Paint It All Red (Mindf*ck #5)(35)

“You’re wrong,” he seethes.

“It might have taken you a year, possibly even longer, to realize you’d made a mistake. When there was another rape and kill a year later, maybe? One just outside Delaney Grove? Same victimology as all the others,” I say casually, watching his gaze shift again.

“Once your anger and grief calmed and started to ebb, you realized Robert Evans was never the right man, and you’d framed him, punished him brutally for sins he never committed.”

Every fight in him deflates as those words settle in, and a surprising glisten appears in his eyes.

“You realized too late that a true monster was still killing women and taking from them, and you’re the reason he was free to do it. All that blood is on your hands, Sheriff. It wouldn’t wash away.”

Tears start to form in his eyes as I go on.

“You knew all those claims against Kyle couldn’t all be false either, but you’d already lost one child. You forced yourself to live in denial that the other one was rotten to the core. But then again, you killed his mother after forcibly enlisting her help with framing my father. Tell me, Sheriff, did you collect the condoms yourself? Or was that Johnson’s job?”

He clears his throat, trying to get rid of all the guilt in his eyes, but struggles to do so. It means I’m spot on.

“Because you’d killed your son’s mother in your quest for framing an innocent man, you excused all the disgusting acts of your vile son. Lied to the town. Lied to yourself. That night when you told him to take care of us, you never really expected him to bring all his friends. You never expected they’d reach for the limits of depravity, then cross them even more severely than you crossed them with my father. But you still hid the truth. Covered us up. Acted as though the lives of two innocent children never mattered.”

The anger in my voice can no longer be masked, and the sheriff’s lip trembles as a tear drops from his eye.

“I hated your daughter. But I never wished her dead. My father fixed her car window once. Did you know that?”

He slowly shakes his head.

“She’d slept with another girl’s boyfriend from a rival school. The girl wrote ‘slut’ all over your daughter’s car. Then she busted out the driver’s window. Your daughter knew she’d have to explain, but she was too afraid to tell you she was sleeping around. My father stepped in and helped her even though that girl was a despicable bitch to me for no reason. Because my father said she was a kid. And he could never be mean to a child, for fear that one day someone might do the same to us.”

He sucks in a breath, working damn hard to restrain his emotions.

“She didn’t even thank him. She acted like it was his job to replace that window before you got home from your hunting trip. She didn’t even pay him for the window, and we were struggling for money. But he never said a word. Because she was just a kid. Yet you labeled him a monster. You shattered every ounce of dignity he ever had. And you sent real monsters after all three of us, yourself included. Tell me, Sheriff, do you feel as though all your prayers for forgiveness have worked?”

I slide the blade across the floor, watching his eyes fall to it.

“Or do you think a punishment has finally been sent for all your sins?”

His chin wavers, but he continues to stare me in the eyes.

“Stand up,” I say again, a harsh bite to my tone.

This time, he lumbers to his feet, his shoulders not pushed up so high.

He doesn’t look at me as I gesture toward the bathroom. “Get in the shower.”

“Why?” he snaps.

“Either do what I say, or I’ll let the entire town watch the video of Kyle confessing everything.”

His eyes dart to mine, wide and horrified. “Yes, Sheriff. They may be gone, but they’ll still see the video eventually. All his sins on one long video. He’s crying during his confessions, by the way. In between the spouts of begging for his life.”

The sheriff gags, staving off a breakdown as he turns away from me, tears now leaking.

“All the other videos have them all confessing. Little by little, I had all I needed. They spilled details of where to find all that precious camera footage from both those incidents, as you liked to call them. They told me everything. And people will see that footage.”

“Even Kyle’s?” he asks on a rasp. “Regardless if I do what you say?”

I smile to myself. “I guess you’ve called my bluff. Yes, they’ll see it regardless. But I’ll make a deal to keep all his torture off the camera if you just go get in the damn shower. Don’t make me drag you. I’d have to break your hands to make sure you didn’t try anything stupid, and that will take some time and effort to thoroughly break them.”

He releases a pained sound, swallowing hard.

“How did you turn into this?”

My eyes widen. “Is that rhetorical, Sheriff? Because I’m pretty sure it’d be obvious.”

He lunges suddenly, taking me off guard. But I slam the heel of my palm into his chest, forcing the wind from his lungs, then drop and kick up at the same time, catching him right in the groin.

Always wanted to hit him there.

When he hits the ground, I kick him in the face hard enough to almost knock him out. He stares, dazed, as blood leaks from between his lips.