It's One of Us(63)
“I get it. Don’t forget the towels,” she calls, whirling back into her room, and Darby grabs them from the linen closet and takes them into her own room to pack.
Her mind is whirling as surely as her daughter’s body.
My God, what if Jillian Kemp’s twins are related to Scarlett?
What if we’re closer to this than we know?
Darby paces her room, glances out the curtains, then pulls them closed. Goes to the basement and double-checks the door and windows are locked. The odds of someone coming for her are astronomically low, she knows this, but it makes her feel better to have the house buttoned up. She doesn’t feel foolish at all retrieving the baseball bat she keeps under the bed and setting it against her night table.
Poor Jillian. God, Darby hopes she’s just let the battery die on her phone or had a fight with her wife and took a road trip to clear her head.
They’d hoped that about Beverly, too. Then days turned into weeks turned into months, and they all knew she was dead.
Darby rarely, if ever, watches the local news unless there’s some sort of disaster she needs to follow, but tonight, she and Scarlett set up to tune in together. This almost feels like a luxury, or would, if it wasn’t an enforced home stay and they weren’t trying to track a killer.
After the pizza feast, Darby indulged her daughter further with homemade cocoa, and poured herself a very large glass of wine. Then another.
It feels a bit like the days of old, when both kids were home, and she could appease them with special treats and normal hours. It was hard having a mom on the night shift. Hard to have an overnight babysitter instead of a mother down the hall. When Scarlett declared herself old enough to stay home alone at night, Darby had balked. With Peyton off at school, she didn’t like the idea of Scarlett being alone. But Scarlett did. She always had been so fearless. So independent.
Even with all the drama and arguments, it’s been nice being around overnight again, not having to worry about her baby’s safety—that little gremlin in the back of her mind always reaching out to say hey, something bad could be happening to her and you let her stay alone has been silenced.
Of course, nothing did hurt her.
Until now.
Darby feels so ashamed, though she doesn’t know why. She’s done nothing wrong. Winterborn is to blame here. Winterborn is the reason Scarlett has more than two dozen half siblings. Winterborn is the reason one of them is a killer.
This is all going to come spilling out, she knows it. There’s no way to keep it quiet. The waves are getting bigger, crashing further up the beach. They will be swept out with the tide if she’s not careful.
Scarlett is barely awake on the couch beside her. Ten is well past her normal bedtime—her sweet girl almost always turns in early. “News is on,” she says to Scarlett, who mumbles and burrows a little deeper into the couch pillow. Even extreme excitement can’t stop natural circadian rhythms. Darby slops a bit of wine on the blanket as she reaches for the remote to hit Record and turn up the volume. The anchor has been on the air since she can remember and doesn’t look like she’s aged at all.
I want your plastic surgeon, lady.
“At a press conference this afternoon, Metro detectives discussed the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Jillian Kemp, last seen on Monday night leaving her gym in Brentwood. Metro sees no connection between Beverly Cooke and Jillian Kemp at this time, though all avenues are being pursued. This story will continue after the break.”
A commercial for a local car dealer blares three times louder than the news broadcast, but Darby doesn’t hear it. She goes to the kitchen, a little unsteady now, and pours the last bit of wine into her glass. Maybe this wasn’t the best way to deal with her fears, but it is certainly taking the edge off.
“Mom!” The word is strangled, a call of genuine fear.
Darby’s adrenaline shoots through her system. She runs back into the living room to find Scarlett sitting upright, the remote in her hand. Her face is ashen.
“Honey? What’s wrong?”
Scarlett points the remote at the television. The commercial is over; the story has continued. Her daughter’s hand is trembling.
“What is it?”
“The sketch. Mom. Oh my God.”
Darby turns to face the TV, and Scarlett hits Play.
“Metro has just released a sketch of a person of interest in the Beverly Cooke case. The suspect is using the name Griffin White, though police believe this could be an alias. If you’ve seen this man, do not approach, but call 911 immediately.”
The charcoal lines capture him perfectly. The square jaw. The beard. The only thing that’s wrong are the eyes. The eyes are dead. Cold. Cruel. Empty. A void of horror. A void she hasn’t seen in over a decade.
“Mom,” Scarlett says again. “Mom? What do we do?”
Darby is speechless. Scarlett rewinds and clicks Pause, and her son’s handsome face freezes on the screen.
30
THE MURDERER
One last hug. One last “I love you.” That’s all he wants.
He doesn’t think he’s going to get it.
The phone in his pocket rattles to life with the notification from the news app he downloaded. It’s the third burner phone of the month. He’s been so careful to leave his real phone in all the places he’s expected to be—Murfreesboro, mostly. He’s been stashing it in the wheel well of his roommate’s car, taped to the metal with only the charging port exposed. Attached to that is an extended-life solar battery pack. The wire feeds up through the trunk, and the small panel is glued just to the left of the wiper of the back windshield. It’s almost impossible to notice, and so far, has worked perfectly.