Page 150 of Risky Passion

Fred and Mark kicked Thomas Wexler to death. His body is in an unmarked grave out in the back paddock.

Seven more children buried in that paddock were killed by Fred and Mark.

I racked my brain for the names of those kids.Shellymay have been one.James, too.

Heaving a sigh, I gave up.

I never forgot the names of the bastards I killed, though.

I set the pen down and grabbed the shovel. The air had turned colder, and the moon was high enough to cast shadows across the grass. I trudged out to the half-dug grave with the dirt piled high like a scar beside it. My shoulders ached, and my back screamed with every lift, but I kept going. A few more feet. Just enough to make sure Alice stayed down.

When the sweat started dripping into my eyes and my back couldn’t take even one more shovelful, I stopped, wiped my face on my sleeve, I headed back to the porch.

“Where were we up to, Alice?” I asked, flipping back a page. I read my last entry aloud. “That’s right. I just told them about those fucking Kincaid brothers.”

Pity they were all dead. Would have been nice to see them get what they really deserved.

The last brother to die was Henry. That was the only good thing those assholes at Alpha Tactical Ops ever did for me. Viper beat the shit out of Henry and put him in a coma he never woke from.

As I tapped the pen against the notepad, thinking, a breeze came off the ocean, lifting the flap on Alice’s tarp, like she was trying to tell me something, and a wave of sadness rolled through me.

“Yes, you’re right, Alice. The next bastard I killed was Graham Watts.”

Graham Watts was a cop.

It was Alice’s first day at the orphanage. He’d brought her in and the fucker was supposed to be protecting her. She had absolutely nobody.

Until I came along.

He still had his pants around his ankles when I put his own gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

That night was a lot of firsts for Alice and me.

First time I used a gun.

First time I met Alice.

First time I didn’t bury the body.

Instead, I wiped my prints off the gun and whisked her away before anyone could find us.

I expected there would be an investigation. A dead cop, shot in the doctor’s office after hours? Should’ve raised alarms.

But there was nothing. No questions. Nobody asked what he was doing there after dark, why his pants were down, why he kept showing up at the orphanage, but never took away any criminals.

That was when Alice and I realized the truth.

Nobody cared about us.

Alice didn’t talk for three days after that. Not a single word. She just looked out the window from her bunk bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, mind gone somewhere deep inside. I snuck her food and made sure she drank water. Sat with her in silence, even when it felt like it was scraping the inside of me raw.

On the fourth day, she said my name.

Just one syllable:“B.”

Like it meant something.

---