Selena seethed. When was Adam going to finally stop whining and grow a pair?
She wanted a husband. Not another psyche to fix.
She’d listened to him for a full minute or so without interruption, letting him spill out all the same bullshit, bitching that she wasn’t giving him what he needed and hinting that if he lost control, it would be on her. So, blackmail. He took no responsibility for his urges.
And it was her fault. She’d so wanted the control that his neediness gave her, she’d encouraged the behavior. It was practically part of their mythos, that he was out of control and she reined him in.
Worse, no matter how she went at him, he wouldn’t give her a straight answer. Selena felt like she was being given one piece of the puzzle and then told to figure it out.
But she didn’t want to figure it out. She shouldn’t have to.
Maybe finally spitting it out was the best thing Selena could do. Kick over the container with the cancerous question.
Did you do it, Adam? Are you the Almond Park Killer?
“You’re acting like a fucking narcissist, Selena.” He stood there glaring at her, no apology coming, despite that he’d just said the one thing he promised to never say again. “You’re being a bitch because you’re worried about your public image. And yourself. Not me, or this family.”
“My public image has everything to do with this family, and you know it.”
“Only because you won’t allow us to live any other way.”
“That’s not true.”
“It absolutely is. So if you don’t say what’s on your goddamned mind, then neither one of us is getting anywhere.”
Fine.
“Did you do it, Adam? Are you the Almond Park Killer?”
Adam laughed. Shaking his head, he mumbled, “Finally.”
“Finally what?” And now she was scared.
But maybe she didn’t need to be. Adam’s shoulders relaxed. He almost looked calm.
“Finally, you’re taking me seriously.”
Crap. “Is that a yes?”
“I thought you might be wondering, especially with that scarf bullshit the other night, but you were too cowardly to ask me then. Either that, or you were sure you’d emasculated me so completely that you forgot who I was when we first met.”
“So you’re mad at me because I wanted to believe that you didn’t kill those four families.”
She was terrified to hear his answer, that he might laugh again and tell her how wonderful it had felt to murder their neighbors. But if she ran now, she would never be Selena Nash, world’s leading serial killer expert, ever again.
So she forced herself to look him in the eye and wait.
He looked positively euphoric, the bastard.
“What if I had? What if you could’ve stopped me?”
“Then you would’ve become a monster, Adam. If you think that would make me love you more, you’re wrong.”
“Well, since we’re talking about monsters …”
Selena didn’t like this. He seemed almost … condescending. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sudden and bitter: “If I was a teenage boy, would you love me more?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know what I mean.”
She did, but that didn’t mean she was going to make it easy for him. Something inside her was clicking. The final few ticks before detonation. “What do you mean, Adam? Say it.”
“I don’t need to say it.”
“SAY IT!”
“You. Sleeping with one of our son’s friends.”
Fucking coward, still couldn’t say his name.
Selena crossed her arms over her chest, trying for the same smug look he always wore while making a cutting joke. “I liked you better a few minutes ago when you were being an asshole. Now you’re just being an idiot.”
“So you deny it?”
“Of course I’m not sleeping with him. Fuck you for thinking that.”
“Fuck you for thinking I would murder four families.”
“Are you kidding? How many times have you sat in my office telling me about your fantasies?”
“That’s different!”
“How is that different?”
“Because those are fantasies. Your office is the place where I can safely get them out. Isn’t that what you’ve always said? And besides, do those murders look anything like what I’ve described to you?”
“Real life is different. It always is.” Her voice cracked but she went on anyway. “Just … tell me the truth. Whatever it is, we can deal with it. But I have to know.”
“This is bullshit. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I thought that if you brought it up, then it would be a ten-second dialogue, because WHAT IN THE FUCK?”
He began to pace, like he did when he was about to start ranting.
“Adam—”
“If I was responsible for killing those families, then wouldn’t that invalidate your bestselling bullshit? Is that what you’re worried about?”
She shook her head, tried to figure out what she could possibly say next.
Because the truth wouldn’t do, and anything else would just lead them both to further confusion.
Adam was smart, and he knew her well. He could clearly see that she was holding something back. And in this moment, she wondered if letting him believe that she might be screwing Dane would be better than the truth: that their entire relationship was based on a lie.
That she’d known he wasn’t a serial killer. That she’d been using his blood fetish to manipulate him. That the killings made her wonder if she’d driven him to murder by letting him think he was capable of that.
He studied her, clearly unconvinced.
Adam’s fantasies weren’t there to relieve anxiety over predatory emotions like fear and abuse, or memories of neglect. His fantasies were only that, and his alone. Sex was hot because he was so excited. But there was no deeper connection with him through those fantasies, not for her.
She’d been using his libido to control him.
So what if there was a gap between his fictions and her facts? She helped him find a way to have a normal life and be himself, right? Helped him handle his guilt. More than that, she built a beautiful life for them. For their family.
Adam believed from the deepest parts of himself that Selena had saved him. That she taught him to control the poison inside him, when really his impulses were so much different from what she had led him to believe.
If he stopped believing that, what would they have left?
“I didn’t take your treatment seriously enough. I didn’t see that you were taking things to the next level. I thought that you were fetishizing the violence. How could I know that things were getting out of hand? I’m only human. It’s not like …”
Adam was shaking his head in disgust.
“What?”
“Even now, even as you accuse me of murdering children, which makes me wonder how we’re ever going to sleep in the same bed again, even right now you can’t help making this all about you.”
“How am I making this all about me?”
“I didn’t take your treatment seriously. I didn’t see it. I thought that you were fetishizing violence. How could I possibly know? I, I, I, I. Fuck you, Selena.”
“Don’t talk that way to me. We’re getting away from the point.”
“Oh, we are? Should we circle back to how you’re fucking one of our son’s best friends?”
“I’m not taking anything from anyone, including you. We’ve had sex less in the last month than we have at any time in our marriage, including after I had the twins.”
Now it looked like he might hit her. He definitely wanted to.
“Maybe I don’t feel like fucking someone who thinks I could do what you’re accusing me of doing.”
“I’m not accusing you, Adam. I’m asking you. So that I can help you.”
“You mean so you can help yourself.” Then picking up his previous thread, “And maybe I don’t feel like fucking you, knowing you’ll probably be thinking about some kid while I’m inside you.”
“Maybe you don’t want to fuck me because I’m not covered in blood!”
He grabbed her by the shoulder.
Selena sneered, “Sorry about menopause. Shit really went to hell between the sheets after I stopped coating your dick in blood every month.”
He grabbed her by the throat. Pushed her toward the bed.
Selena was disgusted.
Who was this man she had married, so petty and jealous and obsessed with things that weren’t even happening that he couldn’t even look her level in the eye and tell her the truth?
She’d normalized his fantasies, but she had done so at the expense of her career, and now possibly her children’s futures.
Selena wondered if this was it, if she was going to die.
Adam’s hands tightened, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
This was all her fault.
With her life and career both crumbling around her, Selena considered a final maybe that she never considered before.
Maybe it wasn’t Adam that she had been lying to this whole time.
Maybe Selena had been lying to herself.
She looked up into his eyes, silently pleading with Adam to let her go.
His fingers relaxed, but there was still murder in his eyes.
And as he turned Selena around and yanked down her skirt, then followed with her panties, her suspicion felt like a certainty.
Her heart was broken, because she really did love this man.