* * *

Detective Fray’s calls always meant that something else had happened. When Regina looked at her phone earlier and saw his number come up, her stomach tightened. When he told her that a hand—the rest of Jackson Donovan’s hand—had been delivered to Ben last night, and asked her if she had received anything, she threw up.

Literally threw up. Her mind had pieced together the image of the finger she received weeks ago and conjured up one of the hand. It took her a good hour or so before she could calm herself. And that was with Brian’s assistance.

A finger and a hand. Jackson Donovan’s finger and hand.

She’d never gotten the chance to finish her conversation with Ben last week when they were at the station. Detective Fray had come in at the moment she thought Ben was going to go into a little more detail about what they were up against. Since then, he was busy with Wade, and his office wasn’t too happy with his decision to represent Wade.

His firmness with them was impressive, but it made her question things even more. She knew Ben all too well, and knew his strength behind his power. However, his actions were that of a man who had hit a stumbling block. He seemed to be clawing at the areas where he could still have some influence. She hadn’t seen this side of him often, probably once before during the oil rig incident, but his actions then weren’t as bad as they were now.

She thought that with him getting Jackson’s hand, it gave her every reason in the world to visit her soon-to-be-ex-husband and get the information she deserved from him.

It was just before noon. Ben was sitting out on the terrace behind one of the wooden tables. A file lay open before him.

A sickly green color washed over his face when he saw her. The reaction was enough to highlight the severe direction their situation had taken.

“Detective Fray told me what happened,” she began.

She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. He straightened up and looked at her.

“I got the finger, you got the hand. How comes you didn’t call?” She knew he wouldn’t call. That part was just a goad. Throughout this whole event Ben had never called her, not even once. Not even to ask what had happened.

She thought his lack of care was appalling, but it didn’t surprise her.

“Didn’t want to worry you. You seemed content playing house with Brian. The happy couple and their daughter.” When Ben was sarcastic it normally had that double-edged effect where it would make her feel humiliated, but also produce some level of fear in her.

Not today. She’d risen above that. She’d risen so far above his tactics that she was looking down on him. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. At least not with his words, and definitely not with his threats.

“Brian and I are doing well. Taylor’s getting to know him, but like the angel she is, she’s made her love for you quite clear.” Openness and transparency. That was what she needed here. Because that was what she wanted from him. Regina had spoken to Taylor the other day, to see how she was coping.

Wade was in some serious trouble, and everything that was going on with him terrified her, but in the midst of that, she had to remember all that Taylor had gone through in such a short space of time. Finding out that Brian was her father had to have done a number on her mind, too, so Regina had sat her down and they had a nice long talk about all that had happened.

As always, Taylor never failed to impress her with the extent of her love. Sharing how Taylor felt was probably what would help her now to talk to Ben. She needed answers. She needed to know what they were up against. Her boy was suffering for something he didn’t do. At the very least she wanted to know why.

“Did she say that?” Ben asked. There was a flicker of something in his eyes. It seemed to soften the hardness in his expression.

“Yes, she did. Specifically.”

He looked away from her and gazed out to the garden. She followed his gaze and noticed that all the roses had wilted. There was a time when she spent hours in that garden tending to the flowers. It was a way of getting her mind off the mistakes she’d made in her life. She’d busy herself with growing miniature roses and other flowers, some of which were difficult to keep. It was soothing at the time, but then everything became too much and she stopped.

When she looked back to him he was already looking at her.

“Why are you telling me this? Why are you telling me that Taylor loves me?”

She pulled in a breath. “So that you can be honest with me. I need to know why my son is in prison. Why does he need to suffer for something you did? Things are just getting worse, Ben, and you need to start talking before someone else dies.”

That was the truth of the matter. He looked down at the table, at the folder, and then back to her. He reached out and slid it over towards her.

She noticed that his skin grew paler and that haggardness she’d seen on him last week returned.

Regina opened the folder. The first thing that greeted her was a drawing. It was of a very beautiful woman with long dark hair. She thought she recognized her but couldn’t be certain. She continued to look through and found at least twenty more drawings of the woman in different settings and with a child. A boy.

Those depicted happy moments of them at the beach, in a woodland park, at the fair.

Regina looked at the drawings before her and the most prominent thing that stood out was that they were drawings of this woman. She’d gotten a drawing of herself, of Wade, of Chloe. Except for that very first drawing of Ben and his secretary that she saw when this whole thing started, he was the only person to get something different. She thought back to that drawing of his secretary and it came together in her mind. That was the same woman. This was her.

