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“You can if the father is willing to take him.”
“Wait, who’s the father?”
Franny still had her poker raised in a batter’s stance, but with the enormous table lodged between her and D.D., they were currently at a stalemate. The older woman’s gaze, however, kept darting past D.D.’s shoulder. Expecting company? Bonita’s demon man? D.D. was killing time, looking for the right opportunity. Was it possible Franny was doing the same?
D.D. shifted slowly to the right, closer to the fireplace, where she’d have at least a partial line of sight on the gaping wooden doors.
“Who raised your son, Franny?” D.D. asked quietly, though she thought she might have an idea. Franny knew all about the taskforce team’s activities these past few days, being part of the meetings. But there was one other person who’d had a front row seat. Keith and Flora had included him, with neither of them being the wiser.
“Doesn’t matter,” Franny replied stiffly.
So D.D. said it for her: “Bill Benson, the owner of the ATV shop. He kept talking with Keith and Flora. And today, you said he was the one who came into the station and raised the fuss to distract the on-duty deputy. You two were in on it together. You told him when to arrive, when there would be only one deputy around. And while Deputy Chad dealt with Bill, you were the one who paid the visit to Mayor Howard. Good God, you’re behind all this. But why?”
“I love him. I’ve loved him most of my life,” Franny said simply. “And he loves me, too.”
“Then you should’ve gotten married. Raised your son together. Instead...” D.D. gestured with her good hand in the empty air. “You built an entire life out of lies.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Seriously?”
Franny frowned at D.D. Her gaze returned to the open doorway behind D.D.’s shoulder. No doubt about it, the woman was waiting for someone. Shit, D.D. thought again. Because even if she could shoot with her left arm, she could still only aim in one direction at a time.
“Bill’s married. His wife, however, isn’t well. Schizophrenia. Sad really. Most days Bill keeps her locked in her room.”
“Because that’s kinder than having her hospitalized?”
“Have you seen those places? Terrible. Just terrible.”
D.D. took another step to the right. Something was up. Franny’s willingness to talk, buy time of her own. D.D. could feel the impending threat. She just couldn’t see it. “So your married lover with a mentally ill wife raised your son. And you what, visited as a family friend, monitored your own kid growing up?”
“Aunt Franny,” she provided. “But my son figured it out, being such a smart boy. Not to mention he doesn’t look anything like that frail, haunted woman in the house. One day he wanted the truth. Bill and I gave it to him. Of course he was grateful to realize I was his mother, not the crazy woman locked in the rear bedroom.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure there was only one crazy woman in that house.”
“You don’t know anything,” Franny replied flatly.
“I know your son’s a monster,” D.D. countered. “Bonita drew him as pure evil. That’s the son you denied, gave away, then tried to reclaim. And now you excuse his behavior even as it grows worse? He killed those girls, didn’t he? Then Bill disposed of the bodies.”
“Martha needed a kidney. Bill and I were talking about it one night when Clayton was home. He said he could help.”
“He kidnapped girls to be human organ donors!”
“He ran a domestic services business in New Mexico. Lots of hired girls. It wasn’t too hard to see if one of them had the right blood type.”
“He was a pimp!” D.D. shouted. “And twenty to one, Bonita’s mother was one of his first victims.”
“He saved Martha’s life!”
“Except it didn’t stop there. He had a thing for girls. He liked to acquire them, he liked to torture them. Living in a small town, that might stand out. But if he imported them, shared them with others... Dear God, your son turned his violent obsession into a business, and you helped him!”
“This community needs him! Our town was dying. Businesses failing, good people on the verge of losing their homes. Clayton is smart. He saw the opportunity. He started supplying a cheaper workforce, which people certainly appreciated. Then there was a guest here, a guest there, who wanted extra services. Martha and Howard—well, they couldn’t very well say no, could they? And with the increase in offerings came more and more people arriving into the community, willing to spend money.”
“Such as Jacob Ness?”
“It was my idea to have Dorothea build the website, with its portal to the dark web, where even more important business could be done.
“Once word got out, well... The past ten years have been a boon for this community. Everyone has benefited. Everyone!”
