Page 87 of The Hanging Dolls
He seemed to be taken aback by her words, his hands flinching around his coffee. “It’s a unique mental illness.”
“Don’t sayillness. Illness takes away personal accountability,” she argued hotly. “It’s a crime.”
“It’s both. It being a crime doesn’t mean it isn’t an illness.”
She rolled her eyes. “Great. Everyone’s a damn victim. Including a parent poisoning their child. So Mary was abusing Lily and Carly was abusing Lucy?”
“Different root causes. Carly’s stems from avoidance of personal issues and neglect, and for Mary, I would say role fulfillment.”
“And what about Tara? What was your take on Logan?”
He was stumped. “I don’t know. Logan has severe anger issues… but it’s hard to box him into a category. I’ve filed a request to look into his background more.”
Evil manifested in the strangest forms and this one was the most ruthless one. Zoe wondered what ugly shapes love could take, how something powerful meant it was unstoppable.
Finally, the doors swung open, and students spilled out, laughing, talking, eager to leave the confines of school behind. They spotted Bella almost immediately. She walked with a group, her dark hair falling carelessly over her shoulders, her expression a mix of boredom and defiance. The kind of girl who wore her armor well, but Zoe could see the weight behind her eyes.
Bella noticed them too. Her eyes flickered with recognition, then annoyance, before she rolled them dramatically, signaling her disdain. She broke away from her friends, who threw curious glances at Zoe, and strolled over.
“What do you want?” Bella asked, her voice flat, as if she was already over this conversation before it even started.
Zoe didn’t flinch. She had dealt with tougher girls than Bella before. “I need to ask you something. About your mother.”
Bella raised an eyebrow, feigning ignorance. “My mom? What about her?”
“Did she ever try to hurt you?” Zoe’s tone was steady, probing.
Bella snorted, playing dumb. “What are you talking about?”
Aiden stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Did she ever try to keep you sick? Give you medicines you didn’t need?”
For a moment, something flickered across Bella’s face, a crack in her armor, but she recovered quickly. Her expression hardened as she turned on her heel. “I’m done here.”
She started to walk away, her pace quick, but Zoe called out, “Bella, we found evidence.”
Bella froze mid-step. The wind picked up, tousling her hair. Slowly, she turned back around, her eyes wide, the defiance slipping away to reveal the raw fear. “What evidence?”
“Lily. Your mother was giving Lily medication she didn’t need, which is why she fell sick so often. It was damaging her kidneys.”
Bella’s lower lip jutted out. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m assuming she did that to you too when you were younger? Is that why she began neglecting you and turned her attention to Lily?” Aiden asked.
“I’m a horrible sister.” She shook her head, her face tortured.
“You can trust us,” he said.
“Trustyou?” she barked. “I can’t trust anyone. I can’t trust my own mother. And Lily… when you found her dead, for a second I was relieved. When you told me that she wasn’t… hurt in any other way, I thought it was a good thing she got away from our mother. Because either our mother was going to inadvertently kill her, or she was going to end up damaged goods like me.”
That’s where the false bravado stemmed from. Bella felt unsafe at home and unable to trust her mother, so she had to craft this harsh, insensitive armor to keep everyone at bay. Butinside she was hollow. True strength came from love and not loneliness, Zoe thought.
“When did you realize what your mom was doing?” Zoe asked.
“When she started doing it to Lily. That’s when I started drawing parallels to how she used to do the same thing to me. And it all made sense.”
“Did you confront her about it?”
“I couldn’t.” Her chest deflated. “I can’t. I just… I know what she has, Agent Storm. I’m not stupid, I looked it up. But it’s just too much to talk about it. All I want to do is graduate high school and leave this town.”
