Page 143 of The Dearly Departed

No, it’s Anna, I thought, but I couldn’t tell them that. What was the point?

I lowered my eyes from his teasing smile to stare into the reflective black surface of my coffee. "Yeah," I muttered, wondering what she was doing now. Wondering how she was doing.

Would I ever see her again?

Fingertips touched my knuckles, and I glanced up to find Shawn looking at me, a certain kind of knowing glint in his eye.

"What happened with her?" he asked, genuine sincerity in his voice.

"She got married yesterday," I replied, speaking matter-of-factly. "She was forced to marry this real piece of shit, Benjamin, Gerald's nephew."

"So, he’s our cousin?" Ike asked, all teasing pushed aside.

"Yeah," I said.

He ran a hand through his hair and let a long whistle pass through his lips. “A stepsister and a cousin. Wow, the family just keeps growing. Hey, what’s our stepmom like?”

I suppressed the urge to cringe as I muttered, “Don’t ask.”

Shawn ate a spoonful of cereal, and then, with his mouth full, he asked, "So, why is this guy, Benjamin, a piece of shit?"

"Well, for one, Gerald showed me a picture of him raping her at knifepoint, so …”

My words died in my throat as I imagined that picture now. Her tears. The look of horror in her eyes, the pain written clearly on her face. The rage was quick to consume, like a lit match tossed into a barrel of hay, and I picked up that mug of coffee and threw it at a cabinet, the pieces of porcelain scattering and the coffee splashing against wood and granite.

Silence fell over the kitchen as Shawn and Ike looked at me. The only sound was my lungs working to pull air in and out of my chest in heavy, labored puffs.

"Fuck," I muttered, standing up to clean up the mess I'd made. “Sorry.”

Shawn got up to grab the paper towels.

"So … why haven't you killed him too?" Ike asked as I collected the shattered pieces in the palm of my hand. “’Cause, bro … it kinda sounds like he deserves—"

"No. I can't be stupid," I cut him off.

"Or impulsive," Shawn added as if he understood, unrolling sheets of paper towels to mop up the splattered coffee.

"Exactly," I muttered, resisting the urge to close my hand around the jagged pieces of sharp porcelain. To feel something other than the harrowing despair eating away at the hole in my heart where Analise should've been, safe and protected.

But instead, she was with him.

And I had failed her … again.

***

We arrived at Seint Manor together for the first time.

Per my request, Shawn and Ike wore masks as well.

"Gerald knows who you are, and likely, his wife does too," I'd told them before we left the funeral home. "But if we intend to keep this place alive, nobody else can know a fucking thing."

Now, as I got out of the hearse, it frustrated me that I couldn't read the expressions on either of their faces.

Shawn's hair and face were concealed by the hood and blank black face of the Grim Reaper.

Ike, though also hooded, wore a skull.

All of us, symbols of death.