My lips turn up into a smile, my eyes narrowing at what that could possibly mean.
His truck isn’t parked out front—nor is Barry’s, thank God. As I do a quick sweep of both levels of the house, venturing even through the guest quarters on the first floor and to my mother’s side of the top floor which I’ve left mostly untouched since she’s been gone, I realize the scent is too faint for him to still be here. So he must have come and gone…but why?
I descend the staircase and head back into the kitchen, tossing my mother’s envelope onto the counter, berating myself for even wondering why he’d break into my house.
He wants evidence.
Welp, he’s out of luck. He will not find any evidence connecting me to any missing man across all of Four Peaks County within these walls. Not even in the lair.
I clean my kitchen, reveling in the fact that Colin may have very well touched all of these things I’m touching now. I imagine what it would be like if he lived here, and we were cooking dinner together right now. Or he was just getting home from work and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before retreating to our room for a shower.
He’s the only man I’ve met that has a good heart, with a touch of darkness, and I want him all to myself. I just need to make him see that light and dark can exist together, for the greater good.
The path to justice is not always black and white. Sometimes it’s not even shades of grey. Sometimes it’s pastel purple or forest green, entirely unintelligible beneath the layers of morality society forces on top of it.
I scrape the remnants of last night’s meal into the trash before soaking the pan in soapy water and retreating to the couch with my mother’s letter in hand.
I take a deep breath, tracing my fingers across the familiar Four Peaks Penitentiary return address stamp.
The county name always gives me a chuckle, because there’s only one actual peak, but it got its name from the four towns that sit on either side of it.
The closest town to us is Sunset Peak, a few thousand higher in population than us, given its name for being situated on the west side of the mountain. Opposite from Sunset Peak is Eagle’s Peak, the second largest town in the county and home to an adults-only camp that throws absolute ragers during the summer—though the camp has a bit of a dark recent history that put a damper on their party vibe. Devil’s Peak sits to the south, facing the most treacherous side of the mountain that multiple people havedied attempting to scale. The prison is located in the vast expanse between Sunset and North Peak, the largest city of the four by far.
Two years I’ve been receiving messages from my mother from behind bars. Twenty-four letters. Three dead husbands. Zero appeals. Not because we don’t want one, and not because she doesn’t have a chance at winning one, but because I just recently decided that I’m done waiting to findnewevidence that would help her case. I encouraged her lawyer to use the only thing keeping her in prison—and the only thing keeping me out—to set her free.
It’s not that I think she’s entirely innocent. Everyone who lived in this household was guilty of something along the way. The murderer. The one who saw it coming. And the three horrible men were the guiltiest of all.
I was eighteen when she met Husband Number One. She married him within six months, and he spent more time drugging her and sneaking into my room after she fell asleep then he did acting like an actual husband or stepdad over the duration of their eighteen-month relationship. And I was so naïve, so much weaker than I am now. So much more willing to take the pain if it meant keeping her safe.
I’d still do anything to keep her safe. Which is why I seriously need to consider flying under the radar now that Colin is back in town and focus on her appeal.
I slip my finger under the lip of the envelope, sliding it across the paper until it’s jagged and ripped open. Just like we were after three torturous marriages.
Her familiar, slightly slanted handwriting fills the page, smudges of black littering the letter because she dragged the left edge of her hand against the graphite as she wrote.
I trace my fingers across the lines and smudges, imagining her as she wrote this letter.
I try to imagine her before. Before the standard issue navy-blue outfit with white socks and shoes. I picture her at Christmas instead, the Christmas before she married for the first time. The last Christmas it was just the two of us, living safe, normal lives. And how our lives would have turned out had she never met my first stepdad. How we would have turned out had my father never left.
In the letter, she tells me to be safe. To not worry about her. To not dig up what’s already been buried, that she’ll figure something else out. But it’s too late. That lawyer may represent my mother, but everyone’s got a price, and I paid his to get him to use the footage to get her out.
I re-read the letter until it’s suddenly eleven p.m. and I’ve been sitting in the living room in silence for over an hour, remembering what it was likebefore.
Folding the letter back up and slipping it into the envelope, I toss it onto the glass coffee table and head upstairs.
It’s not like I physically murdered that Grayson guy today, but I did have to exert a lot of strength and energy dragging him from my mother’s Suburban to that tree in the woods I tied him to. And just because I didn’t actuallydothe deed this time doesn’t mean it didn’t exhaust me emotionally. Having to reflect on all the pain those men have caused is draining, but it’s balanced by the high that comes after they die, when I think about all the glorious days ahead for their family members now that they’ve been eliminated from the Earth.
Add the fact that Colin Mills is back—who didn’t waste a second of time until he cornered me again, and then went even further than he had last time by breaking into my house—the contrasting feelings of pain, hatred, and longing are catching up to me quickly.
I peel off the dress and tights I wore to bowling, exchanging them for my favorite pair of robin-egg blue silk sleep shorts and matching top.
Colin’s scent smells even stronger in my room than it did in the rest of the house, and I wonder briefly if maybe heisstill here and I missed him in the first search. But after a second sweep of my room, I unfortunately realize he is not, and he must have just spent more time in here than the rest of the house, which winds a thrill of forbidden desire between my thighs.
I crawl up from the bottom of my bed, how I’d imagine crawling toward Colin if he’d be leaning against the headboard, and I flop onto my back, unable to resist reaching for my vibrator.
I close my eyes and take my time unbuttoning my silk top, exposing my tits to the air and pinching a nipple between my fingers. Switching the vibrator on, I glide it down the center of my chest, down my stomach, and into my shorts. I press the quietly buzzing rabbit to my clit as I work myself up, switching between tickling the edge of my nipple and twisting the hardened point between my fingers.
I keep my eyes closed, inhaling Colin’s scent as I edge myself until I finally come in an explosion of wanting, then fall asleep with the phantom feeling of Colin’s tongue on my lips.