But what did it mean?

“Who is she? Were you with her?” Regina already knew the answer was yes, even before he nodded.

“Rachel Dean. That was her name,” Ben replied.

She noticed the way he emphasized was.

“What do you mean by was?”

“She died, twenty years ago,” he said barely above a whisper.

Her breath caught in her chest. “Does this person blame you for her death?”

Her hands started shaking as she continued to observe him. It was the way he looked. His face seemed even paler as he fixed his gaze on her, and his eyes, they held guilt.

“Yes. They blame me, because it was my fault.”

“Who is he?”

“Her son. His name is Aaron. I wasn’t certain it was him, but I had my suspicions from the drawings. They depicted things that would matter to just him. When we found out about Jackson, I knew for sure it had to be him.”

“How can you be certain? I don’t understand.”

“Because of what we did.”

“What did you do, Ben?” The question of key significance.

Ben stared at her, long and hard. His eyes growing colder, but not in that calculative manner in which she was used to. He was different. It was as if he’d realized he’d lost the game and there was no point in hiding anymore.

“I killed her. Jackson and I killed her.”

Her mouth dropped and she jumped back, nearly falling off her chair. She stood up but thought she would fall over. He stood, too, and made a move towards her.

“Oh God, Ben, what? What are you telling me? What are you saying?”

“I didn’t pull the trigger, but I told Jackson to kill her. So I’m guilty too.”

Evil. That was what he was. She pulled in a sharp breath against the constriction in her chest. “Stay away,” she cried. “Stay away from me and my kids.” She was shaking so much again she thought she would fall over.

She shook her head at him and frowned as tears spilled down her cheeks. She hated to cry in front of him, hated to show any sign of weakness. Hated it to no end to show that she couldn’t be stronger than the shell of a person he made her feel like most times. But these tears were a natural reaction. They just came. Pouring out of her as if someone had pressed the buttons that controlled her emotions.

This…was what she’d been scared of. This.

Finding out the truth. Having confirmation of what she feared Ben was capable of. She feared having her suspicions come to life. And yet, she never expected that he would tell her, even though she’d asked.

“Regina…” He reached out his hand towards her but she backed away and stumbled. Her legs could no longer hold her up and she fell, bruising her hands on the cobbled ground.

He came to her, bending down next her and taking a grip of her shoulders.

“Regina,” he cried, staring her down.

She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t breathe. The fear of what he was going to do to her left her numb and void of words. All she could do was sit there and wait, and watch to see what he would do next.

“I just confessed to a crime. I just confessed to you, and I’m going to turn myself into the police.”

She searched his eyes. Searched them from the shock she felt at his words. His grip tightened on her shoulders and he pulled her up to stand.

“You killed someone, Ben?” She couldn’t stop the tears from falling. She couldn’t stop the sick feeling that filled her as she thought about it all. Despicable was the word that came to mind when she thought of him. But no, he wasn’t despicable. That was too meagre a word to describe him.

Ben was evil. He was evil.

“You killed that boy’s mother?”

He looked at her and nodded slowly. “There are no excuses for what I did.”

“How… How did it happen? Was it an accident?” She cried even more when he shook his head.

“Rachel found evidence of various things I’d done. Bad things that could destroy me.”

“The oil rig incident. Like that?”

“Yes, especially that,” he replied. “She was going to expose me.”

“So, you killed her, for that?”

“She made copies of various files I thought we’d gotten rid of and threatened to take it to the press. Jackson and I tracked her to a barn outside of L.A. She knew too much, and had seen too much, so I had Jackson kill her.”

She covered her mouth as bile rose in her chest; again she felt like vomiting.

“She had a child.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to him? How do you know this person is him?”

“It has to be. I’m going to ask Chance Patterson to take over Wade’s investigation, and then I’m going to turn myself in. It’s the only way to stop this. If he has me, maybe this will stop, Wade will be free, and the craziness will stop.”

At that moment, Ben’s phone rang. It rang a few times before he answered it. When he did, he actually looked paler, if that was possible. In the time that she’d spent here she’d seen the shade of his skin recede into this. But the blood actually looked like it had drained from his body.

She vaguely heard the person on the other end of the phone say, “Put me on speaker phone.” It was a cold, dark voice that sent a shiver down her spine.

Ben did as instructed and pressed the button on his phone to activate the speaker phone.

“Wow,” said the voice.

She wondered who it could be. Regina stared at the phone waiting for the next words to follow.

