Olivia, with her scratchy voice and her sable hair and her budding, ripe little girl on the cusp of womanhood body, who worshipped the ground the Benders walked on. She was smart. She was funny. She was talented. Park’s parents—his mother especially—adored her. The Huttons and the Benders became fast friends, going out to dinner together, leaving the kids with a sitter, vacationing together, camping trips and beaches. It was natural that Olivia befriend their sister, and the boys, too. The boys played with her, protected her, and fell in love with her. Olivia became the north for the entire Bender family compass.
That has never changed, nor will it. The history they all share is too intertwined. She chose him, damn it. Park. Not Perry. It was she and Park who were childhood sweethearts. Madly in love. Yes, they’d had a spat, a breakup, some hurt feelings while she dated Perry, but she came back to him. Then came marriage. Joy. Love and happiness. Attempts to have children.
It’s only been recently that he’s felt things slipping. That the feeling he had when they were in high school and she wouldn’t talk to him crept back in. She’s closed herself off now like she did then, and it is Perry, again, who has swooped in to pick up the pieces.
Olivia was and is and always will be Park’s entire world. When she was hurt last night, when he’d gotten the call that she’d been in an accident, Park felt like part of his soul had ripped apart.
And now, circumstance and an ill-advised decision twenty years ago is going to drive them apart. He feels the chasm growing, inch by inch, day by day.
He pours another Scotch, shoots it down. And another. Gets angrier by the gulp.
Why is he out here in the proverbial dog shed revisiting hellacious memories alone while his brother is inside with his wife?
He hears the buzzing, the murmurs, the car doors. Looks out the door to the shed and sees the line of vans, satellite dishes pointed to the stars.
The press has arrived.
Now the real fun is going to start.
35
THE MOTHER
Darby closes her iPad gently, staring all the while at her daughter. Her beautiful, precocious sprite of a daughter, who resembles her donor father in ways Darby has never imagined, if only because he is not the man Darby thought fathered her youngest child.
“I can’t believe this,” Scarlett mutters, and Darby nods. I have failed you, she thinks. Her world—their world—has tilted on its axis, and all she wants to do is hide. But she can’t. She can’t. Because the police who are going to arrest her son and incarcerate him for life and maybe kill him before they get the chance to slap on the handcuffs are standing five feet away, their faces arrayed in both shock and delight.
Delight, for that is the only word that fits.
The thought hits her, clear as a bell. They think Park Bender is guilty of something. Then another.
Maybe this will take their attention off Peyton.
Should their attention waver from her son? She doesn’t know. The war raging inside her mustn’t show, because they’re looking at her, curious what she might say, but not leaning forward in anticipation of her giving up her son. She’s already done all she can for him. She has given him a baseline for an insanity defense. Do they know that was her goal? Do they know she is wondering if he is insane? That in case of the unthinkable, she had a plan? Do they know that this has always been her deepest fear, the one thing she’s spent her entire mothering life worried about? She’s known Peyton has a darkness in him. She’s seen the blank stares following women in grocery stores, the withdrawal after interactions that didn’t go as planned, the lack of dates, the absence of female friends.
She’s known, empirically, this could happen. But she thought that maybe, maybe, he had himself in check.
Too much to ask.
Get them out of here.
“Looks like you have work to do,” Darby says, gesturing toward the iPad, and the cops fixate on her briefly, then nod in unison, standing and straightening and heading for the door, anxious and intent.
The woman stops in the doorway. “Please be in touch if Peyton reaches out, Ms. Flynn. This will all go easier if he cooperates with our investigation.”
Darby nods, still hollow. She closes the door behind them and leans against it. When she hears their car pull away, she hurries to the kitchen.
“Scarlett. Have you heard from him?”
“No, Mom. But you need to see this.” She flips her phone around. “I’m going to have to delete my account.”
Darby scrolls through the comments, reads the accusations, the unease she’d been feeling earlier swamping into full-on terror. Here it is, in black and white. More confirmation of her worst thoughts. He hasn’t been controlling himself. The darkness wasn’t back. It had never left.
“This is all my fault,” Darby says softly. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“How could this be your fault?” Scarlett is incensed, immediately, and turns on Darby. “This is Peyton’s doing. Peyton is responsible. Not you. You’re the best mom anyone could ask for.”
Darby hugs her daughter tightly, knowing the words are lies.
She can’t escape the thought she’s been having since the sketch appeared on the television.
Was Peyton’s darkness something she did?
She’s never blamed herself for her son’s problems, but now? Now, she’s wondering how much of his insanity must have been passed along by this man, this stranger, who has ties to the missing and the dead three times over, and how much is on her? Because to think she alone created a child who murders, who rapes, who hunts, is too monstrous for her to fathom.
She’d love to blame it all on Park Bender. That’s the easy way out.
But what if it was her? What if it’s something inside her own DNA, something dark and unforgiving? Something wrong. She’d been forced to leave Peyton in daycare, with strangers, as she went through extra schooling certifications, and of course, years on the night shift. If she’d been there to read him a story as he fell asleep every night, would that have changed things?
And Scarlett. Scarlett’s birth had triggered the first episodes of darkness. It’s not like Darby could blame Scarlett, of course not. But again, was it Darby’s fault for not being happy with just a single child, for having the joy of a son?
You know it wouldn’t have. You know his darkness is not your fault. Nor his. This is something organic that happens. And not everyone who has this issue falls off the deep end, goes into the baser instincts. Unless Bender is some sort of monster, and he’s passed along his maniacal genes.
“What are you thinking about, Mom?”
Darby drags her attention to Scarlett. Her daughter is watching her, of course she is. She needs direction. She needs guidance. She needs to be told that she is safe, that she is loved.
And Darby’s just been standing here in the middle of the living room staring into space as her conscience wrestles with itself.
“What?”
“You’re lost in thought.”
“Just trying to wrap my head around all of this, sweetie.”
Darby’s phone rings, and they both jolt, nearly hitting heads in their haste to see the caller ID. It is Scarlett’s school. After what she’s just seen online, Darby is not surprised.