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“Kat!” I holler as I enter the open-plan living area surrounded by windows. There’s no way to move discreetly in this house when the lights are on.
“Kat!” I scream again and am answered by only some loud jazz. I search for the source so I can cut it off. “Kat, where the fuck are you?” I bellow as I tear through every single room. The bedroom is stripped and empty. Only a couple of curtain panels dance in the wind from the open windows. Spotting a smart remote, I push power and stop the madcap music.
“Fuck me, Katelyn Shaw,” I say to myself. “Now I’m gonna have to kill a hell of a lot more people.”
I check my phone again to see if anyone’s tried to contact me. If she chickened out and ditched me, I’ll have to end her. There’s no questioning the matter. Or lock her up in Wainscott Hollow forever, never letting her see the light of day.
On my phone, there’s an incoming message.
It’s Kat.
No words but a blurry picture that looks like it was snapped in haste.
Part boardwalk. Part black pavement. A sinister-looking clown and a red arrow nearly erased by years of foot traffic.
Luna Park this way!
Coney Island.
Only two people in this world are stupid enough to hurt Kat Shaw. One’s dead already, and the other one’s about to be.
Our darling and deranged brother, Henry Shaw, is about to meet his maker after he dies a slow death in the most painful way possible.
Chapter 20
Katelyn
A rumbling gently shakes my limbs, and I open my eyes to orange plastic seats and a puddle of iced coffee running over the tiles toward my feet. I blink, and register the pain in my neck, my chest, my arms, and my legs. I keep blinking to free my mind of the web it’s trapped in. Every part of me aches like I’ve got the flu.
I sit up slowly, and the world swims a little as my vision goes blurry. I look down and see my brother's hand on my arm. Instead of reassurance, it makes my very blood run cold.
“Henry?” I say groggily.
I remember him surprising me in my kitchen, holding the biggest knife we have to my throat and forcing me to drink a cloudy glass of water. My brother drugged and kidnapped me.
His hand tightens around my wrist, already covered in angry red marks.
“Henry?” I try to lift my head all the way up, and he smashes it back down so my cheekbone meets his shoulder with a force that will surely leave a bruise. “Are we on the subway?”
“I had to get you out of there now he’s back. He’ll try to take you from me like he did before, and I had to stop him before he separated us forever.”
“Who? Heath? Or are you talking about Eddie?”
“Heath. Eddie’s dead.”
The horror comes back in a heartbeat. I remember Heath blowing Eddie’s head off through the fog in my mind. Eddie’s dead. One of my worst tormentors—gone. But Henry’s still here, and now he has me alone. I don’t know what his intentions are, but they cannot possibly be good. He’ll rape and kill me to keep me from Heath.
“Are we on the subway?” I ask again.
“He’s stolen everything from me, my father, my sister, my home. He’s taken it all,” Henry mutters.
“Are we going to the city?” I adjust my eyes and look out the windows. The train runs above ground, and we’re outside. It’s still dark, but I have no idea how much time has passed since Heath kissed me goodbye. There isn’t another soul on this train to witness my demise.
“He took everything, so it’s only fair I take something from him. Just like Mom, Peggy didn’t know how to swim,” Henry muses.
I sit up straight and grab the locket sitting below my clavicle. Peggy, Heath’s mother. She was so kind to me, so generous with her time and affection after I lost my mother. I only have warm memories of the woman who appeared out of the blue one day with a suitcase and a young Heath at her side, holding his hand.
This is my son Heath, Katelyn. I hope the two of you can get along. You’re exactly the same age.
Heath and Peggy were a welcome respite from my sometimes-distant father and Henry, who was always so hard on me.
At certain points in my life, I’d wondered if Henry had anything to do with my mother’s drowning, but I always took Peggy’s death at face value. I’d believed none of us were home when she fell from the top of the grand staircase at Wainscott Hollow and broke her neck. I wonder if an autopsy was performed. I do remember they couldn’t figure out why she’d been out swimming in her work uniform. Peggy’s death was eerily similar to Mother’s.
