Los Angeles, California

“If we can’t initiate you into the club with that one, we should find another.”

Durango nodded. “Sure. We could find another girl somewhere.”

“I already know one. She hangs out at Jackson’s all the time, this blond with the same blue eyes Momma had. Her name’s Cindy. She’s been on my list for a while now.”

“Cindy?”

“He didn’t tell you? He’s been seeing her for over a year now.”

Durango shook his head. “You know I don’t talk to Jackson unless I have to.”

Billy smiled, that old charm back. “Some things never change.”

He turned and headed back up the stairs, acting as if he hadn’t just tried to kill someone. There was even something of a bounce in his step.

“How did you know we were here? Jackson said you were in Chicago.”

“I was. But I came back after Felicity. I heard you were arrested for that. I didn’t think they’d work that quickly just off a glass with a few fingerprints on it. But that Petrovich sure had a hard on for you!”

“A glass?”

“You remember the night you went by to talk to Felicity about Cillian? She poured you a drink, and you left it on the table. After I heard what she said to you, that whole line about you being better at figuring out the plot of a reality show than me, I knew I was going to do away with her, too. So, I bagged the glass and put it away for the right moment.”

“Those are the prints they found?”

“Yeah. Why do you think I was so surprised?” Billy shook his head. “They were all so eager to believe it was you that it didn’t take much to nudge them in that direction.”

Billy stepped into the small bedroom where he slept and grabbed a light jacket out of the closet. He slipped it on, tucking the gun into a deep pocket.

“Ready?”

Durango knew he could take him out now. But he needed to know more. He needed to know what he’d done to Sarah and why. He needed to know what happened in Kyle’s apartment that night. He needed to know why he had to kill Hyde, why he felt the drive to hurt these women who were so close to Durango. He needed details.

He still couldn’t wrap his mind around all of this.

They went down to the garage and climbed into Billy’s new Mercedes. He told Durango to drive, and he didn’t argue. Billy flipped on the radio and sang along with the music as they crossed the few miles between his house and Jackson’s like it was just an ordinary afternoon.

“Sarah loved you.”

Billy sighed heavily. “She loved you. She tolerated me.”

“You were the only one I trusted with her, the only one of you and Jackson I introduced her to.”

“Would you have introduced her to me if I hadn’t met her first that night?” Billy shook his head, answering for him. “You wouldn’t have. You never introduced your girlfriends to me.”

“I introduced Jody Simpson to you.”

Billy nodded slowly. “You did. But she never spoke to you again after that school dance.”

“You choked her.”

“I thought it was part of the whole making out thing. That’s what Bridgette always did to me.”

It was an admission Durango hadn’t been expecting. He glanced at his brother, a memory tingling the back of his mind. Had Bridgette really done those things to Billy? He’d assumed he was the only one she touched that way, the only one whose bed she climbed into late at night when she thought he was asleep. He’d always thought her relationship with Billy was more a violent one, her only interest taking her anger out on him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? I was the one who screwed up. It took time for me to figure out what was normal and what was Bridgette’s fucked up sort of affection.”

“You shouldn’t have had to figure it out. She shouldn’t have hurt you that way.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me.” It was a little growl filled with anger Durango hadn’t expected. Billy pulled his gun out of his pocket and turned it over and over again in his hands. “I’m not a child to be pitied. I’m a grown man.”

“I know. But even grown men can be broken by what happened during their childhoods.”

“My mother sucked. You knew that. Does it really change anything?”

“She turned you into a killer.”

Billy shook his head. “She didn’t do that. I did. It was the only way I could find to deal with this ache inside of me. This need for her attention.”

“That’s what you want? Her attention?”

“She was my mother. She was the first woman in my life, the only woman who seemed to care.”

“And these other women?”

“Poor substitutes.”

“You’re killing Bridgette over and over again.”

He shook his head. “I’m loving Bridgette the way she loved me. I just finish what she never could.”

Durango’s eyes slid shut. He thought she loved him. He thought that her touch was affection. It wasn’t. But how could he have known that’s what he thought? How could he have shown him differently?

“Did you ever talk to your therapist about these things?”

Billy snorted. “That therapist was worthless. You know what we did during my sessions? I drew pictures, and she cooed over them, telling me what a good boy I was just so she could make Jackson think she was brilliant. She was a fucking hack!”

Durango shook his head. They’d all failed him.

A horn honked behind him. Durango pressed the accelerator, moving through the green light as it turned to yellow. The small SUV behind him just barely made the light, too, but the honker didn’t quite make it, so he laid on the horn again.

“Fucking ass!” Billy twisted in his seat to aim the gun in the car’s direction, making little sound effects as he pretended to fire the weapon. “If I didn’t have more important things to do today . . .”

“Why Sarah?”

Billy sighed again as he twisted back toward the front. “Are you going to keep asking that until I give you the right answer?”

“I loved her.”

“I know you did. But you arrested Dirk, and I was so angry! You weren’t supposed to arrest him. You were supposed to see that it was me, and you were supposed to join us. You and Dirk were going to be my apprentices.”

“I messed up. But you didn’t have to hurt Sarah over it.”

“I had to keep you distracted. I knew you’d get out of it all okay.”

“Distract me from what?”

Billy stared out the window a moment, running his hands over the gun like it was a toy he thought fondly of. When he finally answered, his voice was filled with weariness.

“You were clearly not ready. And Dirk, he wasn’t strong. He would have told you the truth, and you would have come after me. I had to distract you, show you that you didn’t need to be a cop anymore. I had to change things.”

“Did you know they’d arrest me?”

“I didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it did. And I really didn’t think it would go to trial.”

“And then Kyle?”

“I waited three years for you to put it all together. I knew you were still looking at the case files, knew that it was all there in front of you. I waited for you to come to me, to tell me you understood, and that you would join me. But you didn’t. So, I killed Kyle to push you over that edge, but then I realized you were depressed, and that you might need a bigger push. That’s why I killed that detective.” He laughed a little, a truly amused laugh. “I couldn’t believe how well you played into my hands, attacking her the way you did that night. And she liked it! It was quite an education for me, let me tell you.”

“You were watching.”

“Right outside in my car. Almost as erotic as a beautiful woman with my hand against her throat.”

Durango felt sick. What kind of person would believe all this? Would find all this logical in any way, shape, or form? He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

He needed it to end.

They were coming to the turn for Jackson’s house. Familiarity made it easy to drive these roads without paying all that much attention. But this turn was sharp, one that he’d taken too fast so many times as a teenager driving a brand-new car. He’d wrapped one around a tree when he was sixteen, a Corvette his father had just paid a little over $50,000 for. He was lucky he didn’t break his neck that night.

Maybe he would this time.