11:55 p.m.
He had prayed.
Over and over he had prayed for the urges to stop… for the need to be taken from him. In twenty years it had not. The Lord had turned away from him, leaving him to drown in the evil he could not escape.
How could a man escape himself?
After years of trying to calm the urge with the sweetness of so many little girls, his girl had come home to him.
His sweet Lucy. And the Lord had shown him favor once more.
Tears streamed down his cheeks. His life had been whole again. The urge had subsided. No more searching for treasures to replace the one he had lost.
She was home.
But now he would lose all that made him whole… again.
This was her fault.
If Jess Harris had stayed away this would not have happened.
Now everyone would know the truth.
He was a bad, bad man. Just like that bitch of a wife who’d left him had said.
I don’t want you touching my children! You’re a bad man, Fergus. I saw you looking at her the way no father should look at his daughter.
He should have killed that bitch. Then his Lucy would never have been taken from him.
God help him now she knew what a bad, bad, bad man he was.
They all knew.
He couldn’t protect them.
All those precious treasures he had collected and cherished even in death were lost to him… and now the most perfect one of all would leave him again. She would take her children—his grandchildren—with her. They would all hate and despise him.
He was a monster.
His body burned and ached from the obedience belt and the slashes he had made to his thighs with his pocket knife. He had cut himself and pummeled himself in an attempt to stop the urges and he had failed.
Fergus held the gun to his head and struggled to pull the trigger.
“Do it!” he screamed.
His hand shook with the effort of jamming the gun into his temple. His finger refused to curl and tighten against the trigger.
He couldn’t do it. He’d tried so many times and failed.
Instead of slamming that tire iron into Bullock’s skull he should have begged the man to slam it into his, then he wouldn’t have to do the rest.
Dear God, he prayed, strike me dead here and now.
But God had forsaken him for good this time.
He had to finish this. His hand fell into his lap, the gun useless. Everything was lost to him. Now his sole purpose must be protecting his daughter and his precious grandchildren.
Fergus wiped the tears from his face and readied the gun for the final act he must stage before stuffing it back into his waistband. He knew what he had to do. It was the only way out.
He checked on his Lucy and his precious grandchildren. They stared at him, unable to speak or move, but he smiled, his lips trembling. They would be fine. They didn’t know it yet. Their memories of him would be ruined, but there was no help for that.
No one could know the rest.
The truth would go to hell with him.
The truth was supposed to set him free. But it wouldn’t. It would cost him everything.
He closed the door and moved on to the kitchen. This old place had a root cellar and that worked well enough. It wasn’t much to look at, like his basement at home, but it served the purpose. In the small kitchen he grabbed the lantern and a storybook.
On the back porch he reached down and pulled open the door that was built into the wood floor. The hinges complained. Down the few steps and into the dank, dark place where the child he had collected whimpered and sobbed.
He lit the lantern. The little girl drew into the corner, her little body shivering with fear. He’d tried to feed her but she refused to eat.
Not much he could do about that. Children were obstinate at times.
“I’m going to read you a story, Lucy.”
She cried harder as if she didn’t want to hear the story. She’d told him that Lucy wasn’t her name and he’d explained that he always called his treasures Lucy. He couldn’t change now after all these years. He was too old to change.
He read the story: “Cinderella.” One of Lucy’s favorites. His, too. He liked that the true beauty of Cinderella was revealed once the rags and fireplace soot and ash were gone. True beauty was often buried deep beneath the surface.
True beauty was often greatly misunderstood.
By the time he finished the story the treasure had fallen asleep. Her calm, even breathing told him that she wasn’t pretending in hopes he’d go away.
It was good that she was asleep. Tomorrow was a big day. She would need all her strength for what was to come.
Tomorrow she was going to the burying tree to meet Jess Harris.
Then it would be done and they could all live happily ever after.