Page 65 of Pose for Me
My hand pauses on the sketch pad, trying to read the expression on his face. “Do you want me to let you go?”
Tears in his eyes, he shakes his head and whispers, “Never.”
Something in my chest unfurls, and I feel warm all over. I’m not sure what it means; I’ve never felt anything like it before. So instead of answering, I go back to sketching, trying to sort my feelings out, but not having much luck.
This isn’t something I want to talk to Jacob about, not something I want to ask any advice on. What I feel is for me and Lane. No one else.
I want to sort this new feeling out, but I can’t. Not right now. Right now, I want to live in the glow of knowing that my boy wants me to keep him, that he likes my eyes on him.
He’s the perfect model.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, baby?” I say, peering into his coy eyes.
“Can you replace the panties you ripped? I really liked them.”
Chuckling, I nod, then turn the sketch around for him to see. At the bottom of the picture, I wrote a word. Just four tiny letters.
MINE.
Twenty-Four
Ryell
The driveback home is relaxing. Especially since I spend most of it thinking about Lane. I wish I could tell him what I did for him, but I don’t think he’ll be as happy about it as I want him to be.
His adoptive parents are dead.
I wish I could have done more, wish I could have torn them limb from limb and left them scattered across their big ass lawn. Locked them down in my cell—my dungeonas Lane calls it—and left them there to starve to death. Waterboarded them and watched as their frail chests tried to rise and fall with their uneasy breaths. Tied them up, put them on a boat, and dumped them in the middle of the ocean. So many ways I wanted to end them, but I didn’t want them to enjoy any more minutes of life they didn’t deserve, even if they would have been spent in fear.
I smile as I think about how I ended them.
Both Edith and Parker were crying and frightened, holding each other as they looked at me with wide, fearful eyes. I’d worn a mask so they would assume I was there to rob them, but I couldn’t keep up the charade because their displays of emotions pissed me off. I’m sure when Lane lived with them, they showedhimnothing. Not love, not hate, not anger, not happiness. Just indifference.
Since he told me what happened during his childhood, I’ve been prying small bits of information out of him. He told me that his parents never let him have friends over, they tried to force him into all kinds of clubs he had no interest in, then pulled him from them when he informed people of his treatment at home. They didn’t even throw him birthday parties or give him Christmas gifts. Even with my shitty home life, before she was killed, my mother would bake me and Jacob homemade cakes for our birthdays and take us to do whatever activity we wanted for the day. I’m sure Mom knew that me and Jacob were different than other kids, but she loved us and showed us every day.
I didn’t like that the two people that ruined Lane were still living and breathing.
Kneeling before them, I pulled up my mask and glared at their tear-streaked faces. “Did you cry when you were mistreating your son?” I seethed, pissed at them on Lane’s behalf.
Parker looked at me like I had two heads. “We don’t have any children.”
Edith nodded, wiping under her overly botoxed eyes. “I…I co-couldn’t have them. We were child-free.”
Before I could think better of it, I first hit Parker, then Edith over the head with the butt of my gun. They crumpled at my feet, sobs leaving their throats. “You’re fucking liars,” I roared, losing my cool because, even after they didn’t love him, after they left him with nowhere to go, they denied his fucking existence.
Edith trembled, and Parker looked at me with fear and regret in his eyes. Pulling out my phone, I found the picture I showed Jacob and turned it around so they could see. Parker’s face paled, and Edith murmured apologies.
“You mistreated your son,” I said in a deadly quiet voice. “But it’s okay. I’ll take care of him now.”
Standing so I was looming over them, I aimed my gun first at Parker and pumped three slugs into his head and one in his chest, then did the same to Edith to silence her shrill screams.
Since their home was so remote, it’ll be a while before someone found their bodies, so they’ll decompose there.
Before I left, I was sure to ransack the place. I took jewelry and anything that would fetch a price at a pawn shop or something, but I plan to get rid of it all when I get back home. There are so many places I can bury it in the woods that surround my house, and no one would know.
I could throw them in the garbage, but I don’t want any eagle-eyed sanitation worker to find the items and they get traced back to the Bauers.
