“Watch out. Sharp!” The pot on the dock, Steven stooped down and opened the lid to the trap.
“Damn!” he said.
“It’s a female! Got to throw her back. Don’t let her get you.” Kendall thought the same warning might have been good one for the men involved with Tori O’Neal Campbell Connelly. Don’t let her get you.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Port Orchard
Fifteen years ago
It didn’t matter if the twins were in the same room or a thousand miles away from each other. Key moments in their lives often percolated in their thoughts at the same time. The big moments, the ones that shaped each girl into the woman she became. And while they thought of the same things, they didn’t always share matching perspectives. Lainie tossed and turned in the loneliness of a bed that she never shared with anyone more than a few nights at a time. Alternately, Tori curled up next to a man and did what she could to keep him interested in her, even if she wasn’t truly paying attention to him. And yet they thought of Port Orchard, what happened that night on Banner Road, and in the months that followed. Both had reasons to keep it all secret.
The visiting room at the Secure Crisis Residential Center was outfitted with sofas, tables, and bolted-down end tables and lamps. It was either the milieu of Motel Hell or the sitting room of a paranoid miser who wanted to ensure that nothing left the premises. Handwritten signs indicated that visitors and residents would be searched after the conclusion of their time together. Visitors got a simple, unobtrusive pat-down by a pleasant- faced person of their own gender. Though it wasn’t always the case—because it depended on who was on duty— residents were strip-searched. Women were examined by a rubber-gloved female officer, of course, but for safety and security reasons, an observer would be present, too. Often it was a male. And while they purported that they were there only for the benefit of the person doing the search, some were there because, like all creeps, they liked to watch. Daniel Hector was one of those. A thirty-five-year-old who became a corrections officer because he liked the control, the gatekeeper’s power, and the kind of personal proclamation that came with the duty. He was a short man with dark dead eyes, hairy knuckles, and a Fu Manchu mustache. The difference between his ID badge and the inmates’ badges was solely based on the better lighting afforded staff members. Indeed, if a photo ID was set before anyone with an array of inmate and corrections officers and someone was asked to pick out who was who, Hector would be the first pick for the criminal. And, considering what he did, they’d be right.
“You’re a pretty little thing,” he told Tori a few days after her incarceration. She had come out of the shower room, her flip-flops and robe on.
“You’re pretty gross,” she said.
“You have pretty titties. I’d like to see them.”
“You would? What’s in it for me?”
“I don’t know,” he said, stepping closer.
“Maybe you’d like a cigarette?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Candy bar? Magazine? I can get you whatever you want.”
“Not interested,” she said.
“You’re not a chick with a dick, are you, Tori?”
“Funny. Like you haven’t checked me out already, you freak.” He grinned.
“Yeah, I’ve checked you out. Like to get another look at you.” She had no idea what it would get her, but she agreed. She opened her robe. He put his hand against his crotch and stepped away, out of the sightline of the video cameras and their unblinking eyes.
“Nice,” he said.
“Want me to do anything?” she said, aware that she hadn’t set a price.
“Yeah,” Hector said, “I want you to move around a little. Dance a little for me.” Tori almost said she was a good dancer, but she didn’t bother. She didn’t know why it was that she was performing for him the way she was, but she could see the twisted pleasure that he was getting from what she was doing.
“Slower,” she said to him. He complied. She was the captive one, of course. Yet she held some kind of odd power over him. He was a piece of garbage, but he was a man nevertheless. She was in control. She liked it that way. That was better than a candy bar any day of the week. The visits between Tori, Lainie, and Dex O’Neal in juvenile detention were always fraught with emotion. Tori cried. Lainie cried. Dex wanted to cry, too, but he felt that someone had to be strong in the situation that had heaped on more heartache than their little family ought to bear. Vonnie was dead. Tori was in jail. 
CORRECTION CENTER flashed on the caller ID. Lainie was getting ready to go out with some friends from school and she almost decided to pretend that she didn’t hear the phone. Her father was painting a chair in the garage. He wouldn’t hear it ring. She picked up and waited for the message that warned her where the call was coming from and how she should immediately hang up if she didn’t know who might be calling.
“Hang up immediately!” A robotic-sounding woman’s voice intoned. Lainie answered.
“Hi, Tori,” she said. Silence.
“Tori?” Then she heard some sobbing.
“Tori, is that you? Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. I need to see you. I can’t take it anymore.”
“You only have a few months to go. I know you are getting out soon.”
“You don’t understand. I’m going crazy in here.” Lainie thought she heard someone else talking.
“Who is that?”
“Just some bitch that wants to use the phone. I’ll get rid of her.” She set down the phone. A moment later she picked it up and spoke.
“I need you to come on Saturday.”
“Dad is working. We can’t come until the Sunday visit.”
“You can come. I need you, Lainie.”
“I can’t get in without Dad.”
“You can. I arranged it. I have special privileges here now. Good behavior.” Lainie noticed that Tori was no longer crying.
“Okay. I’ll be there at eleven.”
“Come at ten. We can have a special visit.” Special visit was code for something Tori had planned for her sister. Something, she was sure, she’d never forget.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Tacoma
The previous summer
Naked and tangled in the damp white sheets under the canopy bed, Tori Connelly pressed her breasts against her stepson’s back and whispered in his ear. She did so with a gentle puff of each breath so he would not only hear her words, but feel the desire that came with each one.
“You want to play again, Parker?” It was late in the evening and, save for the creaking that comes with an old house, it was quiet, so very still. It was as if at that very moment there were no others in the world. No husband to control her. No mother to tell him what to do. No one. Just the two of them. The teenager grinned and rolled over to face his lover. The light from the bedside lamp was low and golden. She was beyond beautiful. A dream. A very sexy dream. Even in the dimly lit room her hair glowed. Her lips shined with gloss and the moisture from their lovemaking.
“I like it when you call me that,” he said. She smiled.
“It’s your name.”
“I know. I guess it’s the way you say it.” She brushed her fingers down his hairless chest, stopping at his stomach for a teasing moment before moving lower.
