“My little brother met Annie at a bar your daddy was playing at. He always had to be the center of attention, your daddy, and he neglected your mother. I don’t blame her for going for a guy like Byron. Sweet as they come. Always trying to help somebody. Nice guys finish last they say. But he thought with her, things were different.” He presses his lips together and shakes his head, sweeping his arm across the counter and knocking the glass bowl of fruit off of it. It shatters, fragments flying across the floor. “They fell in love and when your dad” —he jabs the knife in my direction— “found ‘em together that night, right there in your kitchen, he came after Byron, and Byron killed him in self-defence. Then you came in, and you told everybody what you thought you saw.”
“I know what I saw,” I shout with a shaky voice. “Your brother didn’t tell the judge all that! Because it’s a lie!”
“He’s not just my brother! He’s my twin and we were close until all this happened. I blamed him! I turned on my own blood, but you stuck with yours. I made a mistake, but your mom? She made him out to be some crazy stalker, you both made sure to lock him away, and your mom’s gonna pay.” He narrows his eyes at me, walks around the counter, and sits down at the table just behind me to my left, on the opposite side of Stokes. “An innocent man died, Lynda.”
My dad was innocent, and so is my mom.
I shake my head and his chest heaves as the chair beneath him creaks. He leans in toward me. My legs shake and I press them together.
“Maybe you knew about the affair… I suppose it’s possible you didn’t. Maybe you’re innocent in all this, too. Lamb to the slaughter,” he mutters with a bit of a chuckle. The stuffed lamb toy in the fake blood. He’s been taunting me all along. Followed me from Taylor’s that night and that’s the first I saw of him, but he’s been lingering, watching, waiting. “Our daddy was still alive when Byron was sentenced. He died thinking his son was a convicted stalker—killer—jealous of another man’s life. You know how ashamed he was? He didn’t raise us up like that. If he knew Byron did what he did to protect a woman, this would be a whole different kettle of fish. If the court knew, what do you think they’d have said? Doesn’t matter now, does it? Not to anyone but me. I’m the only one left to make sure you pay.”
Tears stream from my eyes, down my hot cheeks as the shock wears away, and the knowing settles in like a fog. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to make my mom watch.
“My brother died thinking I knew the truth, but I didn’t!”
What did my dad die thinking?
Why did this man do this to me? Why did my wife and child have to see me like this? I hope they’re okay.
He can talk all he wants about what his family has been through, but his brother is responsible for all of it.
If I don’t do something now, he’ll kill us all.
I glance at the blood on the floor beside Stokes. “What about my friend?” I ask.
I need to know if he’s alive. If he’s okay. There’s blood, but not as much as… as the kitchen of my childhood home that night, pooled around Dad.
The chair creaks beneath him again as he stands and walks around me, his boots crunching on bits of glass. He rests his hands on his hips with a sigh.
“Our daddy taught us never to let an animal suffer. To put it down—”
“No!” I scream.
He’s alive. He’s going to kill him if I don’t do something.
He turns to the counter, grabs the bloody silver mallet, and walks back to Stokes. He stops at his head, where I can’t see.
He can’t. I can’t let him.
“I’ll do it!” I shout. “I’ll tell the police my mom was having an affair!”
He stops and turns to me. “But you didn’t know about it.”
“I did. I knew. I saw… how much love they had when I found them in the kitchen.”
He frowns and purses his lips. “Are you lying, Lynda?”
“No, I swear. I’ll tell the police right now!”
He shakes his head and hisses through his teeth. “I don’t like liars, Lynda.”
He raises the mallet above his head as several knocks at the front door jolt us both into alert.
I open my mouth to scream, but he takes his knife and lunges forward, pointing it at my neck, and I stop. He grabs something from the table—duct tape—and presses it over my lips.
“Make a sound, and I’ll kill whoever’s at the door. Then, when I come back, I kill him—innocent or not.” He picks up the knife and starts down the hall, tucking it behind his back.
Chapter 29
He believes his brother’s lies,
seeks revenge,
our demise.
More knocking echoes from the front door. It doesn’t stop and my head throbs with each loud noise.
“Maybe it’s your mom.” His voice echoes as he saunters toward the front door. “Home at last.”
Who’d be at the door? Could it be Officer Corden, back with answers? Another officer about Alex?
I need to focus. I need that cell phone on the counter.
The glass on the floor, maybe I can use it to cut myself loose.
I brace myself and lean forward as his boots thud down the hallway, almost at the door, and wait for something. Anything.
Another knocking comes at the door and I brace myself for impact, waiting for another noise to cover my fall.
“Stokes?” Cline shouts from outside. “I see your car, man, come on! Wake up! Lyn?”
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