All Good Deeds (27 page)

“This is my place.”

He parked the Audi, but I didn’t make any move to get out. I knew I should say something to him, but what? Females are supposed to be nurturing and compassionate. My mother once said it was our job to make life less harsh and more beautiful. A nice word can go a long way, she’d lecture. Ironic coming from a person who could tear an individual down with a few well-placed verbal barbs. Still, I couldn’t disagree. In the end, woman are the fairer sex, and if anyone can soften the misery of life’s shitstorm, it should be us, right? My problem was I’d only ever been able to do that with kids.

“You ever have a moment when the bottom falls out?” Chris said. He stared ahead, slumped in his seat. I had no idea how to help him or even what to say. “Like you think you’re just getting a handle on your life, whatever’s left of it, and then suddenly everything has disintegrated?”

“When you want to crawl under the bed and hide?” I said softly. “Or maybe end your own suffering because you just don’t see how anything could be right again?”

The car idled, its exhaust trailing into the street and glowing like misty fog beneath the streetlight. It drifted up, twisting into a cyclone-like shape, and then faded away as quickly as it had emerged.

“Is that what happened to you when you heard Justin was released?”

“No. I had that realization much earlier in life. When my sister died.”

“What happened to her?”

I’d rather have told him about the first time I’d killed a man. But sharing my darkest moment seemed only fair after tonight. “Lily was four years older than me. My father left when I was a baby, and my mother didn’t like to be alone. So there was always a man in our lives. I didn’t mind, but my sister resented it. The last boyfriend, she really hated. He was around for four years. He liked Lily a lot.”

“He molested her.”

“Between the ages of twelve and fifteen. And she kept her mouth shut, because mom was happy, and there was nothing worse than mom being unhappy. She’s good at making you feel like it’s your fault. But finally, Lily decided to tell mom. And she didn’t believe her.” I tasted the bitterness as strongly as I had when I’d heard my mother yelling at Lily. “Ostracized her for telling such terrible lies. I believed her. I told her I’d help her, and she made me promise to never let him touch me.”

“Did you keep your promise?”

“With a vengeance.” A smiled played on my lips. “The one time he tried to touch me, I took a baseball bat to his head. Put him in the hospital for three days and earned myself a juvenile record.”

The day I found Lily is as fresh as any memory. Late October, just like now. But the temperature was unseasonably warm, and I’d gone without a jacket. Walking home, I’d basked in the sunshine and looked for shapes in the fat, low-hanging clouds. One particular cloud looked like an angel, I’d told my friend.

“Lily skipped school the day after our mother blew her off. When I came home, the house was quiet. Like heavy quiet, when you’re listening for someone’s breathing. I went to Lily’s room, but she wasn’t there. The bathroom door was closed. I stared at it, and somehow I knew what I’d find.” Blazing with fresh pain, the images flash through my head. I’d replayed that day so many times, and yet the pain never ebbed. “She’d cut her wrists–with his razors, of course. I didn’t scream or throw up, or even cry. I just stood there thinking it wasn’t happening but knowing it was because I could smell the coppery blood and her bowels.” A hollow ache consumed my already tired body. “Her hair–it was the prettiest, silkiest blond–was fixed in curls, the way my mother liked it. They used to fight over that. Her eyes were like glass. Opaque and vacant. She was gone. My life as I knew it was gone.” I blew out a hard breath as if that would dull the hurt.

“I called my mother. She said to make sure Lily had on clean underwear before the paramedics came. Presentation always mattered most to her.” An acrid taste came with the words. “I hated her for a long time for that.”

“Do you still hate her?”

I honestly didn’t know how to answer. “Some days. Some days I want to get right in her face and call her out for not listening to Lily, for every cruel, manipulative thing she’s ever said. It’s a special fantasy of mine. Nose-to-nose, her cowering away from me with the same kind of fear I imagine Lily felt every time that bastard came for her. For once, I would do the talking. Tell her how her manipulation makes me feel, how her need for attention from men and her thirst for control ruined our family and that I hate her with everything I have. But other days I just feel sorry for her.”

