CHAPTER FIVE
T he names will likely mean nothing to you.
Right. No one living in the Midwest hadn’t heard of Pamela and Todd Larsen.
Husband and wife. Serial killers.
I was the daughter of two sociopaths.
I stared at my laptop. I knew who the Larsens were, but not a lot about them. I should look it up.
For what?
They were killers. Convicted serial killers. Did I want to torture myself with the details of their crimes? Or was I hoping it wasn’t as bad as I’d heard? Oh, they only killed six people, not eight like I thought. Well, that’s not so bad.
I turned away from the laptop.
A knock at the door. “Olivia?”
When I didn’t answer, my mother went away, and I lay there, wondering if she’d actually wanted me to open the door. Or if she’d just come up because it was what a mother was supposed to do.
I thought of how she’d acted downstairs. She’d seemed anxious, and I wanted to say she’d been worried about me, but then I remembered how she evaded me when I’d gone to hug her. I remembered tapping the love seat for her to sit with me . . . and watching her move to the chair.
Damning evidence. Except that we’d never been close. It was my dad who’d curled up on the love seat with me. My dad who’d given me bear hugs and piggyback rides and swirled me off my feet, long after I was too big to be swirled. My mother was kind and she was caring. She was just . . . distant, with everyone. Raised to show her love in other ways.
I went into my bathroom and flipped the sink faucet on to cold, to give myself a jolt, get back on track. As I wet the cloth, I looked up and caught my reflection. I stopped. For the first time in my life, I didn’t see that comforting blend of Arthur Jones and Lena Taylor. I saw—
I yanked my gaze away, ripped off my dress, stepped into the shower, and cranked the water up as hot as I could stand it.
• • •
When I got out, I avoided the mirror. I left my dress pooled on the bathroom floor and grabbed my jeans and jersey from earlier. I walked into my room to get fresh underwear and socks. Stopped when I reached my dresser.
There was no mirror here. Just reflections of another kind: photos, crowded across the dresser top in mismatched frames. The clutter drove my mother crazy. She was forever straightening them, trying to bring order to the chaos.
My photos. A record of my life. Of what mattered in it. Nana, gone four years now, the only grandparent I’d known, my dad’s father long dead. My maternal grandparents’ interest in me had never extended beyond the obligatory annual Christmas and birthday gifts. Impersonal gifts for a child they didn’t know.
A child they’d never known, I realized now. Growing up, I’d been told my parents and I had lived in England until I was three, when my grandfather died and Dad had to return to take over the business. Not true. The Larsens were American. So my parents had adopted me when they moved back here. A convenient way to pretend that I’d been their child all along. Only I hadn’t been. My mother’s family knew that and they wanted nothing to do with me.
I turned back to the photos. There were more pictures of my parents than anyone else, yet no more than the number they had of me scattered throughout the house. The three of us, our perfect little family.
There were photos of friends, too. Childhood friends. College friends. No best friend—I never felt the need for such a thing, preferring quantity over quality. Did that mean something? An inability to form truly close bonds of friendship?
My gaze slid to the photos on the far right. The most recent, the others inched aside to give way to the new phase of my life.
James.
I hurried to the desk and grabbed my cell phone. I went to hit the speed dial, then stopped.
How would he react?
I shook my head. Was I actually questioning that? This wouldn’t be easy, but we’d get through it. First, though, I had to tell him before anyone else did.
I hit the key. The call went straight to voice mail.
I checked the clock. Just past midnight. He’d probably gone to bed. I left a message saying I needed to speak to him. Then I hung up and walked to the window.
A half-moon shone through the star-studded inky black of the clear night sky. I opened the window. The breeze fluttered in, rich with the smell of a wood fire from the neighbor’s yard, the faint glow of an extinguished bonfire still visible over the hedge.
A beautiful night for a bonfire. A beautiful night for a swim, too, as the moon shimmered across the ripples in our pool. Maybe I could still do that. Maybe I should. Slice through the cool water, feel it wash over me, carry everything else away.
I pressed my fingers to the glass. Light flashed from the back of the yard. I blinked and shaded my eyes to peer out. Another flash. Then another. The staccato blinks of a camera shutter. I yanked the curtains so hard the rod popped free. I left it hanging, stalked to my bed, and dropped onto it.
• • •
“Olivia?” My mother was at my door again. “There are people outside. More media people.”
I sat up and instinctively glanced toward the mirror, to make sure I looked calm and collected. When I caught my reflection, my stomach clenched so hard I winced.
“Olivia? I know this is a shock, but you need to deal with this.”
I needed to deal with it? Not even we.
I took a deep breath and heard my dad’s voice after his heart attack. When he knew he was dying.
She’s not like us, Livy. She just isn’t. Fair or not, you’re going to need to be strong enough for two. Can you do that?
“Is Howard still here?” I called.
“Yes.”
“Tell him I’ll be down in a minute. We’ll—”
The crash of breaking glass cut me off.
I threw open my door. A thump from downstairs. I pushed my mother behind me, shielding her.
“Howard?” I yelled.
“They’ve broken in,” my mother whimpered. “Oh my God, they’ve broken in.”
“They’re journalists, Mum, not a lynch mob. No matter how badly they want the story, they won’t break in to get it. Just hold tight.”
I started for the stairs.
She grabbed my arm. “Don’t leave me here.”
“Okay, then stay right behind me—” Damn it, that wouldn’t work, either. While I was sure we hadn’t been invaded by crazed paparazzi, I wasn’t taking my mother downstairs until I knew what was going on.
“Howard?” I called from the top of the steps.
He appeared at the bottom. “They broke a pane in the French doors to the patio.” His face was calm, but his voice quavered. “I think it was an accident. They were jostling to get a picture and a pane broke.”
“Okay, so have you called—?”
A shout from below. So loud and clear that I froze.
“Are they inside?”
“No, no. They’re just shouting for you through the broken pane. They want you to make a statement. In my professional opinion, I don’t think you should speak to them.”
“Good, because I’m not going to. Have you called the police?”
“I don’t want to raise a fuss,” my mother murmured behind me.
“There are people in our backyard, Mum. I’m raising as big a fuss as I can. Call the police now, Howard. We’re going to stay up here until someone comes.”
Howard made the call. I heard him speaking into the phone, then his voice got loud. “When you have someone free? Maybe I’m not making myself clear. Mrs. Lena Taylor—who is a generous donor to your force’s annual fund-raiser—is under siege, with hooligans breaking her windows.”
Hooligans? That made it sound like some kid jumped the fence and tossed a rock.
“Wait here,” I said to my mother. “I’ll handle this.”