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“Tell me what he said exactly. Word for word. It’s important,” I press, grasping her thin shoulders and shaking her so much that her teeth clack together.
“He said he would hurt my baby.”
“Your baby?” I point to the doll that Beast is holding in his arms. “That baby, Kitty Kat? Did he sayhername, specifically?” She frowns, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as she tries to remember. “Mary.Think.”
“Yes he said that he would kill Kate if I didn’t do what he asked.”
“And what was that?”
“He wanted me tolie,” she says, grasping at me now.
“Lie about what?” I press, losing my patience. Feeling sick.
She rocks back and forth, her eyes glazing over then refocusing as she tries to remember. It’s like watching a pair of curtains being opened, allowing the fresh air and light in, only to have the window slammed shut and the curtains snatched closed again. She’s here one minute, then gone the next. Focussed then lost.
“Mary! What did Rodriguez want you to lie about?”
“The police,” she stutters, the curtains opening a little, her conscious thoughts becoming clear.
“What about the police?” I press, taking her blood-encrusted hand in mine, squeezing it, trying to keep her in the room and not lose her to her mind again.
“He wanted me to tell the police…”
“Mary!” I snap as her eyes glaze over. “Mary!”
This time I shake her roughly. I’m tempted to slap her. I have this sudden urge to hurt her like she hurt Ford, but I refrain, forcing myself to calm down. Her gaze limps up to meet mine, her pupils dilating as she focuses on my face.
“He wanted me to say that I witnessed a man called Beast murder her father. If I didn’t he would kill my baby.” She sobs now, her tears mingling with the dried droplets of blood on her face and neck. Her shoulders drop and she hunches over on her seat as she rocks backwards and forwards.
“I said no. I said no, no, no!”
My fingers curl into her arms in a bruising grip. “What happened then?”
“He said he would kill my baby. So instead, I killed him. I. Killed. Him.”
She laughs then. No, she cackles, and the sound is like something out of a horror movie.
“You killed him,” I repeat, knowing that she did it for me, or at least the baby that was taken from her because somehow, some way, she’s separated her realities, living in the past and still thinking about the baby Carter took and not the woman she grew into right under her nose. Carter never kept me secret, he didn’t change my name, she could have approached me at any time. Then again, I know Carter. He would’ve threatened her life. There’s no doubt.
It’s just another sin to add to his long, long list.
“I just wanted to hold my baby one last time. Just one last time,” Mary continues, lost now as she stares blindly off into the distance. A life of drug abuse, psychosis, heartbreak and a poisonous heart ruining her mind and her ability to grasp a hold of what is real and what isn’t. Part of me hopes that the child she remembers wasn’t me, but I know she’s telling the truth. I know in my gut that this woman before me is my mother, and I hate it.
I fucking hate it.
“Mary, listen to me,” I say motioning for Beast to give me the doll.
He hands it to me and I squeeze her arm. She looks up, her deep brown eyes flashing with something close to recognition, but then she’s gone again. Handing her the doll, I stand, pushing the chair backwards as I stare at her.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Yes,” she whispers, smiling down at the sleeping doll, her fingers stroking over its cheeks.
“If Rodriguez threatened Ford’s life, yourson’slife instead of Kitty Kat’s, what would you have done?”
Her gaze lifts, the almost trancelike state she’s been wearing for most of her time down here making way for a sudden, lucid coldness that makes my stomach twist in knots and dread creep up my spine.
“I’d tell him to go right ahead and kill the little fucker, and if he didn’t then I would because that little shit ain’t worth the air he breathes.”
“That’s what I thought,” I say, then pull out my gun that’s holstered at my waist, aim it right between her eyes and squeeze the trigger.
