Every image of Lee and Bryce flashing across the screen spikes my pulse. I don’t feel remorse when the broadcast shows their blubbering families. They should thank me. I saved them from a life of misery by taking out their trash. Once the dust settles, I’m sure they’ll understand that.
After filling the tank to the brim, I head to the restroom inside the gas station. All their money must have been spent on the fancy gas pumps as their washrooms aren’t up to standards. They’re dingy and old, nearly as rundown as the cabin I left over an hour ago.
While taking a leak, my mind wanders to Claudia. Not because she bores the piss out of me, but because I can smell her on my cock. My mind is still hazy, but it’s clear enough for me to remember what happened last night. We didn’t fuck. We snuggled.
Just the thought has my cock wilting in my hand.
I don’t spoon. Come to think of it, I’ve never slept in the same bed as a girl. I hurt her, fuck her, then leave. I don’t do sleepovers. I didn’t even break the rules with Shelley and Cleo. Don’t get me wrong. I watched them sleep. I just never slept over. That’s entirely different.
Claudia is still on my mind when I stomp past an ancient computer advertising a minute of internet usage for a quarter. Although I want to pretend I’m feeding coins into the meter as a means to track down Cleo, the article Ashlee gave me last month ensures I know which direction to head.
Marcus didn’t just upend my chessboard when he joined my four-year game with Cleo. He upended Cleo’s entire life. She’s no longer a resident of Montclair, New Jersey. She is a shiny new citizen of Ravenshoe.
I wonder if the mayor of that nondescript town knows the vile man it raised in its carcass.
As I wait for the wired connection to find a match on Claudia Sanchez nee Brown, I slouch in my chair. I’m not tracking down Claudia’s info to finish what we didn’t start last night. I’m merely curing weeks of confusion.
I hate that I can’t read Claudia, but secretly, I also love it. It kept things interesting the past two months, which is a task in itself when you’re locked in a mental asylum. Easing my curiosity will make the transition to the next phase of my game plan a lot easier. It has nothing to do with Claudia’s fruity smell on my skin.
Nothing.
At.
All.
Ignoring the recurring denial echoing between my ears, I lean in close to the monitor. It’s blank. I’m not talking I’m-a-seventy-year-old-geriatric-who-doesn’t-know-his-way-around-a-computer blank. It is blank, Claudia-isn’t-who-she-says-she-is blank.
I take a few moments to ponder my next move. If I were half the man I was before being locked in a mental asylum, I’d leave this gas station and continue my quest for revenge. But since I am as inquisitive as I am determined, I search a different subject.
Nicholas Holt brings up more information than a standard Google search. Thousands of paparazzi pictures of him and his bandmates, an extensive list of musical accomplishments, and one lonely request for a restraining order against a woman named Megan Shroud is presented before me.
“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 Sanchez 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 nowhere, so what secrets could she be possibly hiding?
Deciding there’s 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 accessible 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 are 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’s 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.
