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TWENTY-TWO
Decima
For the first time,I’d been conscripted into helping with the serving of dinner in the Malik household. As Grandma Ruby, Grandpa Bo, Aunt Mabel, and Uncle Henry chattered in the dining room, I grabbed serving spoons and potholders in the kitchen on my mother’s instructions.
Carter dumped a small pan of green beans into a serving dish, and a few drops of melted butter spilled across the marble countertop. Iris had her back to him, but she seemed to innately sense the mess, turning with raised eyebrows.
“I know, I know,” he said, grabbing a paper towel.
She tsked her tongue. “Try to be more careful to begin with. Rachel, dear, would you scoop the potatoes into a dish?”
It was still weird being called by my birth name. I wondered if I’d ever get used to it. It was even harder now that I had all these suspicions about the family crowding my head.
I moved past Carter to deal with the potatoes, glancing briefly out the window in the direction I knew Garrison and Talon were waiting just out of sight. My brother glanced over at me. “You’re roped into the chores now too,” he teased.
“I’m going to eat, so it’s only fair that I help dish it out,” I said with forced cheer. I picked up the tongs and started moving the crisped potatoes from the baking sheet to a decorative white bowl.
“I thought you worked in a restaurant,” Carter remarked. “You kind of suck at that.”
I wrinkled my nose at him with what I hoped was suitably sibling-style annoyance as my heart stuttered briefly hearing my cover story questioned. “I’m a hostess. I lead people to their tables and take reservations, no food handling. But if you think you can do a better job…” I waved toward the tray in offering.
Carter snorted and took the beans over to the dining table. But by the time we’d all joined our relatives in the dining room, me seated next to my brother as usual, he turned to me with a bit of an arrogant air. “You know, now that you’re part of the family, you don’t have to keep a menial job. You can start working toward whatever career you want. Mom and Dad would obviously be happy to help you financially to get you on the right course.”
Before Iris could jump in and agree, I gave a little laugh. “I’m sure they would, but I like paving my own way. Anyway, the job I have suits me just fine for now.”
Carter frowned. “Don’t you want a career that matters? I’m going into law enforcement, and I’ll make a difference there. I know I will. It’s a lot more important than pointing people to the right restaurant table.”
I forced a casual shrug. “Sounds a little too dangerous to me. I’ve had plenty of that in my life already.”
A bit of a hush fell over the rest of the table at that remark. I’d thought the reference to my kidnapping would stop Carter in his tracks too, but he seemed determined to push my buttons, even though I doubted he’d ever find himself facing anything as dangerous as I’d done in my real job a hundred times over.
“But you’ll never accomplish anything with a life working at some restaurant,” he blurted out. “You’ll never get to do anything meaningful. That would be such a sad life.”
“Carter,” our mother chastised. “Your sister is allowed to do whatever she wants with her life. As long as she’s happy, that’s all that matters. Plus, you don’t have to have a career in law enforcement to support your father and advocate for putting away criminals.”
“As long as she supports the family legacy, that’s really all that matters,” Aunt Mabel said as she dabbed at her mouth with her napkin.
Grandma Ruby chimed in. “Protecting the country from evil-doers is our curse and blessing, and it may be yours one day, too. If you decide to stick around with this crazy crew, that is.”
Right. Because the only possible meaningful work had to be throwing criminals behind bars—or breaking their hands, or whatever, I supposed.
My mother smiled in agreement. “We don’t expect you to fully commit to all of this right away, dear. It’s something that we’ll introduce you to over time.”
I bit into one of the potatoes I’d dished out, trying not to show how uneasy the conversation was making me. The tone the conversation had taken sounded even more cultishly obsessive than when my father had brought up the family legacy the other day.
But if the Maliks were this dedicated to the cause and so willing to do everything to defeat crime, I couldn’t imagine how they’d ever be involved in what we found in the safety deposit box. It didn’t make sense. Maybe they’d gotten those photographs to remember just how horrible criminals could get?
But there wasn’t any record of the murderer being caught or the bodies being found. Where had they gotten the pictures from? Why keep them locked away like that?
My head was spinning again. My gaze instinctively followed Uncle Henry as he straightened up over the baked chicken and lifted the butcher knife to carve off some more meat. He plunged the blade into the breast, twisting his wrist in a circular sawing motion that made my breath catch in my throat with a jolt of horror.
The motion looked just like the kind that could have marked those jagged wounds that’d gouged the children’s flesh.
I blinked, and then he was cutting through the meat in totally normal slices, as if he always had been. I watched, looking for any indication of that same twisting cut, but he didn’t do it again.
For fuck’s sake. Had I imagined that because I was so horrified by the pictures, so desperate for answers? This quest was turning me paranoid.
Grandma Ruby must have caught something in my expression that I hadn’t quite been able to hide. “Are you all right, Rachel?”