“I can’t say the same for my mother.” He cleared his throat. “I resented her for leaving me with my uncle for a while, but not because I missed her. I think I felt that way because it was how I was supposed to feel, you know? Kids whose parents choose their personal lives over them are supposed to be full of angst. But I got bored with that. And I always had the creeping fear that I didn’t understand my mother at all. That more had happened at that farm than I allowed myself to remember.” His hand, resting on the gearshift, clenched into a white fist.

“You were really young.” I laid my fingers on his trembling hand. He relaxed but still held the shift too tightly. “Kids that age compartmentalize. The mind’s got a way of protecting itself. Your mind scrubbed away as much of your misery as it could. It did you a favor.”

“How do you figure?”

“Your aunt and uncle are good to you–that’s obvious from the way you speak about them. You grew up in a nice area of town, safe. Yeah, you had the occasional nightmare about Mother Mary, but your mind protected you from the worst and let you grow up relatively normal.”

“A sociopath.”

I suddenly didn’t like that word. It made me feel twisted and dark, like some sort of infection was creeping through me. “That needs to stop,” I said. “You’re not a sociopath. That’s an excuse you’ve used to justify some of your feelings. Or lack of. But no sociopath cares as much about people as you do. Look what you just promised Jenna.”

“I promised her for myself.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “To absolve myself of guilt.”

“Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.”

He suddenly took my hand, his skin hot and clammy. Twisting in his seat, he leaned close to me, disrupting my personal safe space, and stared at me with incandescent eyes. “I need you to promise me you won’t stop looking for Kailey.”

Between the street light and the glowing dash lights, an eerie sort of aura framed Chris. He looked on the verge of either breaking down sobbing or attacking me. Maybe both.

“I won’t give up until Kailey’s found. One way or the other.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “dead”.

“That’s not what I mean.”

A heady sense of dread swept over me, cooling my toes and worming its way up my body until my heart felt like it was pumping ice. “If Mary doesn’t come home, if Todd can’t find her, promise me you won’t give up searching for her. And Kailey.”

“The police–Todd,” I clarified. “He’s already got an unmarked unit watching the house. He’s got his own grudge, and now that he knows everything, it’s going to be damn hard for her to hide unless she goes completely off the grid. And she’s probably developed a false security after all these years. Todd will find her.”

“Or she’s been preparing for a moment like this. She’ll sniff out the cops and take off.”

I didn’t want to agree. “If the police can’t find her, I don’t know that I can. As good as my computer specialist is, she’s limited. Police aren’t. They can even call in the FBI if they want.”

“I want
you
to find her.”

I’m pretty sure I actually saw my life-altering moment as it happened, almost like I was peering in the car’s window and spying on myself. The transition seeped into the car and surrounded me, its grip as strong as my fear of death. My throat dried up. My lungs struggled for air. And my brain screamed to flee. But that wasn’t an option, and even if I ran now, Chris would keep coming at me until I gave him an answer.

“You’re really asking me to kill her.”

“Administer Lucy Kendall justice.”

I dragged my fingernails over my forehead as if I could claw my way out of my head. “This isn’t how I work.”

“What?”

“Mother Mary–she’s a pig. She deserves to be brought to justice. But I…I choose people. I keep a mental list. It’s neat and tidy.”

“So add her to the list.”

It wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t allow it to be that easy. I worked mostly alone. Kelly gave me information, and I had a chemist in my back pocket, but that was it. Chris wasn’t going to be a sideliner in this endeavor. The decision to end someone is very personal. And it’s mine alone. Agreeing to act as nothing more than a hit woman was not part of my system. And after watching Brian Harrison die, I honestly wasn’t sure I could do it again.

“Chris.”

He jerked toward me, and for a moment I thought he was going to grab my shoulders. “She took Kailey. What do you think she’s doing to her? What do you think she did to those other girls?”

“I know what she did. That’s not the reason.”

“Is it control? Because you don’t take requests?”

No, it was because I was afraid that every time I killed someone, it got easier. I became less human. Another twist of the seeping infection. “Something like that.”

