It's One of Us(88)

Park’s stomach turns. Should he mention Fiona Cross? He hears Olivia’s voice in his head. Now’s the time to come clean. Stop hiding things from us.

He fills Osley in, looking away from the accusatory stare.

“You might have mentioned this before. We’ll need to check her out, too.”

“I seriously doubt she is involved. Seriously, she went away the minute she realized I wasn’t going to pony up. But just in case.”

“Yes. Just in case. God, Bender. You really do know how to step in it, don’t you?”

“A talent I’ve been working on my whole life,” he answers with equal sarcasm. “So, what do you want me to do here?”

“Sit tight. I’ll keep a car on the house. Let the security man load you up.” He drains the cup, grins. “Maybe get yourself a new gun.”

“You think he’s going to come for us.”

Osley’s face goes deadly serious at last, and the cold remoteness in his eyes makes Park’s gnads shrivel. “I do.”

Park watches Osley stride to his vehicle, pleased to see the patrols have moved the reporters away from the house. The neighbors have abandoned their posts as well. The street is quiet, and his shoulders relax for the first time in hours. He has sobered up enough to start feeling fear, deep and corrosive, and knows he needs to get them both away from here. Maybe they should go to Lindsey’s. Then there will be four of them to take on Peyton Flynn if he comes. Maybe he should leave town entirely. If they’re careful, there’s no way Peyton can follow them, right?

His cell phone rings, and he grabs it from his pocket. He doesn’t recognize the number. He puts the phone to his ear. “We have no comment, and if you call here again—”

“Mr. Bender? I’m not a reporter. My name is Darby. I’m Peyton Flynn’s mother. You are my son’s donor.”



39


THE MOTHER

Darby waits, unnerved by the silence. She’s not used to calling people and having them go quiet.

“Hello? Hello, Mr. Bender?”

Scarlett watches her, so hopeful, eyes shining, luminescent, expecting this moment to be something magical, something profound, but Darby still hears nothing on the other end of the phone. The call must have dropped. Or Bender heard the word “son” and panicked. She doesn’t even know if she blames him.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I think he hung up.”

Scarlett jumps for the phone before Darby can depress the End button.

“Mr. Bender? Are you still there? I’m Scarlett, Peyton’s sister. I’m your daughter.”

“I’m still here.” There are no pauses, no silence this time. “Hello, Scarlett.”

The voice is deep. Soothing. Not the frantic, angry challenge from a moment ago, but the voice of a man who is interested in hearing what she has to say.

“Mr. Bender. Thank you for staying on the line. We...we saw the interview,” Darby says.

A small, humorless laugh. “I’m surprised you’d want to talk to me after that.”

“I admit, I’ve had my doubts. But Scarlett... Anyway, I assume the media will be on my doorstep next. When they figure out I’m Peyton’s mother, they’ll be as relentless with me as they have been with you.”

“Where is he?” Bender asks.

“I don’t know. He told us he was going camping. He hasn’t answered his phone. The police think he took another woman. I wish I knew where he is. I want to...talk to him. Before they do.”

Talk. Advise. Beg. She has no idea what she wants to say, but damn it, she needs to talk to her boy.

“He’s in Nashville, I know that much,” Bender says. “My wife was in an accident. We think he brought flowers to the hospital, lilies. And left a vase of them at our house. But it’s not the first time. He’s been breaking into my house for weeks. We just discovered someone—I’m assuming Peyton—called my security company and changed all the codes. The entire system was corrupted.”

Horrified fear shoots through her. “What?”

“He has the code to my house. We have him on video coming and going over the past several weeks. Olivia—that’s my wife—thinks he’s stolen from her. Little things that she hasn’t missed until now.”

Darby is awash in horror. Peyton always has had a penchant for stealing, but she’d written it off as a child’s magpie tendencies to see something pretty or interesting and want it for themselves. She can’t count the times she did laundry and found something unusual in his pockets. Normally little inconsequential things, but once, it was a diamond and pearl earring, and she had to track down the owner, one of the mothers at school. The woman hadn’t been cool about it, had threatened to call the police. On an eight-year-old. Embarrassing, and Darby had laid into the kid, tried to make enough of an impression that he never did it again. Clearly, her attempts failed.

Thief. Rapist. Killer. Does she know her son at all?

Scarlett butts in. “Mr. Bender, I would very much like to meet you. I run a group for all the siblings who’ve matched together—we call ourselves the Halves. I know everyone would like to meet you, too, but maybe it would be easier if it was just the two of us, to start?”

“I’d like to meet you as well. I have a confession. When the police told me about you, I got access to your address. I drove by your house. I’m afraid I chickened out at the last second, though. Before I left, I saw you, in the drive. You’re so beautiful. You look just like my mother.”