I hang my head, but before I close my eyes, I see a shoe.
Stokes’s shoe.
My eyes flutter open and I scan the tile floor, past his shoes, to his black jeans, but a chair hides the rest—except for the blood.
Stokes’s blood on the kitchen floor? Like Dad’s…
Chills of horror wash through me as a whooshing noise comes from ahead. The sink?
I blink away the fog, trying to concentrate as the figure appears again. The man looks like Byron, but he’s older—leaner.
“Did your mother never teach you to put your dishes in the sink when you’re finished with them?” he asks, his voice high, wiry so.
He takes the matching mugs Stokes had made our drinks in and puts them in the dishwasher. “You have a nice dishwasher, and yet, you still leave your glasses out, Lynda.”
Glasses. I knew I left my glass on the counter the day I went for my audition.
He was in the house. He’s been in the house, anytime he’s wanted, ever since. Maybe even before then. The heart on the mirror in the bathroom. All the noises in the middle of the night.
Chills shiver across my skin and my stomach tightens as I catch the sight of Stokes’s blood again. Saliva pools in my mouth.
“Who?” I try to ask, but I shiver before finishing the sentence.
He looks at me and smiles beneath a mustache Byron never had. “What’s that, Lynda?”
“Who are you?” I ask, clearly. “Byron’s dead.”
He stands and I begin to make out more of his facial features as the room stops moving. His eyes sparkle in the kitchen light, and the raised veins in the sides of his forehead—I don’t remember Byron having those. He never looked that angry.
“Byron is dead,” he says. “My brother is dead because of your family. Your mother. Where’s your mom?”
“She’s coming soon. The police are coming, too. I called them before—”
“Little liar. I should have assumed as much. You lied about my brother. Now you lie and forget I was in here, Lynda. I’ve been in here a lot since your mom and her boy toy left. I know you haven’t called the police.”
“How did you get the key?”
“Your mom’s boy toy hid it out front, beneath the windowsill. You took it, but I had a copy made before you could. I didn’t want you getting ahead of me—of my plan. I’ve been watching since the day I learned of my brother’s murder. You put him away and it killed him.”
“Byron—”
“Don’t say my brother’s name. I heard the way you said it when I caught the news on TV—an accident. I never wanted to see any of the trial, and I thought it was a blessing that it was over so quickly. That my brother was locked away like the animal I thought he was. A disgrace to the family name. That’s what I thought of him, Lynda.” He rounds the counter and stands just feet away from me, and from Stokes’s shoes. “What kind of man would follow another man around, all jealous? Not my brother.”
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper and a cell phone rings again from behind him, on the counter.
He watches me, studying me until it stops ringing.
“Your mom’s on vacation, isn’t she? With her boyfriend? I should have done this before she left. I must’ve been at work when they left. I missed it.” He purses his lips and shakes his head. “My brother dies in prison, and your mother goes on a vacation with her boy toy. How do you think that makes me feel?”
He’s just as delusional as his brother.
“What do you want with my mom? She didn’t do anything to your brother. He killed my father!” I scream, my whole body shaking with anger.
“Your mom got my brother killed!” He spits in front of me. “And you played your part too!” He points his finger at me, staring down it like the barrel of a gun, covering part of his twisted expression.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, but he doesn’t talk. Doesn’t move. Just stares at me. “The police will be here soon. I told them about you. About your car.”
“I had a nice little talk with that officer.” He smiles, rubbing his chin, and a scratching comes from the back door. He glances outside.
Stevie.
“Leave us alone!”
“Like my brother did? No. You McGowan women have your way with things, you’ll make me out to be a murderer too, instead of what it was all about in the first place. Self-defence.”
“What?”
“He was trying to get your mom out of a bad situation, a bad marriage, away from a bad man. He was trying to protect her. He was a real man, after all.”
I shake my head, but he raises his hand and makes a fist. I wince and he smiles.
“If you’re waiting for my mom, you’ll get caught before then.”
“If the police were coming, they’d be here by now. They’ll come right in after their little holiday, and your mom will know how it feels to have someone she loves taken away because of her lies,” he sneers, pulling a folded piece of lined paper out of his pocket. “She was havin’ an affair with my brother.”
“My mom never had an affair—”
“You were supposed to be off at college. A lot of things happen when the baby birds leave the nest, Lynda. Maybe… maybe you didn’t know.” He covers his mouth with his hand and walks back around the counter, grabbing a knife from the drawer.
I want to tell him there was no affair, but he won’t believe me. Whatever’s on the piece of paper is the gospel to him.
What did Byron tell him?
The phone on the counter rings again and he turns back to look at it.
“What does the letter say?” I ask, distracting him.
I need that phone.
He turns back to me with his brow slightly raised. “My brother knew his end was comin’ in that hellhole, for one
