Adam held Selena’s hand, the two of them sitting on the couch, holding court while everyone in the room gathered around the TV to watch her interview with Isla Porter. Even the twins and their friends seemed excited.
Onscreen, Selena seemed to consider Isla’s question, then crossed her legs and said, “There is zero doubt in my mind that we are looking at a serial killer.”
“And what makes you so sure?” Isla asked.
“It’s not the three dead families. It’s the three scarves. It wouldn’t have been easy to convince me that these were accidents. Even alone they feel like murder, but once we’re adding totems into the mix, I don’t see how anyone could doubt that there’s a serial killer involved.”
As Adam expected, and surely just as Selena had wanted her to, Isla asked her to explain what she meant by the word totem. With every interview, Selena was getting better and better at taking control of the conversation.
“Your mom looks huge on TV,” Elliot said, probably to Levi since Corban was on the other side of the room, extra close to Kari.
“Thanks, Elliot,” Selena said, though she was smiling at the kid and clearly took no offense.
“I don’t mean you look big, Mrs. Nash,” Elliot tried to correct himself. “Like, you’re not fat. You just look really giant on the screen … compared to how you are … sitting on the couch right now.”
“I understand.” Selena smiled at Elliot, trying not to laugh as he blushed.
“At least we’re not in the game room,” Pussabo added, not so helpfully. “Then she’d be even bigger.”
The game room had the biggest TV in the house, with more than a hundred inches of 4K, but that space belonged to the kids — not just Levi and Corban, but their friends too — so Selena and Adam only entered when absolutely necessary. The cleaning crew came every other Friday, and that was enough to know that parental intervention wasn’t needed.
“You’ve been advising the Almond Creek Police Department. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Selena nodded onscreen. “I’m not working with them in any official capacity, but I am a concerned neighbor with an understanding of a serial killer’s mind, so they’ve naturally been asking me questions.”
“And one of your concerned neighbor conversations was about the third scarf, correct?”
“That is correct.”
“And it took place just after its discovery. Is that right, too?”
“It is.” Selena nodded.
“Would you like to tell us about that?”
“The scarves are an interesting choice of totem, because up until the third one they were especially difficult to trace. Either scarf could have easily fit into either woman’s closet. There was nothing especially unique about them. But the third was different.”
“And what was different?” Isla asked, even though her bright eyes said that she already knew.
“It was the bees,” Selena said, emphatic. “The mother at the third scene, Julia Hendricks, hated bees. And everyone knew it. She was allergic and had almost died twice. She hated the sight of them. That’s a scarf she never would have bought, or had in her closet. That meant it was clearly there to get attention, and tied around the victim’s neck after her death. If attention was true for the third scarf, then it was surely true for the other two as well.”
Onscreen, Selena leaned back in her chair, clearly pleased with her answer.
Adam squeezed her hand and whispered in her ear, “You’re doing great!”
Selena smiled, her eyes still fixed on her onscreen self as Adam surveyed the room.
Corban and Kari were so close, they looked almost conspiratorial. They weren’t holding hands, but they might as well have been as they sat in the oversized chair off to the side of the loveseat, barely big enough to seat the two of them.
Levi was half-watching the TV, but the rest of the time his gaze was on his brother and Kari, whenever it seemed like he could steal a withering glance. Adam hated to see them fighting over a girl, but at least now he was starting to understand why they’d been at each other so much. It was almost a relief. Such a normal teenage thing.
And in no way his fault.
Blood was thicker than water, especially for a Nash. They weren’t just brothers, they were twins. They were—
Then he saw it.
Something that shouldn’t be boiling his blood like it was.
Dane, watching him. Staring without any clue that he was being inappropriate. He smiled.
Despite the anger inside him, Adam smiled back.
Then he turned to the TV, a deliberate dismissal to let the boy know he didn’t care.
Adam wanted to jump up from the couch, yank the little asshole to his feet, and beat him bloody. Every instinct he had screamed that Dane was a threat.