Chris drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. I still felt stuck in the game changer, standing on the precipice of something I wanted no part of. Yet I knew I couldn’t turn back.

“Then I’ll do it.” He said.

“What?”

“You let me in your circle. Help me find her. Guide me. I’ll kill her myself.”

His tone was so hard, so full of venom, that I knew he meant it. Every one of us can be pushed to the edge. And those of us who decide to take matters into our own hands all have a defining moment–the time when we snapped. Mine had been Justin’s release into society and the free ride of anonymity. I’d never thought myself capable of hurting another human being until that day.

“Chris, I killed a man earlier. I knew he hadn’t taken Kailey. But he’d molested one of her friends, and I killed him. With cyanide.”

“I know. And you’ve done that before.”

“But I had to stay with him.” Revulsion pounded at my chest. “I had to watch him die. And until that moment, I didn’t grasp the severity of my decision. Of the piece of my soul or humanity or whatever you want to call it, that I’ve forfeited.” And I’d made that decision, based my entire moral code on a truth that turned out to be a lie: Justin wasn’t a sexual predator that had been released to attack again. “Are you sure you really want to do the same thing? And to the woman who gave birth to you, no matter how diabolical she is? Because even if it’s by my hand, it’s at your request. And you’re one step closer to being just like me. Is that what you really want?”

“I want her dead. You kill her or I will.”

I couldn’t let him do it. I wouldn’t let him do it. There’s still hope for Chris. He didn’t deserve to be a statistic. I had already sinned too deeply to change my fate.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “On one condition.”

“What?”

I reached for his face, grazing the scruff on his chin. “Don’t let Mother Mary destroy you.”

“How do I do that?” His eyes watered.

“I don’t know. But we’ll find a way.”

F
ive days since
Kailey went missing.
Sleep deprived and anxious, I sat next to Kelly in her cramped office and tried not to lose my patience. Or faith. She’d spent the last hour making phone calls, using up every source she had with the Philadelphia P.D., trying to find out some details about the Weston case that might lead us to Martha’s whereabouts. Nothing we found could be used in trial, but that was the least of my concerns. Chris had promised Jenna he’d find her daughter, and then I’d quite possibly made a deal with the devil by agreeing to help him bring his mother to justice.

“I can’t believe you brought him here.” Kelly still fumed. She glanced behind her where Chris leaned in the doorway. He’d shown up on my doorstep this morning, just as I was heading over to Kelly’s. I should have told him to go home, but his red-rimmed eyes and pale skin made him look especially pathetic. I’d had to beg her to let him stand in the doorway.

“At least I called first.”

“If he screws us, Luce.”

“He won’t.” I prayed my instinct was right.

“I’m not going to turn you guys in,” Chris said. “Lucy told you everything.”

“Big deal.” Kelly swiveled in her cheap office chair. “You don’t have anything invested, do you? So you want to kill your mother. But you haven’t done anything yet. Yet you know our dirty deeds. All you have to do is say we suckered you into it. And we don’t have shit to keep you quiet.”

Grim-faced, Chris took out his wallet. He handed Kelly a wrinkled paper with some numbers on it. “I figured you might say that. When they adopted me, my uncle set up a trust fund. I’d like to say I’m too noble to use it, but I supplement my paramedic salary with it. I like living in Center City and driving a nice car. I like a good lifestyle. There’s almost a million dollars in there, and that’s all the information you need to get into my account.”

Kelly and I both stared at him.

“You’re right. I’ve done nothing like what you two have. If I had, I’d give you something to hang me with so we could be even. But this is the best I’ve got, and believe me, I’d rather not lose my trust fund.” He looked at Kelly. “I’m sure, with that information, you could take everything I have.”

Kelly studied the paper. “I’ll have to validate the account number, of course.”

“Of course.”

She glanced at me, and I shrugged. My head was still spinning over the million-dollar trust fund.

Kelly put the information in her desk drawer. “Just so you know, I don’t have to steal your money to ruin your life.”

A grudging smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Point taken.”

I breathed a sigh of what should have been relief, but anxiety continued to restrict my lungs like a vice. “Have you found out anything, Kel?”