, she shivered. “What?”

“The detective—shit, you probably don’t even remember. You were just a little kid. You talked to him, told him some story…”

Bex felt herself coming apart, piece by piece. She was the reason he had to run. Her father wasn’t guilty; she was.