But he didn’t know why.
Dane’s smile was pleasant enough.
And now he seemed glued to the TV like everyone else.
Selena’s interview ended and the room erupted in applause. Beaming, she stood and made a little bow with a joking flourish of her hand.
“Awesome job, Mom!” Corban shouted.
Kari echoed, “Yeah, that was great!”
“You kicked ass, Mom!”
“That was amazing, even as big as you were.” Elliot chuckled uncomfortably.
Dane said, “You were mesmerizing.”
Mesmerizing?
Is he undressing her with his eyes?
He might be. That little fucker was practically leering.
Except he wasn’t so little. Dane was bigger than Adam and had been for more than a year. Maybe two. At least he was taller. Adam was still wider than Dane in the shoulders, and would make him feel it when he eventually pressed one of them into his pulsing throat, just long enough to make him start choking before Adam cut it and—
Enough. He’d never had so much trouble controlling his murderous fantasies. And they’d never been focused on another male. He needed to stop this long enough to figure out what was wrong with him.
He forced himself to smile at Selena. “I’m so proud of you, honey. You owned the interview. If my calculations are correct, Sam should be over the moon.”
She laughed.
He took a breath, and then a second deeper one. But the desire to tear Dane apart got more intense, not less.
Something was wrong. This wasn’t like before.
This wasn’t how the thoughts usually came. They felt more urgent. More dangerous. He had to speak with Selena.
But how could he tell her about this? About who he was thinking of? Or why he was thinking it?
Things would get ugly fast. Sure, Dane was eighteen. But he was a junior like the boys, and Selena would defend him on the basis of his youth.
She turned to Dane, practically glowing. “Mesmerizing, huh? I don’t know that I’ve ever been called mesmerizing before.”
“You have,” Dane said. “Alicia Ayers from First Murder on The Left called you mesmerizing in episode ninety-three. I’m just agreeing with her. She’s almost as interesting as you.”
“Is that what you do? Collect women who interest you?” Adam regretted the words as the room went silent and everyone looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
He was out of control and even his kids could see it. But he couldn’t stop himself.
“Don’t we all?” Dane said, completely unfazed. “I collect everything that interests me.”
“And what are your interests, specifically?”
Dane looked thoughtful in his silence, as if deeply considering his answer. “Everything interesting.”
He didn’t look like he was trying to be a smartass. His face was honest and tranquil. Completely sincere.
Maybe he was wrong about Dane, but that didn’t stop Adam from picturing himself turning the kid’s face to blood pudding. By the time he was done punching it in, Dane’s head would look like a bowl of tomato soup.
He shifted his thoughts to the girl with the blood-red lipstick instead.
That would help.
Her naked body, covered in blood.
“I’m sorry if I offended you in some way, Mr. Nash.”
Everyone was looking at him. He forced a laugh from his throat. “Not at all, Dane. I’m just giving you a hard time.” Then, he couldn’t help but add, “Like you probably give your father.”
This was surreal.
He wasn’t taking any pleasure in cutting the kid down. He was feeling worse by the insult, and horrified by the anger lurking behind it all. Adam had lost it, seeing things that weren’t there. He had to be imagining that glint of hostility under the surface that no one else seemed to notice. The hints that Dane wasn’t the super nice guy he was pretending to be.
Something inside him coiled in oily knots.
Dane is up to something. He’s too interested in Selena.
But the look on Levi’s face made Adam stand down.
Levi was usually the one to jump in and join him in batting insults back and forth, but right now he was chewing on his lip with disappointment in his eyes. Adam and Dane were breathing the loudest, enough that everyone could hear them.
Selena was a statue, putting visible effort into doing nothing.
Adam had to apologize. Somehow make this right.
He opened his mouth to say he was sorry and more, but no one was paying attention, the room’s focus having been jerked back to the TV by a newsflash.
Then the anchor finished the announcement — a break in what the press was now calling the Almond Park Killings — and Kari started to scream.