Page 37 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Adding a spray of Kenny’s aftershave, he grinned at his deceit.

Let’s see who breaks first, indeed.

Then he rushed downstairs, but he snagged on Kenny’s open office door. He slowed his steps, the room calling to him, like asiren song he couldn’t ignore. Kenny’s files were in there. His records. Research. Maybe even the files on the Howells.

Mum.

Aaron hesitated, the rational part of him knowing he shouldn’t invade Kenny’s privacy. But curiosity, that gnawing, relentless beast that forced him back here to Ryston in the first place, overrode reason and he stepped inside, pulse quickening as he scanned the room. Shelves upon shelves of books, lever-arch files, and box files lined the walls. Papers stacked neatly in trays and scattered with organised anarchy across the desk. Each file held a story, a case, a piece of someone else’s tragedy Kenny had worked to untangle.

Then he saw it.

A huge box file.Howellscrawled across the front in bold letters.

The sight of his surname written there, stark and clinical, froze him in place.

Hehadto know.

Dragging a chair over, he stood on it, hands trembling as he reached for the file. It was heavy, the weight of its contents echoing the lead in his chest. Carefully, he set it down on the desk, heart thudding as he flipped the cover open. Inside were pages upon pages of reports, photographs, newspaper clippings, and handwritten notes, but the first thing he saw was his mother’s face. Roisin Howell stared back at him from a mugshot. Expression unreadable. Yet her eyes bore into him like she could still see him. Like she knew exactly where he was and who he’d been seeking comfort from.

Aaron sat, unable to stand under the sheer gravity of it.

He flipped through.

Diagnosis:Schizotypal Personality Disorder. Paranoid delusions. Hallucinations. Borderline traits with a tendency toward charismatic manipulation. Narcissistic sociopath. Psychotic tendencies. Anti-Social Behaviour Disorder.

Words leapt off the page, jagged and unrelenting, medical jargon weaving a cold, detached narrative of the woman Aaron had called his mother. Each line secured her deeper into the role of a manipulative predator. Clinical precision stripped her of humanity, rendering her a case study, a cautionary tale. Then the accounts shifted, plunging into the horrors she’d orchestrated.

The murders. Each one meticulously detailed, each victim a grim testament to Roisin’s delusions. Lives snuffed out like the wicks on candles, their last moments grotesque reenactments of her warped beliefs. The language was sterile, but the imagery it conjured was anything but.

And there were survivors! Ones who’d got away.

One account stood out—a boy, barely into his teens, lured into a car by use of sweets and treats, then taken to the house where Roisin had played the part of the nurturing caregiver. Even cooking for him. But the ingredients she chose had been deception and death as, after gaining his trust, she’d drugged him—”delivered a lethal dose of sedatives.”

Aaron’s breath hitched.Like the ones she’d given me?

But unlike on him, they hadn’t been used to soothe, allowing for a peaceful sleep. The boy’s body, pacified and unable to fight back, had become a canvas for Roisin’s madness. Over days, she’d inflicted unimaginable torment, because he was “of the devil,”and his suffering was penance. A cleansing. The description the boy gave of his mother burned in Aaron’s mind: serene as she inflicted pain, as though she were conducting a divine ritual. He’d spoken of her calm, methodical nature and the almost motherly way she’d mollify him between bouts of agony, hands cold and gentle as they wiped his tears. She’d even sung to him. Soft lullabies turning into a haunting dirge, voice lilting over his screams.

Dream a Little Dream of Me…

Aaron’s stomach churned.

He flipped to the next report.FrankHowell. His father. Heread how he’d taken a more violent approach, preferring knives and brute force and much younger female victims whom he would sexually violate. His was a classic case of sexual deviancy. But together, they were a lethal partnership, feeding off each other’s twisted psyche.

Aaron hovered his fingers over the handwritten observations, pages littered with Kenny’s precise scrawl.Roisin’s charismatic tendencies suggest an ability to attract and control those around her, including her victims. Frank’s role was often that of enforcer, fulfilling her perceived “spiritual” orders.Flipping further, he found the crime scene photos. Ones he hadn’t seen before. Blood. Symbols painted on walls. A twisted shrine to whatever belief system his parents had created and his hands trembled as he turned another page. Kenny’s psychological assessments of his parents were next, his analysis methodical and chillingly detached. Kenny described his mother asa magnetising figure whose delusions of purification and spiritual transcendence drove her to extreme acts of violence.Of his father:A willing participant, feeding off Roisin’s charisma and direction. Likely codependent, but his sadistic tendencies suggest an enjoyment beyond her approval.

Aaron felt sick, and he accidentally dropped the file, its contents spilling. “Shit.” He gathered it all up, trying not to see the pictures, read anything more, and just shoved them back into the box. Then a page stuck out beneath others, the typed writing capturing his attention:

This profile emphasises the critical need for monitoring and therapeutic support to mitigate the likelihood of Child A adopting the destructive behaviours modelled by their parents.

Aaron went cold.Child A?That was him. Wasn’t it? He shoved all the other papers in the file, closed it, then perched on the desk, biting his thumbnail as he read the top.

Psychological Profile: Child A. Prepared by: Dr Kenneth Lyons

Overview:Child A’s upbringing in the Howell household reveals a deeply troubling portrait of a child shaped by profound psychological trauma and manipulation. Their formative years were spent in an environment where control, delusion, and violence were pervasive, leaving indelible marks on their psyche. Without intervention, the child’s behavioural tendencies and coping mechanisms pose a significant risk of perpetuating the cycles of psychosis and dysfunction modelled by their caregivers.

Aaron went to keep reading, but a high-pitched ringing and vibrating jolted him back to where he was.Fuck. Had Kenny returned to the house? Hastily, Aaron folded the piece of paper, shoved it in his back pocket, then stepped on the chair to tuck the file back in its place on the shelf as the ringing increased. He ran downstairs to a vacant house, following the vibrations to the kitchen diner. Plugged into a charger on the wall, his phone rang incessantly. He’d left it off all weekend, but Kenny must have thought he needed it and put it on charge before he left and now the whole world could get hold of him.

Aaron rushed over, picked it up.Taylor.

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