At the Quiet Edge(95)

“Don’t worry about it. I left the car in another driveway, but . . . Well, let’s just say it’s not in my name anyway. So I’ll hike out. No worries.” He said no worries, but his eyes darted nervously toward the door. “Speaking of, I’d better be going.”

“Yeah.” Everett followed him out when he opened the door. The sirens were louder now. “Bye, Dad,” he said, trying to be strong and calm, but his dad laughed at that, and swept him into a huge hug.

“I love you, Everett. Take care of your mom. I’ll be in touch.”

“I love you too,” he said, which seemed like an odd thing to say to someone he didn’t know, but it felt true. It felt like he loved him.

And then he was gone, slipping straight back from the house and angling the opposite way from how Josephine and Everett had escaped. Everett watched him as the whine of the sirens grew more piercing.

“He’s breathing!” his mom yelled. “Alex is still breathing!”

Everett spun around and stumbled over the threshold, rushing back into the house. He still couldn’t see much of Alex Bennick past his mom’s back, but he did see a bloody knife in a pool of horrible red next to her foot.

“Everett, go sit on the couch, keep your hands up. When the police get here, yell to them that it’s safe and we need an ambulance. Don’t go near Mendelson.”

Everett didn’t think. He wasn’t scared. For the first time in forever, he wasn’t scared at all. He raced into the living room as he heard car doors slamming out front. He dropped to the couch, and he raised his hands.

Then he heard his mom begin to cry in quiet, choking sobs, and he finally felt safe to cry too. His mom and dad had saved him. And they would all be okay.





CHAPTER 37


“Are you seriously working at a party?” Lily asked as she strolled beneath the trailing edge of the weeping willow and into the shade beneath.

Alex lay in a cheap lounger he’d brought over, a tattered spiral notebook in his hands. “You already put me to work at a party, remember?”

“It seemed like you’d be a natural DJ.”

She bent down to give him a kiss on the cheek, then dropped into the chair next to him. They were taking it slow to keep things steady for Everett, but after three months of dating, they weren’t actually hiding things from anyone.

“Any trouble with that scar lately?” she asked when his hand settled on his stomach.

“No, that last surgery made a huge difference. I’m right as rain.” He wasn’t right as rain; he’d never grow back the missing lobe of his right lung, and he’d never get his cousin back either, but he was starting to seem more like his old self.

His uncle, thankfully, often forgot that his only child had died. Lily hoped that made it easier for him. The rest of the town was reeling from losing two people who’d grown up there, and they wrestled with the truth of who’d done it. And still, there was no sign of the long-missing girls lost to so many families.

Lily tipped her head back to stare up through the swaying leaves of her new backyard tree. “How’s the book research coming?”

“There’s a lot to dig into. I leave for Omaha in eight days, and I don’t feel close to ready.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re barely recovered, and you shouldn’t be traveling this soon.”

“I think it’s because I just started a book that will take me at least a year to finish, and I’m feeling a lot of pressure.”

“Good thing they paid you six figures.” She reached over to take his hand, letting her head fall to the side so she could study him and the new frown lines that seemed permanently etched between his brows. “You’ll be ready for Omaha.”

“Maybe,” he said softly. “They think they’ve identified nine now.”

Nine. Not bodies. Just missing women.

None of the bodies had been found in either state. Their killer was a cop, so he’d known exactly how to hide a victim so well they might never be found. And Mendelson wasn’t talking.

Maybe that was Lily’s fault. His attorneys claimed he had brain damage and couldn’t recall his crimes, and perhaps that was true. But she felt only an intellectual level of regret over that. She would’ve killed him a hundred times over to save her son, the investigation be damned. She frankly regretted that she could claim only to have massacred half the bones in his face. She wished she’d gotten all of them.

Alex’s working theory was that Mendelson had left Herriman to join the Omaha Police Department because Marti Herrera’s family had forced an actual investigation. His game of hunting local women had suddenly become dangerous. He’d needed more anonymity, a larger territory to stalk, and Omaha had provided that.

He’d risen to detective there. He’d even been assigned to investigate several of the disappearances he was suspected of causing. Then he’d met his “angel,” Amber, and he’d brought her back to Herriman to start over, to raise a family.

Lily still shivered every time she considered that strange parallel in their lives. It had to be a coincidence, but it felt dirty, like something stuck to her, somehow. Like she’d caused it.

“Amber wrote to say she’s back with her mom in Nebraska,” Lily said softly. “She hasn’t responded to you?”