It's One of Us(66)

“I don’t blame you. I was terrified of myself. You did exactly the right thing, making sure I was safe, with specialists who could help me. It was beyond us both, Mom. If I’d hurt Scarlett...” He’d closed his eyes and shuddered. “I love you, Mom. Thank you for saving me.”

She thought about locking the bedroom doors that night. But she had to trust him. Had to trust that the doctors were right.

And they were. Peyton outgrew his problems. The darkness was no longer. Now it was only light. The frightening chapter was closed for good.

Or so she’d thought.

Her mind wars, the thoughts tumbling against each other. It’s a mistake. He isn’t the one. This is just a man someone saw and thinks is involved. It’s not him. It’s not. She knows in her heart her son could never do such a thing.

Doesn’t she? Doesn’t she?

Yes. He could never hurt someone like this.

Ah, but he could. He might have if you hadn’t stepped in and put him in that place. If you hadn’t had the strength to get him help.

No. This isn’t happening. He couldn’t be capable of such a thing.

Darby needs to talk to her son, and she needs to do it right now. Before anyone gets their hands on him. She wants to look him in the eye and hear him say the words.

I didn’t do this, Mom. I swear it.

What if he said, Oh God, Mom, I lost control again. I didn’t mean to do it. It was a mistake.

Could she still love her son properly if he admitted his darkness had become a real, tangible thing? That he had raped and strangled a woman Darby herself knew? And, dear God, possibly taken another?

She had found the strength to love him before. She would again.

But it’s not him. It’s not.

Is it?

She hates herself for the tiny seed of doubt, rushing back in the glint of the knife raised over his sister’s unknowing head, in the bathroom of their house, all those years ago.

“Mom?”

Scarlett slinks downstairs, hair in a wild bun on top of her head. She’d alternated between trying to reach Peyton and chewing her nails down to the quick until her body revolted and she had to sleep. Strangely, she hadn’t cried.

Darby hadn’t shown such restraint. The moment Scarlett declared it was all a mistake, that when her brother returned from his camping trip, he would tell them all how silly this was and marched herself off to bed, Darby had broken. She hadn’t cried so hard in her entire life. Nothing, nothing, shattered her, but this did.

You think he did it. You are a terrible mother, to think he could be capable of such a thing. You have failed him, you have failed Scarlett, you have failed yourself. How could you think he’s responsible for this?

How can you think he isn’t?

The noise from the call. The sound of a woman’s voice, a scream of fear echoing through her brain. A video, he claimed. A video.

And now he’s off camping? Without phone access?

Jillian Kemp is missing...could he have taken her? Her baby? Her boy?

No. Just...no. Please, no.

Darby’s thoughts swirl so fast, so strong, a current dragging her downstream, that she barely notices Scarlett has made and poured coffee for them both until her daughter presses a cup into her hands.

“Did you sleep?”

Darby shakes her head.

“Did he answer?”

Another shake.

“Okay. Okay. What do we do? I can’t imagine someone won’t recognize him and call the police. It was a good likeness. Sort of. His eyes were all wrong. Scary wrong.”

“I’m going to Murfreesboro.”

Lightning has struck, at last. Of course she must go to him. Darby is on her feet before the words have left her mouth. “I want to see firsthand that he isn’t there, that’s he’s really off camping. Maybe his roommates will know something. Know how to reach him.”

“I’m coming.”

“I don’t think—”

“I’m coming.” The finality of her daughter’s words hangs in the air between them. They stand nose to nose—no, Darby realizes, she’s actually looking up a touch. Scarlett is suddenly taller than she is. Her daughter touches her cheek, gently, so gently. A caress reserved for mother to daughter, not the other way around. “Brush your hair, brush your teeth, and I’ll drive. You haven’t slept, Mom. It’s too dangerous for you to drive like this, tired and distracted.”

“I—”

“You’re upset, you haven’t slept, and I am driving. Now, go.”

Scarlett has the audacity to give Darby a tiny shove toward the stairs.

The role reversal stings, but Darby heaves in a breath and complies. She is so weary, so very weary. Her mind is being torn asunder, and her daughter is the one taking control.

You’ve taught her how to be a woman, Darby. Be glad that when the crisis came, she stood up for it.

The drive south is uncomplicated. They are on the road early and going against traffic. The miles fly by, and Darby finds herself standing in the parking lot looking up at the balcony of the apartment she’d secured for Peyton at the beginning of the semester. It is a mile off campus, easy enough for him to ride his bike or walk on nice days, drive on bad ones. They’d both been tickled with the location, and the price. The roommates she could take or leave—they seemed nice enough, but she could tell Peyton wouldn’t be hanging out with them. Not that it mattered. Sharing a kitchen and living room with a couple of people you don’t get on with is a life prerequisite.