Immediately she thought of the bloody handprint on Lorelei’s truck. “Lorelei called you,” Josie blurted, knowing from experience that more talking usually led to less shooting. Plus, if she could distract him, she could get the flashlight back from Rory, blind Adam with it and disarm him.
Adam said nothing, so Josie kept going. “You’re their father. Rory and Holly.”
“Is that what this little shit told you? I screwed my sister-in-law a few times, and he’s telling you we had babies? This kid lives in a fantasyland.”
“He didn’t tell me,” Josie said. “You’ve got poliosis. So did Holly, so does Rory. It’s genetic. The white forelock.”
Adam took one hand off the gun to tousle his hair. “My whole head is white, honey. Don’t mean shit.”
“I saw your wedding photo,” Josie said. “It wasn’t easy to find online but I did. Back then you had black hair. Except for one lock of white hair in the front. When Emily was at your house, she saw your wedding photo, but she didn’t realize it was you. She thought it was Rory. She thought it was a photo of Celeste and Rory.”
“So what? That kid’s just as nutty as this one. All Lorelei did was screw and spit out messed-up kids.”
“You’re the one who’s messed-up!” Rory shouted.
Josie snaked a hand behind her and grasped his arm. She didn’t want him rushing Adam. He would get shot.
“Holly and Rory were yours,” Josie said. “Emily was not. Lorelei tried to raise them on her own but as Rory got older and bigger, she couldn’t control him. She wrote to you.”
“No,” Adam said.
“Yes,” Josie insisted. “I have part of the letter.”
“I burned that letter. I brought it back and gave it back to her. Then after—I burned it. I burned everything. Every photo. Every document. Her laptop and phone. Every shred of evidence that she could have used to claim her spawn were mine.”
Josie continued, wanting to keep him distracted. “She wanted you to come clean, to tell Celeste the truth, and to help her with Rory. The day of the murders, Rory got violent, very violent, and she called you on her cell phone. You went there. I don’t know why.”
“I went there to tell her once and for all that I was not ever going to be her… whatever she wanted me to be. A dad. Whatever. You know I didn’t even know who the hell she was when I first met her? We ran into each other at the produce market. I was checking stuff out for the menu. Here was this hippie chick with a hot ass. Lived in the woods. Would screw anytime I showed up. It was the perfect situation. I didn’t find out who she was till I’d been married a year already. Found the paperwork in Celeste’s things. The whole story came out. But it was okay because Lorelei didn’t care. We were still going hot and heavy. Until she went and got knocked up. Even then, it wasn’t so bad at first. She didn’t care that I wasn’t part of the kid’s life. Until she got pregnant again, and this one started trying to kill his sister.”
“It was perfect,” Rory said. “You ruined it.”
Adam gave a dry laugh. His teeth gleamed, a flash of white. The longer they stood there, the more Josie’s eyes adjusted to the scant light rising in the sky. Sunrise was close. “Kid, you wouldn’t know perfect if it stabbed you in the damn neck. Your mother? She was a manipulative slut. I told her that DNA or no DNA, I was not your father. She was fine with that. Till you went and got all messed-up in the head. Then all of sudden she wanted to play house. When I told her it was never going to happen, she was fine with that, too. Then all of a sudden, one day, she wants me to leave my wife.”
“You could have left your wife,” Josie pointed out. “There was nothing stopping you.”
He shook his head, the moonlight casting shadows across his face. “I can’t leave my damn wife. We have a prenup because, as you saw, Celeste is a cold, selfish, bitter, hateful bitch. If she found out about Lorelei, about the kids, I’d be out on the street with nothing. Less than nothing. And if you think I was going to go from the luxury of Harper’s Peak to some shithole halfway house for messed-up kids in the woods without a penny to my name, you’re crazy. Lorelei was crazy ’cause she thought I would. I went there to tell her never to call me again.”
“You came to the house to kill her!” Rory shouted.
Josie felt him slip a little from her grasp. She dug her nails into his skin, and he stopped moving.
Adam said, “No, kid. I never meant to kill her. It’s not my fault you got all psycho. You were going to kill her if I didn’t jump in. That bullet? It was meant for you, you little shit. You stabbed me! With my own damn penknife!”
Josie thought she heard Rory sob. “What about Holly?” he cried.
“That’s on you, too, kid. You were the one who tried to strangle her. How is it my fault she died? You’re the one who left her up at the church.”
Josie said, “Holly died from blunt force trauma to her head, not from strangulation.”
Rory said, “She was trying to help me. I did strangle her. I couldn’t help it. I got mad—the creature—I just, my hands were around her throat. That’s when mom called him. But I didn’t kill her. He
