“Megan Shroud? Who the fuck are you?”
My fingers fly wildly over the keyboard when I replace Nick’s name with Megan’s. It brings up the standard stuff you’d expect to find: a driver’s license, a dated Myspace page, and a handful of old photos every school nerd uploads when preparing for a class reunion. But it’s the stuff behind the search I’m the most interested in, the stuff I’m certain is the cause for Claudia’s mute state.
Claudia Brown is Megan Shroud. If her dazzling hazel eyes and heart-shaped face weren’t already telltale signs, the hairline crack in Claudia’s front tooth when she smiles is a surefire indication. Megan’s photos display she had a cracked front tooth; it is in the exact spot Claudia’s tooth has been patched. They are the same person; I’m certain of it.
The only thing I can’t fathom is why Megan’s family admitted her to psychiatric care under an alias? My family ties must remain obscure since my father’s last name is infamous, but that can’t be the reason Megan’s family hid her identity. She is from some bum-hick town in the middle of whoop-whoop, so what secrets could she be possibly hiding?
Deciding there is only one way to satisfy my curiosity, I sign out of the general public search forum and log into a more secure one. This one isn’t assessible to the general public. I have to perform numerous magic tricks just to ensure my search will be undetectable, and I’m a genius at this shit.
This search is a lot more interesting. Megan Shroud is twenty-eight. She’s been missing for over five years—presumed dead. My lips twist in surprise when I discover a man is currently serving life for her murder in a state penitentiary not too far from here. Her mother’s name and identification is not listed on any records, and her father has been deceased longer than Megan’s been missing.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
I scoot in closer to the screen, certain what I am reading is wrong.Megan Shroud killed her father.The coroner’s report states he was poisoned over a twelve-month period. That wasn’t the cause of his demise, though. He was strangled to death before being hung from a beam in his barn. By the time local authorities were alerted to his death, his body was well on the way to decomposition. During preliminary investigations, police discovered a second body. This person was also murdered, albeit years earlier. She was a female—believed to be in her late-twenties and a mother.
As my brain struggles to sort through the facts, I slump into my chair. I don’t know what detail to work through first: the fact Claudia. . .or should I call her Megan?. . . is an orphan, or that she is a murderer?
No matter how many ways I look at it, the facts never alter. The arrest warrant must be wrong. Claudia has seductive curves, but she is tiny. There is no way she could have hung her father. She wouldn’t have been able to lift him when he was alive, much less dead. Trust me, people are heaviest when they’re lifeless.
The image of Claudia lugging a man up rickety stairs makes my tenth memory of the day smack into me. This one is so vivid, it launches me onto my feet.
Claudia carried me! She fucking carried me on her back for over two miles.
I fall back into my chair with a thump as memories of last night steamroll into me. I didn’t kill Bryce. Claudia did. She hit him with a shovel, her smile brightening before her second hit. Then she dug the bullet out of my back and stitched me up before protesting my proposal to sleep naked to keep warm.
She kicked and screamed for several minutes when my stiffened shaft pressed against her ass. When I told her to stay still or I’ll fuck her to death, she took my warning literally. It was for the best. I wasn’t joking.
The more I read Megan’s police record, the faster my heart gallops.How did I not see this earlier?Claudia’s not psychotic. She’s not even fucked in the head. She’s a female version of me. She’s inhumane, determined, un-fucking-scrupulous. She wasn’t just my ticket out of Meadow Fields; she is the bullet. I am the gun. Together—we will be unstoppable.
Don’t misunderstand, though. Claudia is still a woman, which means she’ll always be below me, but she doesn’t need me as a reward. She needshim.
I lower my eyes to the monitor displaying pictures of Megan’s childhood bedroom. Every inch of the pale white walls is covered with photos of one man. Claudia isn’t obsessed with Nicholas Holt. She wants to own him.
I’m going to give him to her, and in the process of doing that, I’ll distract Marcus from my true endeavor. It’s a win-win for all involved. Claudia gets her man; I get revenge. . . and Marcus gets what’s coming to him.
Slowly, very,veryslowly, I type a string of text into the Google search bar. It is the exact set of words every FBI agent from here to Ravenshoe will be searching for. But instead of directing them at Marcus as I have in the past, I direct them to Jenni—Nick Holt’s wife.
By dangling a carrot to their right, they’ll fail to notice me sneaking up on the left.
What did I tell you? Brilliant.
