Shock stole Raine’s breath. She felt as if she’d been struck in the chest with a crowbar. Her sister had always been so quiet, kind… Bill had often remarked that she should be more compliant, like Rowan. What the gentle girl had endured made her blood curdle.
Her father was a sexual predator, a deviant void of a soul. But then she’d known that for years.
“Twice?” she finally choked out.
Somewhere in the back of her head, Raine realized that she wasn’t saying anything that would persuade Bill to reconsider what he had planned or release her. But she was pretty sure no such words existed. She also feared if she said anything truly on her mind, she’d set off his violent streak sooner. Her head reeled; her terror surged.
“I had a hard time finding a doctor who’d perform an abortion on a girl not yet fourteen, but I found him. He came in handy two years later. After the first slipup, I put Rowan on the pill, but the stupid cunt took antibiotics for some fucking illness and wham. But I made sure she understood she couldn’t be careless again.”
Raine didn’t even want to know what Bill had done then.
When she’d started fending off her father’s leers and “accidental” touches after Rowan’s departure for college, she’d sometimes resented her sister. Not a single text, letter, holiday at home. Nothing. Now Raine completely understood the girl’s decision.
“So…” she breathed. “That’s why Rowan never came back to see me?”
“Well, not exactly.” Bill cackled like he was enjoying himself way too much.
Raine froze. Fear almost seized her tongue before she could ask her next question. “What do you mean?”
Bill didn’t answer. He just began humming some vaguely familiar tune her father used to play. Rowan had always hated the song. Raine did, too.
“Tonight’s the night. It’s gonna be all right. I’m gonna fuck you, girl. Ain’t nobody gonna stop us now,” Bill wailed, then snorted. “Rod Stewart had his way of singing the song, and I’ve got mine. You know, that was my special song with Rowan. I sang it to her the very first time. Don’t say a word, my virgin child…”
The clues clicked. The truth slammed through Raine’s head. Every time her father had played that record, Rowan would sob. Then Raine would hear moans and grunts coming from her sister’s room that night.
Tears leaked from Raine’s eyes. Poor Rowan…
“But then your sister got uppity, thought she was better than me. She applied to all those fucking universities and got accepted. She decided she was going to leave me.”
Raine heard the booze in the bottle slosh, then he slammed it on the table. She started and bit back a gasp.
At least Rowan had gotten out. She’d had an unspeakably awful five years with her father, but Raine counted it as a victory that her sister had fled to make her life better.
“So I took care of her.” Footsteps sounded, and Bill meandered back toward her, filling her line of vision as he crouched, holding a gleaming serrated knife in his hand. “Just like I’ll take care of you.”
Raine understood instantly what had befallen her sister. Rowan hadn’t simply decided to leave her childhood behind and carve out a better life for herself. Their twisted father had ended it.
“She packed up for college, and you pulled out for the airport so she could fly to London and…”
A sneer curled his lip. “I drove her out to the desert. We had us a raunchy little good-bye. Then…I sent her on her way.” He held up the knife with a shrug. Terrible delight shined in his eyes. He’d enjoyed every minute of that. “In fact, that same shovel is in the back of my truck.”
More cold terror rolled through her. She’d known her father had no ability to feel love or compassion. She’d known he was a rapist and a pedophile who didn’t care if he caused others agony. She hadn’t known that he was a closet murderer.
“Because she planned to leave you? That’s why?”
“No one leaves me. Not even you.” He lowered the knife to her, pressing the tip against the hollow of her throat.
“Wait!” she cried, panicked. How would she talk him out of this? “I-I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I know you will. And you’ll like it.”
Raine’s skin crawled, and before she could say anything else, Bill cut through her T-shirt and bra with the big knife, making ribbons out of her shirt…and leaving a long scratch from her throat to her waist. Just a little deeper and he would have drawn blood.
The smile playing at his lips told Raine that he very much enjoyed screwing with her head. He’d scare her, lording his control of her mortality over her—before he finally lost interest in his latest toy and ended her, too. He’d killed Rowan when she’d decided she’d had enough abuse and chosen to walk away. What if her sister hadn’t been the only one?