35

“Why are you doing this?”

Abi had wrapped zip ties around Lauren’s hands and tossed her unceremoniously onto the sofa, where she immediately sagged down into plush cushions. The plastic ties dug deep into her flesh, cutting off all feeling to her hands, but her own safety was the last thing she cared about. The staircase was off to her right, through an archway that led into the hallway. Abi was standing in front of her, the staircase to her left.

Lauren wanted to look, to check where her son was, to make sure he was safe, but she knew that doing so could expose him, and so she pinned her eyes forward, distracting Abi just in case.

“I raised you girls to be fair,” Abi told her, waving the knife at her as she spoke. “To share. To love. If your sister had something, I’d make sure you had it as well; if you had a brand-new computer, I bought one for Martha.”

“Martha.”

“Yes, dear?”

Lauren shook her head. The makeup. The wig. The voice. Her sister’s mind had gone AWOL.

“That wasn’t a question.”

Abi looked confused.

“That’s what you get when you name a kid after their grandmother,” Lauren grumbled. “I always said Martha was a stupid name.”

“You always had a problem with Martha,” Abi continued, choosing to ignore the comments. “You never appreciated her. You never shared anything with her,” Abi continued. She gestured around the room. “With your big house. Your expensive things. Your family.” She shook her head and made a disapproving tutting sound, her hands on her hips. “And what did your sister have?”

“A screw loose and an obsession with old ladies?”

“Nothing. Nothing is what she had.”

“You killed my husband because I didn’t give Martha any money, is that it?”

“There is more to life than money, dear.”

“So, what’s your fucking problem!” Lauren spat, her confusion and fear turning to anger and growing with each second, each syllable that left her sister’s mouth.

“You’re the reason she didn’t live the life she deserved. You had everything—friends, family, money, success. She had nothing.” There was a trace of bitterness on Abi’s face, as if each syllable had come from deep within and delivered on a torrent of bile. “She watched you. Obsessed over you. Loved you.”

“Then why did she kill my fucking husband?” Lauren spat.

Abi advanced, her footsteps slow, methodical, a malevolent expression on her face. She paused in front of the sofa, leaned in close, close enough for Lauren to smell her breath, to feel its warmth on her face.

“Because now I’m here to even things out.” Abi straightened, the sinister smile locked on her face. “After all, fair’s fair.”

Lauren hated every word that left her sister’s lips, struggling to fight back the anger. She wanted nothing more than to spring to her feet and rip her throat out, but for the sake of her son, her future, her life, she restrained herself.

“Wait,” Lauren said, squirming, eager to keep her sister, her grandmother—whatever she was—talking for as long as she could. “I get it, I do, but this isn’t the only way. Please, let’s talk about it.”

“What’s there to talk about, dear?”

Martha had always respected her grandmother. She was much closer to her than Lauren had ever been. The grandmother-granddaughter pair were two different people—one outgoing and confident, the other timid, shy, and introverted. Her grandmother also wasn’t much of a people person, especially not when those people were needy family members. But they had the same name—a mark of respect from Lauren’s mother to her mother-in-law, an apparent—and that bonded them.

Lauren locked stares with her sister, her breathing heavy and labored, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “How is my sister these days?”

Abi shrugged, retreated several steps and then turned her back. “She’s been better,” she said, tossing the knife from hand to hand. “She met someone. Steven, his name was. Nice guy.”

“Was? She’s not with him anymore?”

Abi shook her head. “That one didn’t work out. Turned out he was a smoker; you know what Martha thinks about smoking.”

Lauren tried her best to muster a smile, reciprocating the one that curled menacingly on her fake grandmother’s lips.

“And then there was Robert. He was a little strange though. A bit too obsessive. So.” Abi shrugged. “It’s really just been me and her. She has her work, of course, and that keeps her busy. If you ask me, she’s been a little stressed lately. A lot of people have been getting her down—ex-boyfriends, crazy neighbors, stalkers. She even had a run-in with a crazy little bitch at the coffee shop. Humiliated her right where she stood, just because she hesitated a little.” She shook her head, her hands on her hips once more. “Can you believe that? What is the world coming to?”

“Right? Tell me about it. The things that the younger generation gets away with these days, eh?” Lauren mocked.

“Oh, she didn’t get away with it. She suffered. She got a taste of her own medicine. The world saw her humiliation.”

Lauren nodded slowly, her sister’s words not fully sinking in.

She kept one eye on the clock above the mantelpiece as each second dragged by. Ethan would have phoned the police. He was a smart kid, he had a cell phone, and he would have heard the commotion. It would take them roughly five to ten minutes to arrive from the local police station. After that, the situation could get messier, but at least Ethan would be safe, at least she wouldn’t need to die with the knowledge that he would be next.

“That’s why I am here, after all,” Abi said.

Lauren dragged her eyes from the clock to her attacker, noticing the glint in her eye, the smug satisfaction, the malice. “What do you mean by that?” she asked, knowing exactly what she meant.

“Well, I’m her grandmother, aren’t I? I’m her protector. It’s my job to keep her safe.”

“And how do you do that?”

“I make sure they get what they deserve.”

It suddenly dawned on Lauren. She realized what her psychotic relative was saying. News stories, newspaper headlines, Facebook posts—the killings she had followed so intently and with such horror, the same ones that had swept the country. The internet troll, the young girl, the aspiring rock star. They occurred a relatively short drive away from the town she called home. They had felt close to home at the time, but she now realized that they had been closer than she could have known.

“You killed them.” It was a statement, not a question, one that almost fell from Lauren’s thoughts. “How many?”

Abi shrugged. “I lost count. There are a lot of horrible people in this world, you know?”

“And my husband? What did he do wrong? How could he have possibly hurt Martha? He didn’t even know she existed!”

Abi looked appalled, once again her hands went to her hips, and she shook her head slowly from side to side. “You mean to say, you didn’t tell your husband and your child about your own sister?”

“I. Don’t. Have. A sister,” Lauren grunted, the anger returning once again. “I haven’t had a sister since she killed my parents.”