“You're my mother?" Dunne flashed a look at Hannahlee.
Her emerald eyes blazed in the darkness. "I had a child." She looked at Gowdy. "We had a child."
"Which you never told me about," said Gowdy.
"You were married. You wouldn't leave your wife," said Hannahlee. "I put the baby up for adoption."
"And the baby was me?" said Dunne. "I spent most of my life in foster care."
"I don't know! I never saw the child again!" Hannahlee scowled.
"He's our son." Gowdy nodded and patted Hannahlee on the back. "I found out about him three months ago, when Luanne Diego tried blackmailing me."
Dunne scowled. Things were moving too fast for him to process. "Whoa! You mean Bella Willow was blackmailing you?"
"Oh yes," said Gowdy. "I hired people to check your background, and they confirmed the story. So did our DNA check. I'm your father." Gowdy pointed a finger at Hannahlee. "She's your mother."
Dunne got up from the chair and started to pace. "I don't believe this. It can't be true."
"It's true," said Gowdy.
Dunne glared at Gowdy. "So you never knew?" He turned his glare to Hannahlee. "But you did know and never tried to find me?"
Hannahlee's fiery emerald gaze faltered. "I've never forgiven myself for what I did." She looked at the floor. "It's a mistake I've paid for every day of my life since."
"By growing up in shitty foster homes?" said Dunne. "Getting bounced from one so-called parent to the next, always wondering why my real parents didn't love me enough to keep me? Because that's how I paid."
Hannahlee shook her head. "I always knew you were out there somewhere. My own child, my own flesh and blood. I knew you could be suffering, and it was all because of me. And there was nothing I could do about it." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "That was how I paid."
"How awful that must have been for you." Dunne's voice was thick with sarcasm. "What a nightmare."
"Well, the nightmare ends now, with a second chance," said Gowdy. "We're starting over. It's the reason I brought you here."
Dunne met Hannahlee's stunned stare, then fired a look at Gowdy. "You brought us here?"
"Yes." Gowdy grinned. "Who do you think sent you to find me?"
"Thad Glissando," said Hannahlee. "Producer at Halcyon Studios."
"Yes," said Gowdy, "and he did it as a favor to me."
"What?" said Hannahlee.
"It was a way to bring you together and bring you to me." Gowdy adjusted his ruby glasses as he gazed up at the passing home movies, which were still revolving around the tower. "It was a way to bring the family back together without you suspecting anything."
"Oh my God." Dunne felt like his head was about to explode from all the shocking revelations. "You mean...there's no big-budget Weeping Willows movie?"
"I'm sorry," said Gowdy, "but no."
"And all of it was for nothing?" said Dunne. "This whole trip to find you?"
"Not for nothing." Gowdy gestured at the drifting squares of film overhead. "We're saving someone."
"From going under for the last time." Hannahlee's voice had an angry edge. "Which someone are you talking about, Cyrus?"
"You." Gowdy pointed at Dunne. "You're the one I modified Godseye to save."
The flickering light from the home movies played over Dunne's face. "Save from what?"
"You'll see," said Gowdy. "Keep watching."
With that, he hit a button on the control console, and the home movies disappeared. The room went dark.
A new voice echoed through the chamber. A man's voice. "My name is Abe Stillwagon."
As soon as Dunne heard it, the hairs on the back of his neck fluttered and stood straight up. His heart began to beat faster.
There was something about that voice.
"I am a prisoner on death row in Texas," said Abe.
Dunne turned to Gowdy. "What is this? What's going on?"
"Just listen." Gowdy placed an index finger against his lips. "And watch."
Abe's voice continued to boom through the chamber. "I've killed fifty-seven people over the past twenty-five years."
Dunne looked at Hannahlee, but she offered no insight or support. She was too busy staring into space with her fist pressed up against her mouth. Dunne thought she might be crying.
"My trademark is this," said Abe. "I always leave the husband alive."
At that instant, Dunne's attention was fixed on the voice as if by magnets. His heart pounded as he got the slightest inkling of what this was all about.
"That's why they call me 'the Widowermaker,'" said Abe. "I only kill the wife and kids. But here's the catch."
Suddenly, a giant image leaped to life in front of Dunne—video projected in an enormous square as high as the ceiling. Video of a bony, craggy man in an orange jumpsuit, sunken-eyed and emaciated behind prison bars.
"The more the husband fights," said Abe, the man in the video, "the more I torture his wife and kids before I kill 'em."
Dunne kept watching, unable to believe what he was seeing and hearing. Unable to control the fear racing through him like a wildfire.
Because he recognized Abe Stillwagon.
The giant square of video flashed, and a new scene appeared—a middle-aged man with curly black hair and a mustache. His eyes were haunted and dead.
"He said he was going to shoot them," said the man. "I jumped him...tried to wrestle away the gun.
"When he was done kicking my ass, he killed my wife and daughters. He..." The man choked back a sob. "He did terrible things to them."
The video flashed and changed scenes again, this time to show a young man with blond hair and the same haunted eyes. "My sons died screaming. He cut them into pieces." The young man took a deep, shuddering breath and released it. "He said he tortured them...because I fought back."
A new face appeared, this time a man with broad shoulders and a crew-cut. "I'm a trained policeman, so of course I didn't just sit there." Instead of anguish, his face was etched with rage. "But Stillwagon was a fucking maniac. Beat the shit out of me, then tied me up and made me watch while he did it."
"Did what?" said a man's voice off-camera.
"Autopsied them with my power tools," said the man with the crew-cut. "My wife and my son. While they were still breathing.
"Because I tried to save them. That's what he said."
The video lingered for a moment on the man's simmering rage...until it dissolved into tears. Then, the scene changed again.
Back to the bony man in the orange jumpsuit. His eyes weren't anguished or angry at all...just cold. Expressionless as chips of stone.
It was the same look Dunne remembered from the first time he'd seen him—two years ago in Dunne's living room, murdering Dunne's wife and daughter. Vicky and Ella.
While Dunne, paralyzed by fear, had failed to act.
This was the very same man from that night. Abe Stillwagon was the man who had killed Dunne's family.
An off-camera interviewer—a woman—asked a question. "How many times did you not torture a family when the husband fought back?"
"None." Abe said it matter-of-factly and scratched his knobby nose. "It's my trademark, right? And it's a matter of principle. I want people to know they shouldn't put up a fight. The harder they make it for me, the harder I make it for their families."
Dunne kept watching, mesmerized by the sight of the man who had haunted his nightmares for so long. Hanging on his every word.
Engulfed by the implications.
The interviewer asked another question. "Do you remember Dunne Sullivan?"
"Who's he?" said Abe.
"Two years ago, in Los Angeles, you shot and killed his wife and daughter," said the interviewer. "Dunne didn't fight back."
Abe thought for a moment. "Oh, him. One of the few."
"The few what?"
"Smart ones," said Abe. "I thought he was gonna fight me, but he didn't. So his family died in peace."
"If Dunne had fought back and couldn't beat you..."
"He couldn't," said Abe.
"if he couldn't beat you," said the interviewer, "what would you have done to his wife and daughter?"
"Instead of just shooting them, like I did," said Abe, "I would've killed them slow. While he watched. Tortured them every last second of their lives. Then cut them to pieces."
"Instead of just shooting them," said the interviewer.
"That's right," said Abe.
"No peace," said the interviewer.
"None at all," said Abe. "Not the tiniest bit."
With that, the video ended. The ceiling-high square of light in which it had played suddenly collapsed into a single, glowing dot...and then that collapsed, too.
And Dunne was left standing in darkness, mind reeling from what he'd just seen and heard.