“Even I’m impressed that you’d confess to her. Benjamin Vanderville, the man of power. He thinks he’s God.” The person laughed.

“Who is this?” Regina braved up herself to ask.

“Dear Regina, I’ve been so many people that I actually don’t know who I am anymore. But for the purposes of this call and recent events, I’ve decided that it seems fitting to go with my birth name. Aaron.”

Her eyes widened at the declaration and she fixed her gaze on Ben.

Aaron. That was the name of the boy. Rachel’s son.

Their psycho.

She heard him sigh before he continued. “Strong biblical name. Aaron was the brother of Moses. I didn’t have a brother. There was just me. Me, my mom, and my dad. My dad got killed in the Gulf War. He was a Lieutenant. Good man, I wished that I could have been half the person he was. Maybe if I didn’t watch my mother being killed I could have turned out like him.”

Ben just stood there with the phone in his hands, gripping onto it.

“What do you want, Aaron?” Regina asked weakly, keeping her voice surprisingly calm.

He laughed. “Is that supposed to be a trick question? Really? You think you have to actually ask me what I want? Okay, let’s do this. Let’s dance. Put simply, I want to destroy you. All of you. Not just you, Ben, but all of you.”

“Why? My children and I didn’t do anything wrong,” Regina challenged. She didn’t know where her strength was coming from for her to speak; maybe it was fear that propelled her.

“Family. You are family. This man took mine. My mother was everything to me. She was an angel. This man used her, and when he was finished with her he had her tossed into the sea, as if she was nothing. And when she threatened to expose him if he… Wait for it. Let me get it right.” Aaron cleared his throat. “She wanted him to resign. She felt that corruption in an office like theirs would never benefit anyone. But good old Benny here was plotting his next move. He wanted to be state’s attorney, then on to become governor. Then what? President? Yes, I suppose.”

It was a cruel joke. All of it. The evil that Ben did had come back for him, and for her too. All the time she’d stayed with him because she thought it was safe, she was far from it.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “Just take me; my family have nothing to do with what happened. Take me now and do whatever you want with me.”

Aaron laughed again. “No. Sorry, Ben. You don’t get to decide. It’s too late for sorries, for a start, and I’ve decided that there are better ways to get to you. Your family will help massively with that. They’ve done a great job so far. So just to be clear, it won’t matter if you turn yourself in. Also, I just happen to have all that evidence you killed my mother to hide. Expect everyone to be well and truly informed by the end of next week. The plan is to release something daily. I can’t seem to decide what I’ll talk about first. A—how you rigged the votes so that Zachery Chambers could get elected as state’s attorney way back when you were in the D.A.’s office. Or, B—the evidence you disposed of that could have incriminated Porter Stevens for killing his wife and her lover.”

Regina could only look at Ben in total shock. That Porter case went on for months. It was nearly as big as the O.J. Simpson trials. Porter walked free, acquitted down to lack of evidence to sentence him. She’d watched and kept herself posted on the events of the case the whole time, mainly because she thought the man was guilty, and all that time he sat in court he had a self-satisfying grin on his face that told her he knew he would walk free. Now she knew why. Ben disposed of key evidence that would have committed him to life imprisonment, possibly death.

“I can see your soon-to-be-ex-wife is well and truly shocked,” Aaron continued with a smile in his voice.

“How can you see?” Ben asked.

“Don’t you worry about that. Anyway, I got to dash. I can see that you’re both stunned so I’ll pick tomorrow’s damage and let you deal with that delivery you’re about to get.”

Regina looked towards the door leading back into the house and saw Selena walking gingerly towards them with a medium-sized box.

“What’s in the box?” Regina said. She was just talking more than asking a question.

The shaking started again.

“What’s in the box, Aaron?” Ben asked, his voice taking on an edge of fear.

“It’s a surprise. Talk later.”

The phone went silent, just cutting out. Regina looked from the phone to Selena as she placed the box on the table.

“The doorbell rang and I found this outside,” Selena told them. Regina met Selena’s embarrassed eyes. The last time Regina saw her she’d caught her in bed with Ben.

That seemed so trivial now.

Ben walked over to the box and opened it. As soon as he did he yelped and jumped back.

Regina couldn’t take it, she had to see. She walked over to the table and looked.

However, she regretted the decision instantly.

Inside was a head. A head severed from the person’s body. Before the air whooshed out of her lungs and she fainted, Regina realized that she recognized the person’s face.

It was Jackson Donovan.