Page 19 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

And I’ve already ruled out prison.

He never went back.

I looked. When I started at the DA’s office, I pulled his name from the archives. Warrants. Arrests. Parole violations. Nothing.

He just… disappeared.

But maybe I’d been looking in the wrong place.

Still holding my fork, I quietly pick up my phone, tilt it out of Mom’s eyeline, and open a browser tab.

I type his name.

Add “death.” and hold my breath.

It’s not an obituary. No paragraph about being loved or hiking. Just one line.

“Deceased. Record closed.”

My blood goes cold.

It’s not just that he died.

It’swhen.

The year he vanished. The year the calls stopped. The year Mom started sleeping through the night.

It matches.

Right down to the very season.

I set my fork down carefully, like it might shatter.

My mother is humming beside me, flipping channels.

She doesn’t know I’m unraveling beside her.

But the words echo.

You do whatever you have to.

To survive. To protect the people you love. To make it stop.

I stare at the screen. At his name. Atdeceased.

And clarity settles like ice water through my chest.

She did it.

She made it stop.

And I finally understand.

My mother—my foundation, my safe place—killed the man who raped her.

And got away with it.

Ihaven’t stopped thinking about it for days.

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