Why had she gotten those anyway? Dad hadn’t cared. Dad had barely even noticed.
Brooke’s breasts had been perfect. She had let him spend all day touching them, had let him ask whatever questions he wanted about them. They’d been natural, she’d told him that.
There was a loud crack, and a crash of something right outside the shower door. Scott wiped the condensation off the glass and saw the bathroom door open, both of his parents standing there. What the hell? He reached over and turned off the water.
“Scott?”
Why did his mom keep saying his name? He pulled the towel off the heat rack.
“Scott, the news is showing some sort of room they found. An attic.” His father spoke in a stern tone that Scott hadn’t heard in a long time.
He paused, the towel pressed against his face. An attic. He dabbed the water from his eyes and slowly wrapped it around himself. He opened the shower door and stepped out.
His parents stood side by side, their shoulders touching. His mother in a red blouse and white shorts. His dad, his hair almost fully gray, with hands propped on his hips.
“Can I have some privacy?”
“Did you hear us?” his mother repeated. “They found an attic filled with things, and they are saying it’s where you were kept.”
“And it’s not at Randall Thompson’s house,” his father added grimly.
Of course it wasn’t. Randall Thompson was a pawn, one who deserved to rot away in a jail cell for the rest of his life for what he did to Brooke. Scott tucked the towel around his hips and walked past them and to his walk-in closet.
“Were you kept in an attic?” his mother asked.
He pulled a white T-shirt from the stack and wondered what the police knew. How had they found the attic? If the house was listed for sale, and Brooke and Jay were gone—wouldn’t they have emptied out the attic in their move?
“This is the house it was found in.” His mother held her cell phone up to his face. He tried to turn away, and she moved it closer. “LOOK, Scott. Recognize this house?”
Of course he did. And of course he couldn’t admit that. Because, according to what he’d told the police, he’d been let go a few miles from his house and hadn’t seen wherever he’d been kept.
“I don’t know. No.” He knocked her arm out of the way.
“They found two dead bodies in this house the day you showed up here.” His mother’s voice was steel, her feet firmly planted.
Two dead bodies? His hand, which had been reaching for a pair of shorts, paused in midair. “Who?”
“John and Brooke Abbott.” She swiped the screen on her phone, then held a new image up for him to see.
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
Everything in his mind came to a stop at the image of the couple. Brooke was wearing a red sundress, her long hair in wavy curls on her shoulders, a grin across her face. Jay was in a collared shirt and khakis, his dyed black hair swept over his balding forehead. It was them, right under a bold black headline that said, THE BLOODY HEART KILLERS REVEALED.
Jay. Was John his name? No wonder Scott hadn’t found anything about them on the internet, though that had been impossible anyway without knowing their last names. Now, he took the phone from his mom and stared down at the photo of them. The man who had destroyed his life, and the woman who had saved it. Three months, she had said. Wait three months and then call me. She’d tucked a note with her number inside his pocket. Three months. She’d kissed him on the lips. Then we can be together.
But he hadn’t been able to wait three months. He’d gone crazy without her, felt lost in his old life, and had so many questions. What to tell the police, whether she had seen him on television, and if he could see her. Just from afar, at least. If he could just talk to her, then maybe the dull sensation that was sweeping through him would stop.
So, he had called her. Early, he knew. But he had still expected her to answer or at least return his calls. When she hadn’t, he had started texting her. And then her voice mail was full, and he had broken all their rules and traced the path he had run back to their house. He hadn’t had a plan. He was just going to drive by. Maybe park a few houses down and walk by. Maybe wait until she left the house and then follow her.
The day he drove there, it had only been three weeks since his escape, and yet they were gone. Window blinds pulled shut. Car gone. The grass was freshly cut, and there was a FOR SALE sign in the yard. When he called the number on the sign, a lady said no one lived in the house.
Brooke had left him. Abandoned their plans of a happy ever after and left. That’s what he had thought, his heart breaking as he had driven back to his empty life, ignored his parents’ questions, and crawled into bed.
But maybe she hadn’t left. Maybe she had . . .
“Scott, is this who took you?” It was his father’s turn holding up a phone, and his display was now on a photo of Jay’s face, that ugly smirk exposing the crooked top row of his bleached white teeth. He’d had that same smirk when he’d stopped Scott in the school parking lot. Kept that smirk on as he had pinned Scott down to the mattress and spread his legs. Later, Brooke said it was a domination thing. That Jay had been abused as a child, and that something about taking pain and innocence from someone else gave him peace.
Jay had needed a lot of peace. The more Scott had screamed and begged through his gag, the wider that stupid smirk had become. And Brooke had sat there quietly and watched it all happen. Let it happen because if she hadn’t, he would have turned it all on her. She had been a prisoner, just like him. And she had healed him each day while Jay had been at work, and he had healed her, too.
His father shook him so hard that his neck snapped back from the force. “Scott!”
“Who’s dead?” Brooke wasn’t dead. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t why she hadn’t answered.
“John and Brooke Abbott.” His mom moved closer, and he felt trapped in the small space, both of them getting closer and closer, glaring at him as if he’d done something wrong. “Scott, the police are going to be here soon, and they are going to arrest you.”
He looked from her face to his father’s, but he still didn’t understand.
She had been alive. She had pushed him out the door with a kiss, the feel of her lingering on his mouth, and they’d had a future together. Three months. Three months, then forever.
CHAPTER 40
I weighed my options very carefully. Robert stood at the only exit to the room. My phone was on the desk beside me, in arm’s reach if I lunged for it. He stepped forward, and I stiffened, watching as he dragged the short tip of the blade along the top of my desk. It cut cleanly through the leather topper, dissected the phone cord, and suddenly that lifeline was gone.
I met his eyes, and this was a new Robert, one I hadn’t seen before. One who was holding on to sanity and reason with a very tired grip. He regarded me with a mix of pity and disgust. “You let my son die, Gwen.”
He was both right and wrong. While my intentions had been true, my awareness had been flawed. A better psychologist might have asked different questions and unveiled the true depravity of John’s thoughts. With that knowledge in hand, a better psychologist might have called the police, saved Gabe, and locked away John long before whatever hell Scott Harden went through.