None of them are.
Substitutes. He knows enough about himself to know he is working with substitutes. That he has a mild Oedipal complex. He’d sensed something wrong the moment Darby had brought Scarlett home. Why couldn’t it have been another boy? Why a daughter? A girl who even as an infant was the spitting image of her mother? He loved Scarlett right away, he couldn’t help it, and of course he loved his mother, but he could not stand the attention the girl was getting. He needed to be the focus of his mother’s world. He needed the interloper gone.
Scarlett was almost his first. The shame he feels over that is incredible. He very nearly killed his adorable little sister.
His mother was right to send him away. The hospital taught him so many things. He was able to learn how to control himself. If she hadn’t institutionalized him, he would have hurt Scarlett. He knows this and is grateful. He loves his sister. He always has, but now he feels it genuinely—especially after finding out they are full siblings. Would that have mattered earlier? He was so young, but Darby had always talked to him like he was an adult. He’d thought Scarlett came from a different donor. But she hadn’t. She was his full-blooded sister. Oh, Winterborn, you tricksters.
The woman is protesting through the gag, again pulling him from his thoughts. That’s all he does anymore, think. Think, think, think. His meditation practice, the one he learned in the hospital and has carried with him ever since, has been falling apart recently because of all the thinking he’s doing. You must let the thoughts rise and let them fall away. Envision a river. Every thought is a petal, dropped into the swirl of the water and washed away.
“What’s the matter?” he asks. “Are you hungry?”
She nods.
“You’ve been very vocal today. I don’t think it’s smart for me to take off the gag.”
She whimpers, and he can’t stand that noise, so he walks outside, under the now starry night, and breathes in the crisp air. A cold front has moved through, the dry air chewing up the humidity. When did it get dark? He’s lost time. That’s not good. It’s been happening more and more lately. Too much thinking, still.
He doesn’t really want to kill her.
But it’s not like he can let her go. Not now. They’re too intertwined. He’s going to have to do it soon.
He hears a branch snap behind him and turns just in time to see the chisel flying at his face. He is so shocked that he doesn’t block it in time. The hard metal connects with his temple, and he goes down, cocooned by darkness.
42
THE DETECTIVES
Joey Moore is in the break room pouring herself a coffee when she gets the call from the switchboard that a highway patrol officer needs to talk to her. Dread fills her. Highway patrol calling homicide detectives means bodies found on the side of the road or in heavily wooded areas. They are never good news calls.
Is this it? she wonders, bringing the coffee to her desk. Another body? Another dead soul on her watch? It’s been three weeks since Kemp disappeared. A slightly accelerated timeline from the four weeks between Beverly Cooke’s disappearance and her body’s discovery and retrieval from Radnor Lake, but close enough.
Steeling herself, she answers. “This is Moore.”
“Hey, Detective. This is Major Darden Aldridge. Got something you might like to hear. We just picked up the Kemp woman outside of Waverly, near the bomb factory. My guys found her wandering down the highway, feet bare, totally out of it. She’s dehydrated as hell, but she’s intact. They’re taking her to Three Rivers Hospital. I assume you’re on your way?”
A waterfall of relief pours through her. “You bet! Thanks, man. I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
Moore calls Osley as she leaves the break room, crowing loudly as she moves through the room. “State troopers just found Kemp, she’s alive and safe. Someone text me her partner’s phone number. I’ll update her from the road.” There are riotous cheers from the squad room.
My God, finally, something going right. She couldn’t take another dead woman on her watch.
But it begs the question.
Where in the world is Peyton Flynn now?
She picks up Osley; it’s his day off, but he insists on going with her. He gossips about the Benders as they fly down I-40, lights flashing, cars moving out of their way.
The media has backed off, but word has it Dateline is looking to do a story on Park and his halves. Olivia Bender has flown the coop, taken a job out of town, redoing a client’s beach house. The chick who reached out to Bender, Fiona Cross, is happily married in California and doesn’t want anything to do with her child’s donor. “It was a moment of weakness. I should never have reached out. My husband, Thomas, has adopted Brandon. He’s his father now.”
And surprise, surprise, surprise, Darby Flynn has spent quite a bit of time at Park Bender’s place lately. Apparently, they’ve bonded over their shared children—one so bright and sunny, the other dark and twisted, and, of course, missing.
It’s crazy how life meanders on. Tragedies happen. People die, or go missing, but unless you are primary in their lives, somehow, it fades from your consciousness. Those little shocks, those little moments of remembrance hurt, badly, at first. But even those lose their sharp edges over time. Pain is numbed. The immediacy of it tempered, forgotten. Hearts find ways to heal.
It’s not that Joey has forgotten about Jillian Kemp; if anything, the opposite is true. She’s been obsessed and searching relentlessly for both Kemp and Peyton Flynn. But the Nashville media has already moved on to the next sexy, bloody thing, the murder/suicide of an up-and-coming country music star. Nature of the beast, especially if the beast is pretty and young and wronged.
Out of gossip and recognizing Joey’s reflective mood, Osley works the phone, gleaning what details he can, which are sparse. Kemp is still being treated; no one official has spoken to her yet.
This is it, Joey knows. Whatever has happened with Jillian Kemp, they’re about to find out so much about their suspect. That the woman is alive is sweet icing on the cake.
Osley revisits the craziness at Bender’s place, the alarm security breach, the intrusions, the theft, the flowers. Peyton hasn’t been seen anywhere near the house; the security system upgrades have made sure of it.
“This kid is too smart for his own good,” Osley says.
“He’s a daredevil. He wants to get caught. He’ll out himself, and we’ll get him.”
“You think?”
“Well, once we talk to Jillian Kemp, we’ll know more. But yes. He knew he would be caught on camera going in and out of the Bender house. I get the sense he’s been playing with fire just to see how badly it will burn. If his mother is to be believed, he’s not stable. Which means we have to be doubly careful, because he could decide to go out in a blaze of glory and take all of us with him.”
“Like all those fire metaphors, girl.”
“Screw you,” but she smiles. Osley always knows how to make her laugh.
They pull into the hospital parking lot exactly one hour and ten minutes after leaving Nashville, having made exceptionally good time—driving a hundred miles per hour down the interstate has a tendency to make that happen. Inside, they’re directed to the emergency room, where they find Major Aldridge and a few other troopers hanging around in the hall outside a closed door.