Lies We Bury(80)

I don’t say anything for a moment, heartbroken and dumbfounded by her confession. I can’t imagine Rosemary inflicting a fraction of what she lived—of what we witnessed as children—on me.

“I had no idea. I’m so sorry that happened. Nora was more terrible than I realized. But I also know that, early on at least, she loved . . . well, she tried—”

A snort flies from my sister’s nose. “She tried? She left me to rot in Chet’s basement for another three years after she escaped. You know the day after we got out and she met us at the hospital, she came directly from a date with a man she’d met in a bar? Her supplier, it turned out. She wasn’t thinking about me all those years as I had hoped.”

Her foot taps an impatient rhythm on the floor, and I watch the gun bounce along with it.

I need to calm her down. What was that song we used to sing as kids?

Jesus, a song isn’t going to make her not shoot me.

“The worst part is, by the time we got out, I considered Rosemary to be my mother. I was devastated when I had to go live with Nora.”

“I know. I remember.”

“Really?” she snaps. “What else do you remember? Watching me struggle through the years, growing up in an unstable home, relying on a woman who could barely care for herself?”

“I had my issues with Rosemary, too. I’ve been taking care of her since I was eight years old. It wasn’t some picnic over in Arch.”

“But you and Lily had each other! I had no one!” Her words ring out in the one-story house, seem to boomerang in the tight space. She breathes heavily like she just ran a race and watches me with tented eyebrows.

“I had no one,” she repeats, and my heart breaks for her again, knowing it’s true.

“So I made my own way,” she continues. “Made the bonehead decision to get into drugs, too, and spent too much time in rehab, but I figured my shit out.” She sniffs. “After drug running ran its course, I got a few over-the-table jobs. Working at the doughnut shop is what gave me the idea, seeing people take selfies in front of the sign every day.”

“What idea?” I’m having trouble stringing together all these bits and pieces she keeps lobbing my way. My senses continue to feel dull, and I know I’m not nearly scared enough observing the wild way she gestures with that loaded pistol. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Chet’s body begins to twitch, spasm. More fluid releases from beneath his torso, and I gag watching the pool of blood change color.

“So many people in this city, screaming for attention, available to satisfy a variety of urges. I saw an opportunity. Look at Chet.” She nudges the lifeless foot with her boot. “He grabbed Nora to satisfy his need, and I knew he couldn’t be the only sick bastard with an unusual thirst.”

The warmth drains from my face. “What did you do?”

“I started practicing. After Nora died, I got into her stash of lithium and antipsychotics and found they made me more alert. Ambitious and clearheaded about my goals. Acutely aware that Nora made my life hell growing up, and she was gone, but that the internet would always pick up where she left off.

“All those years of being followed, harassed, and objectified by the media as I got on my feet. I never understood why people sought out that notoriety online. Why some girls post naked photos of themselves, willingly and for free. Why they pursued that social media glittery fame, why the hell anyone would sacrifice their privacy—something I would have killed for even then—just to be famous for five minutes. So I began targeting them. Following these social media whores, going to the locations where they tweeted, or posted they were, and watching them.”

My whole frame tenses, prickles at the scene she describes. The poker is out of reach from where I sit on the couch. “What then?”

“I lured them to the Shanghai Tunnels underneath the doughnut shop. Sometimes I got them drunk first. The stripper was sober, so she was harder to convince, but the men were easy. I tied them up. At first I was sloppy—I didn’t remember the knots that Rosemary taught us—but I didn’t have to keep them for long. The buyers I found on the dark web paid eagerly. Once I had their cash in hand, they were allowed to do what they wanted.”

I swallow hard, not sure I want to know more but unable to stop myself from asking. “What did they want?”

She returns a deadpan expression. “To kill someone.”

“But . . . I don’t understand. You received a note, too. Time to come clean.”

“Didn’t want you suspecting me.”

“That’s . . . Jay, how could—this is insane.”

“Is it? Or is it nuts that out of all of us, you’re the only one who seems okay?” Black eyes bore into mine. “Lily? Pregnant with a limp and alone after her partner abandoned her, a hundred grand in debt from always cutting and running. Rosemary, too terrified to leave her box-infested house; Bethel died a long time ago; and Nora, trust me, is happier buried beneath her plants than she ever was caring for me. And then there’s me.”

Hearing Jenessa’s callous summary of how our family’s lives turned out sharpens the hazy filter on my senses. “What about you? You think you have some sob story to tell, that adjusting to freedom was so much more difficult for you than anyone else?”