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“When she was a young woman.”
I folded my arms. “Be specific.”
“When she turned twelve.”
“That’s not a young woman!” I said. “That’s a child!”
Nora raised her brows. “You know, I’m surprised you two were such bitter enemies. She was so similar to you with all the rage and defiance. She never really accepted the job we gave her. In fact, once we made her aware of her duties, she turned into a little hellion. Always seething with rage,” she said. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “But she was so beautiful. Very in-demand from our regular buyers. She earned us a lot of money. It really is such a shame what had to be done with her in the end. It didn’t have to be like that.”
As her words set in, I felt as if a knife was being plunged into my chest and twisted around. For so long, I thought Cerina was a monster because she was rich and spoiled rotten, but I couldn’t have been more wrong if I tried. She was a weak, helpless victim.
To the outside world, she seemed to have the perfect life, but in reality, she was used, abused, and unwanted by the people who called themselves her family.
What a lonely, terrible existence.
She must’ve been awful to everyone because she was in so much pain. Pain she could never share without fear of retribution. She externalized that pain by lashing out at everyone she knew. She probably even made herself the Queen Bee at CPA so she could feel some sense of power and control in a world where she had no real power or control at all.
“Why did you kill her?” I asked, looking up at Nora again. “Was she going to tell everyone what you were up to?”
“Yes. At first she abided by our code of silence, because she knew how much trouble she’d get into if she ever said a word to anyone. But over the years, she became angrier and angrier. Started threatening to tell people what we were doing. Ungrateful little rat.” She paused and narrowed her eyes. “Do you know where she was originally from?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head. “No.”
“Some filthy inner city area up north. Her mother was a heroin addict and her father was in prison by the time she was born. She was living in squalor as a baby. We saved her life by adopting her, andthat’show she chose to repay us. With betrayal.” Her nose wrinkled, and she shook her head. “After everything we did for her! Dragging her out of the filthy gutter she was born in and raising her in a place like this. Like modern royalty. She was so lucky.”
My brows shot up. “You think she waslucky?” I said, voice cracking with fury.
“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said so far?” Nora asked, putting her hands on her hips. “All of the adopted children in this town are lucky. Without our intervention, they’d have terrible lives with total degenerates for parents. We take them away from all that. Give them a life beyond their wildest dreams. All they have to do in return is a little bit of work. That’s it.”
I briefly let my eyes shutter and put my head in my hands, rubbing at my aching temples. How could Nora and her ilk not see the terrible irony in their worldview? They claimed they were taking children away from bad lifestyles with awful parents to give them an amazing life, when in reality, they were simply exchanging one bad life for another. In fact, some of them probably would’ve hadbetterlives if they stayed with their so-called ‘degenerate’ birth parents.
“How did you find out that Cerina was planning on going public?” I asked, finally looking up at Nora again.
“She was stupid. Trusted the wrong person,” she replied, arching a brow.
“That would be me,” Mr. Blythe said, lifting his hand again.
I turned my gaze to him. “What made her decide to trust you?”
“I was at one of the PTO afterparties a while ago, helping out with the photo shoot, and I was in a very bad mood. Cerina noticed that and latched onto me. I think she thought I was angry at the situation. Disgusted by what I was being made to do in the name of carrying on family tradition.” Mr. Blythe paused for a breath and nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. “In reality, I’d just had a bad day at work. That’s all.”
“But you became friends with her,” I said in a hollow voice. “At least that’s what she thought.”
“Yes. She started talking to me more and more at the parties. Slowly dropping hints about her views on certain matters. It was obvious that she was turning into a bit of a wildcard, and it concerned me. So I nurtured the budding friendship and made her feel like she could trust me.” He paused again, rubbing his chin. “I honestly thought I could talk her out of it when she started hinting that she might go public. But in the end, I was unsuccessful.”
“So that’s what the argument was about. The one I overheard that night at the school.”
He nodded. “Yes. She came to me that night and asked me to go to the media with her. I did my best to get her to reconsider. You walked in at the tail end of that conversation.”
“She agreed to stay quiet at the time, but we knew we probably couldn’t trust her after that,” Nora cut in. “Matthew warned me and Ted about it, and we started working together to monitor her. Matthew eventually found something strange on her calendar. She obviously thought she could hide it in plain sight.”
“The meeting with the journalist? Jay Ellis?”
Mr. Blythe’s brows rose. “Ah. You found it too,” he said. “She tried to disguise it as a hair appointment. Silly little girl really thought she could outsmart us.”
“I called Mr. Ellis,” Nora interjected, eyes glittering with malice. “I pretended to be Cerina’s personal assistant. I confirmed that they had an appointment, and then I informed the rest of the PTO that we had a major problem. A leak that was about to spring.”
“Then you decided to kill her to stop her from talking,” I said softly, shaking my head.
