The crease between his eyes never stopped frowning. His eyes dark and turbulent.
If they’d been alone when they’d died, where were the kids? Had they sold them or killed them?
Those questions squatted in my mind, making sleep impossible as we were put up for the night in some dingy motel with only cold water in the shower and a single towel to share.
At least, they’d given Ren and me the same room.
There was no talk of what we were to each other, or if it was illegal for us to stay together, or what the hell all of this meant. For now, everyone was focused on finding out where we’d truly come from and just what Ren had endured.
A policeman sitting outside our door was the only sign we weren’t just guests on this little foray and Ren was still a suspect.
When Martin had surveyed our room and stepped outside to leave us to it, he pointed a finger at Ren and said, “I’m trusting you not to run, boy. You came here freely. Continue to be cooperative and this will be smoother for all of us.”
Ren nodded as the door closed, and I whispered under my breath, “His name is Ren…not boy.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
REN
* * * * * *
2020
THE FIRST STEP onto Mclary’s property filled me with a complex recipe of emotions.
Hate.
Horror.
Rage.
It felt as if I’d only left yesterday, yet the house was smaller than I remembered, the tractors not as scary, the barn not as huge and hungry for tiny children.
With our entourage of two officers from home, two officers who’d overseen the murder/suicide, and another two for good measure, Della and I were as popular as we’d ever been.
We all moved down the muddy driveway past rotting bales of hay and around a pile of scrap iron to the front door where I’d bolted with a baby Della clinging unseen in my stolen backpack.
Della slipped her hand into mine as we crossed the threshold into the house, and just like that, I was a ten-year-old kid again.
My world narrowed to terror.
My throat constricted.
My body reacted.
Bruised and beaten, starving and sad. Ghost images of a screeching Della ripped my head toward the kitchen. Long ago echoes of a TV program showing what a real family was wrenched my head to the decrepit lounge.
Della felt my tension and squeezed my fingers, dragging me back to the present.
Coughing, I gave her a grateful look, forcing myself to stay in the now.
“How do you want to do this?” one of the officers asked. I didn’t know which one, and I didn’t care. I merely drifted forward, clutching Della’s hand, taking comfort in the thud of my boots and the reminder that I wasn’t ten anymore.
No one could hurt me again.
They were dead.
Good fucking riddance.
“Where’s the box of evidence that you guys gathered in the murder/suicide investigation?” Martin Murray asked, leading the officers into the kitchen where notepads came out, and a box was brought in from a cruiser and placed on the well-used bench.
“This is all we took. Some bank statements. A few IOUs from a local feed store. An unpaid invoice for a tractor service, along with this.” Remy Jones, a middle-aged pot-bellied man held up a red notepad that had been curled and rolled with an elastic band and a pen jabbed in the pages. “We figured she killed him and then herself because they were up to their eyeballs in debt, and it was only a matter of time before they lost everything. She blamed him for their lack of fortune; couldn’t be bothered struggling anymore. Bang, bang.”
My eyes locked onto the notepad as he waved it around with his stupid conclusions. Mrs Mclary didn’t shoot her husband for something as useless as money. She shot him because she’d had enough of him raping girls. Maybe in her twisted mind, she thought he cheated on her, or perhaps, she’d finally woken up to how fucking horrible they were and what they were doing to kids.
Either way, she’d killed pure evil and then done the world a favour by eradicating herself, too.
I tried to look away from the notebook as the officer flicked through its pages with a scowl. “This thing makes no sense, though. It’s just a bunch of numbers with prices beside it. Four hundred here. Two hundred there. A thousand dollars a few times, but that’s rare.” He shrugged, tossing it back onto the counter with a slap. “Must be another IOU book, or maybe how much they paid for stock?”
No one seemed interested in answering him, but I couldn’t tear my gaze off that damn red notebook.
Something familiar…something tugging me to tumble backward through time.
Red.
Pages.
Pen.
The farmhouse fell away, replaced with an older version—a version where Marion Mclary still lived, and she sat rocking on her rocker by the grimy window, her spindly hand scribbling.