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If he was alive—hope lit up in me. “Is Mom alive too?”
A dark warning cast over his features. He grew still, an ominous grumble deep in his throat. “What did I tell you, Sister? All Mommy talk for the end. We eat the meal before we get the dessert.”
There was nothing inside him. His corpse was here. He was here, but the Ben that I knew was gone.
There was no soul inside him.
He gave me my name. He couldn’t pronounce Willow when he was little so he called me Billie. I became Billie to everyone I loved after that.
“It was you? This whole time?” I whispered, my voice raw.
“No, Big Sister.” The playfulness was long gone. He grew grave. Mean. Cold. “It wasn’t all me.”
…young male. White. Someone who was affected when the Midwest Butcher was captured. An event correlated in his life, bringing trauma as a result of the Midwest Butcher or because of an event that happened in his family, like a divorce around the same time.
He fit the profile.
An event that correlated in his life was me, when Cameron Fowler could’ve killed me.
His eyes narrowed, his head turning almost sideways. He began playing with his knife, swishing it through the air like it was a light saber. None of this touched him. He was used to murdering, bloodshed, evoking terror in other people.
The pieces began to fit together, horrifyingly easy.
“You were the one watching the farm. I saw you.”
He went still, his eyes cutting back to mine. He lowered the knife, stopping his gameplay. “Yes.”
Two men. It was the only thing that made sense. Two killers.
“Did you kill all those people?”
“No, but I had a hand in it. I molded him, you see. A Billy for a Billie. Appreciate the irony, Sister? Your name. My face. He looked like me. He was the perfect mix of us. He was already obsessed with the Midwest Butcher. That’s how we met, in an online forum. It was easy after that. Easy to get him to write to Fowler. Easy to get him to step over the line. A first kill. He already knew he’d like it, but he needed to learn how to do it properly. Fowler primed him, got him ready for me. After that, it was about waiting for the perfect moment.” His head lowered, his eyes remained on me, and it was as if he were bowing to me. “We waited for you, Sister.”
The perfect time. “What are you talking about?”
“I watched you your whole life. You were hiding, like me. I waited for you, waited for you to step out of the shadows and you finally did when he came along.”
Him? Who? “Brett?”
His eyebrows furrowed before smoothing back out. “Billie with the IE, not a Y. I couldn’t have him completely have your name because there can only be one of you. There’ll only ever be one of you. Only one Billie.” He smiled, the image of a child demon playing in a man’s body. “Better than Melanie Morning. Did you forget? That was a fake name our mom used to use. You preferred the name I gave you. I liked that.” His smile vanished. “Most would’ve taken the name our father gave you.”
I didn’t want to talk about our father. He didn’t matter.
I wanted to hear about mom.
Was she alive? That hope was there, battering against a cage in my chest.
“We were never allowed to say Dad’s name.”
“What?”
Ben’s eyes flashed again, snarling. “You’re not listening to me, Sister. Don’t make me give you an incentive.” He leapt to where Howard was laying and picked him up by his ear, dragging him over.
Howard started yelling, his voice muffled through the tape. His face was gauntly white.
Vicky was yelling too, her voice muffled as well. Fresh tears streamed down her face, laying over dried tears, dried blood.
Ben dropped him on the floor, in front of where he’d been standing. He was beside the stairway, the front door behind him. I was just in the doorway of the living room and kitchen. Nothing was between us, and Ben wanted it that way. No barriers.
