Somehow I know even before I see her sparkling green eyes, her familiar jaw. It is my mother, Misty Lynn Nylo. Her makeup is immaculate. She looks good. She looks healthy. Definitely not dead.
“Hello, Caitlyn,” she says.
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“That was the hard part,” she continues. “Now that we are done with all of that, we can get to the easy part—the sorting everything out, darling.”
“M-mother?” I stammer. I want to scream. I want to weep. I want to throw my arms around her and hug her until my shoulders go numb. I want to smash her face in with my bare hands until all the bones in my fingers and wrists are broken.
I take a step toward her and she raises the gun again.
“Why don’t we both sit down?” she says in a calm, listen-to-your-mother kind of way. “I can only assume you are just full of emotions. We can have a little chat. You look ragged. You aren’t getting enough sleep, huh? I suppose that is probably all my fault. Sit down, Caitlyn. Stay a while.”
I don’t feel like sitting. I don’t feel like doing what I’m told. But she sits down first and I feel awkward standing there with my fists balled while she points a gun at me. I pick up one of the fallen chairs and right it, then lower myself slowly, feeling nauseous and confused.
“You killed Alistair,” I say. “You shot Gabriella.”
“Yes, I suppose I did,” she says. “I have a little secret to tell you: she was only your half-sister. She was Angelo’s daughter, and that’s why he helped me with my little game here. That’s why I had to shoot him, too. You know, I didn’t expect you to let her win like that. I suppose you are just a better person than I am. But I guess that’s what this is all about. You have so many admirable qualities, darling. I guess I had to put my thumb on the scale there at the end, but I think I made the right decision.”
“You killed Dad,” I blurt, a fuller realization of the big picture settling in. “You killed all of them.”
She stares at me, almost smiling. It is really her. Not some actor or a hologram. I feel warm and tranquil, narcotized somehow. I hate her so much that I feel floaty. And I also realize just how much I have missed her.
“You are a monster,” I say. “You are a fucking psychopath.”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” she says, smiling slightly. “You have every right to feel that way. I have indeed killed them all, just as you say, one by one. Everyone who stands in your way. It’s not something you asked me to do. The truth is, I had planned to do it a long time ago. It would have been harder back then, back when you were all children. I suppose I am a bit of a coward. I always hoped my feelings would cool. That my hatred would settle down. But it never did, darling. And when Angelo came to me and told me about your father’s will, well, I knew I had to finally do something.”
“You were working together,” I say. “You and him.”
I gesture to Angelo Marino, who is bleeding out on the floor.
“Yes, well, we have a long history of using each other,” she says. “He helped me disappear all those years ago, back when you were all children. He relied on his connections with the police and mafia to help me fake my own death and start a new life in China, and he made sure that I never wanted for money. The walls of this house have secret doors that lead to secret tunnels. Angelo built them in the off-season and I used them to escape. He found some other corpse with my features, my proportions. In return, I let him love me in his way, even promising to help his daughter ascend to the top of the Nylo empire. It was a lie to be sure, but he didn’t have to suffer long with the—what did he always call it—the sting of my betrayal. Oh well. Can’t be helped.”
“But why?” I ask. “Why did you do it? How could you kill all of us? How could you kill your own children?”
She smiles at me knowingly. “Not all of you. You have always been my favorite, sweetheart.”
I think of Olivia and Jane and my mostly ambivalent feelings toward them. I’m not exactly the epitome of maternal and I don’t think I’ve ever had a favorite, although I’m sure there have been moments when I’ve liked one more than the other. But as I think about my mother’s actions, I am overcome by a feeling of darkness, recalling all the times when I have hated them or wished I hadn’t been so naive or stupid as to think they would make my life easier or change me for the better as a person.
“I never wanted to get pregnant,” she continues. “What do people say now? That relationships ought to be consensual? Well, you were not the product of a consensual act of sex, my darling. I was a very heavy drinker once upon a time—damn near an alcoholic—and your father had a taste for incapacitated women. We were dating, or whatever you call it where a man takes you out drinking and watches you like a hawk until you pass out and then does whatever he wants to you.”
I swallow hard. This is a more specific and deliberate version of the same story she has told us ever since we were children. About how she never wanted to be a mother. About how she was tricked into it. We always assumed that she was exaggerating. But I suddenly realize that she may have actually been softening the truth.
“I hated myself so much back then,” she says. “I hadn’t made
