The Last Housewife (58)

It was a library. Books lined the shelves and crosses hung on the walls, mixed with family portraits. In the nearest, a smiling man had his arm around a blond woman. With them were two young boys, on the cusp of being teenagers. The whole family wore matching white button-downs and tan slacks, posing on a beach somewhere at sunset. The man was the Lieutenant.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to see this glimpse into who the Paters really were, the Lieutenant outside these walls. I took only a second more to study the faces, then lurched from the room and sped down the hall, taking turns until finally I came to the front door. I flung it open and ran.

I looked over my shoulder as I fled, expecting to see a tall, dark figure barreling out of the house, ready to pull me back by the ankles. But there was no one—just the stars, watching dispassionately. I flew down the street and wrenched the car door open, jumping in next to Jamie.

“Jesus!” His face was white as a ghost’s. “Where’d you come from? What happened?”

“Just go,” I said.

“Your arm—”

“Drive!”

We rocketed down Bell Pond Road. I twisted in my seat to watch through the rear windshield, unwilling to stop until we pulled up to the hotel and Jamie shook me by the shoulders.

***

Jamie knelt and smoothed a blanket over my lap, tucking the edges into the couch, creating a warm, tight cocoon. “Let me take you to the hospital.”

I shook my head. “No point. It’s probably no worse than a tattoo.”

Jamie lifted my right arm, and I winced. The brand burned without end, like an eternal flame. “That’s the point. These people mutilated you as their opening gambit.” His thumb brushed my face. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt.”

My body registered him a half second before my brain did: his hair, mussed over his forehead; his eyes, wide and watchful. The light in the room swept shadows under his cheeks that made him look younger, like the boy I’d grown up with. My Jamie.

As soon as I thought it, I jerked away, remembering I’d left my wedding ring sitting in the cup holder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his hand. “I should have asked before I touched you.”

“It’s not that.” I found his hand again. “Jamie, I don’t have proof yet, but I know in my heart the Pater Society is Don’s. I’m not making this up. I can feel him. I thought he’d dropped off the face of the planet.” You thought I’d abandoned you, the voice whispered, but I shoved it away. “I thought the dean or the cops…someone scared him, and he was gone for good. But he’s back, and he’s not experimenting anymore. This is big. You have to believe me.”

“I do.” Jamie sat next to me, so close our legs brushed. “There’s a story here. We just have to uncover it.”

“The story is that Don found Laurel, and he sucked her back in.” I turned so my whole body faced him. “He branded her, and he started hurting her again, and this time, there was no one to stop him. He killed her, Jamie.” Because hadn’t it always been building to that? Hadn’t we suspected, at least subconsciously, that with his constant limit pushing, his invention of new pains—every day, taking a bigger bite of us—there was only one possible ending? We’d danced with death and it had come for us, one by one.

“If you’re right that he’s capable of murder, wouldn’t it make sense that eight years ago, he found out Clem was planning to escape and killed her, too?” Jamie leaned closer. “We can get justice for both of them, and you can stop punishing yourself.”

Punishing myself. I almost touched my aching temple, then stopped.

“Can I?” he asked. When I nodded, he touched me gingerly, turning my chin to study my face. “You’re going to have bruises.”

“I can find out who the Paters are,” I said. “It seems like they take turns hosting. There will be clues in their houses, names and pictures. And if this goes beyond the gatherings—if they’re actually killing women—someone will speak up.”

“Speaking of pictures.” Jamie woke his phone and handed it to me. “Any chance you recognize one of them?”

It was the Mountainsong church’s website. I scanned the headshots of their leadership team—the pastor and his ministers—but no one looked familiar. I shook my head.

“Shit.” Jamie reached for his phone, accidentally sending the screen back to Mountainsong’s home page.

“Wait,” I said, snatching it back. One of the banner images was a picture of a grinning preteen boy, standing in a classroom. He was one of the boys from the family portrait in the Lieutenant’s house, in the room I wasn’t supposed to see. “That’s the Lieutenant’s son.”

Jamie squinted at the caption under the photo, swiping back when it rotated to a new image. “Tyler Corbin, son of former Pastor Michael Corbin, shows off his Bible Studies worksheet.” He grinned. “Fuck me. We have our first name.”

“Michael Corbin.” I rolled it on my tongue, trying to picture the Lieutenant as a Michael. A Mike. Jesus—a pastor.

“This him?” Jamie held up the results of a new image search for Michael Corbin, Mountainsong. And there he was—the Lieutenant, clean-cut and smiling at a Habitat for Humanity build. The same man who’d branded me.