Barbie’s jeering cackle sounds from behind me. My shoulders hike up to my ears and embarrassment floods me. This is the last thing I want Barbie to witness. I brought home a man even she wanted, and he’s breaking up with me right in front of her, not even a half hour later.
“Yes, but—” Mako’s turning and storming out of the house before I can finish my sentence—or rather, my lame excuse.
I’m whipping around, running after him, even as Barbie’s heart-stopping words follow me out. “Wait till he finds out Billy’s your father, too.”
I almost stop. I almost turn back around and demand what the hell Barbie just said. But she must be lying. She’s just egging on the fight to hurt me. There’s no way Billy’s my father. One of them would’ve told me that already.
“Mako, wait!” I shout, not giving a shit that there’s a small party on the porch a few doors down, now quieting as they witness the Ghost of Shallow Hill chase after an unknown man. A man that clearly doesn’t belong in this town.
“Just… fuck! Get in the goddamn car, River.” He rips open his door, throws himself in and slams the door shut behind him. Not wanting him to drive off without me, I scramble into the car, just barely shutting the door before he’s peeling out of the driveway, leaving skid marks in our wake.
Both fists are curled around the steering wheel so tightly, the leather is popping beneath his grip. White knuckles glare at me in the darkness, reminding me that I fucked up.
Again.
His arms tremble and his breathing fills the tense silence with short, staccato bursts.
“Do you have a picture of him?” he asks tightly, anger coloring his tone.
“Yes,” I whisper, my mouth tasting like ash. Tears blur my vision as I pull my phone out and search for the only picture of Billy I have. I took it years ago, before I left. He was particularly savage that night, brutalizing me and ripping me apart mentally and physically. I had already secured my spot at the university and knew I was leaving within a week. I still don’t know why I took it, but I sneaked it in when Billy was glaring at me, still angry for whatever I did that night. The reasons of Billy’s anger escape me, the only thing remaining is the abuse he inflicted because of it.
The bright light of my phone illuminates Mako’s hardened face as I hand over the trembling phone. The second his eyes land on the picture, he’s stomping on the brakes and whipping the car to the side of the road. My body pitches forward from the force, and even deep in throes of his anger, Mako still cares about me enough to bar his arm across my chest and push me back into the seat.
“FUCK!” he roars.
I jump so hard, I hit my head on the glass window. Mako curls his fist and pounds it into the steering wheel, so hard that the car is blaring from him hitting the horn.
“Mako, stop! What’s wrong?!” I scream, my voice desperate and scared. I’m not scared of Mako per se, but I’m scared of what his reactions means. I don’t understand his reaction to the picture.
He finally stops, his knuckles already bruising. His hands rip through his hair as he fumes.
“When did you figure it out?” he demands, keeping his face turned away from me and glued to the window.
Hot, steady streams of tears leak from my eyes. “When you told me about him at dinner. When Billy attacked me that night… he called me a ghost as he was… anyway, it’s something that’s common in Shallow Hill because of Billy. He says that when you grow up in a place like Shallow Hill, there’s no escaping it. So, when you do and then come back… you’re considered a ghost. Someone that just haunts the streets when you see fit but always disappears in the end.” I wipe the snot away with the bottom of my t-shirt. I forge on, my voice trembling as I confess.
“When I was six years old, Billy got hooked on meth. Real bad. He became unhinged and started killing people off pretty carelessly. It’s a miracle Barbie and I survived that time. He would come to the house, raging about how all the men working for him betrayed him. Whether it was because he thought they stole from him or were fucking with the product or whatever the reason. He killed them all. Nothing came of it because he managed to dispose of all the bodies. And as sad as it is, no one really gives a shit about people who die in Shallow Hill.
“When you told me about the Ghost Killer and the way they were murdered, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. I knew it was Billy. I went over to Barbie’s when I got the chance to get away from Ryan, and she confirmed Billy’s hooked again. Back to killing all his men, and now labelling them Ghost’s because well… that’s what they are now.”
Suffocating silence fills the car, nearly choking me from Mako’s anger. He’s trembling, shaking so hard from his anger that it looks like he’s seizing. My mouth opens, ready to tell Mako what Barbie told me as I chased him out the door, but the words die on my tongue. There’s no use telling him something that I haven’t confirmed true.
“Please tell me what’s going on, Mako,” I plead when the angry man beside me continues to stew. I’m shaking like a leaf in bitter winds as I watch my worst nightmare come to life. This is why I cried on Mako’s chest in the library. Because I knew I would hurt Mako when he found out the truth. A small, stupid part of me held onto the hope that he’d understand why I did it. All the same, I’m losing him. Just like I knew I would.
He sighs harshly, slowly regaining his control. “That’s the person that claimed he was a witness to a Ghost Killer murder. That was Ryan’s client—Benedict fucking Davis. The man that killed my father and have been chasing for over a year was right in front of my face. Just like Ryan said.”
Twenty Four
River
THREE LONG DAYS OF grueling, radio silence from Mako. Three days of police knocking on my door, asking questions. Parasites littering the lawn, waiting for any opportunity to snap a picture of me and publish it with some half-assed article with headlines like The Truth Behind Ryan Fitzgerald’s Murder.
It’s tiresome.
Reports over the past few days have been that Ryan’s true murderer was finally caught. The Ghost Killer. Who was also Ryan’s client. It honestly couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. It played into the story we had already spun. Rya
n figured out who the Ghost Killer was, and so he was silenced before he could reveal the truth. The only thing they’re missing is Ryan’s body, but police are figuring the Ghost Killer didn’t follow his M.O. because it was a desperate, last minute kill before Ryan could reveal his identity.
In a single breath, Mako solved the case for not only his brother, but one of the biggest, most notorious cases in the U.S. I don’t need to be around Mako to know he’s not happy about it. He technically didn’t discover who the Ghost Killer was—he was told. In a pretty fucked up way to boot. There’s no sense of justice or satisfaction when discovering a serial killer in that manner. When discovering that the girl you’re in love with knew who he was for months and didn’t say anything. And discovering that it’s the same man who beat and raped her not too long ago.