Claire closed the file. She clicked open all of the other spreadsheets and scrolled through each name because she had paid the price that came with not looking at everything once before.
Fifty names on each spreadsheet, sixteen spreadsheets in all. There were eight hundred men scattered all over the world who were paying for the privilege of watching Paul commit brutal, cold-blooded murder.
If only Claire had clicked open all of the files on the USB drive back in the garage. Then again, there was no way she would’ve guessed the same password, because back in the garage, she’d thought her husband was a passive viewer rather than an active participant.
Claire held the mouse over the last file, which wasn’t really a file. It was another folder, this one titled JJ.
If the FNF folder contained things that Fred Nolan wanted to get his hands on, she knew that the JJ folder would contain information valuable to Congressman Johnny Jackson.
Claire opened the folder. She found a list of files with no extensions. She scrolled over to the column on the far right.
Kind: JPEG image.
Claire clicked open the first file. What she saw made her gag.
The photo was in black and white. Johnny Jackson was standing inside what could only be the Amityville barn. He was posing with a body that was suspended upside down from the rafters. The girl was trussed up like a deer. Her ankles were tied together with barbed wire that sliced into the bone. She was hanging from a large metal hook that looked like something from a butcher’s shop. Her arms dragged the floor. She had been cut open stem to stern. Johnny Jackson held a sharp-looking hunting knife in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He was naked. Black blood covered the front of his body and engulfed his rigid penis.
Claire clicked open the next file. Another man in black and white. Another dead girl. Another bloody scene of carnage. She didn’t recognize the face. She kept clicking. And clicking. And then she found what she should’ve guessed would be there all along.
Sheriff Carl Huckabee.
The photograph was in Kodachrome color. Huckleberry had what could only be called a shit-eating grin under his neatly combed mustache. He was naked but for his cowboy hat and boots. There was a splash of blood on his bare chest. His thick thatch of pubic hair was caked with dried blood. The girl hanging beside him was trussed up like all the others, except this girl wasn’t just any girl. Claire immediately recognized the silver and black bangles that hung from her limp wrist.
It was Julia.
Her sister’s beautiful blonde hair dragged the dirt floor. Long cuts exposed the white of her high cheekbones. Her breasts had been cut off. Her stomach was sliced open. Her intestines hung down to her face and wrapped around her neck like a scarf.
The machete was still inside of her.
Paul, aged fifteen, was standing on the other side of Huckabee. He was dressed in acid-washed jeans and a bulky red polo shirt. His hair was feathered. He wore thick glasses.
He was giving the man behind the camera two thumbs-up.
Claire closed the photograph. She looked out the window. The sky had opened up, sending a deluge of water into the park. The clouds had darkened to an almost black. She listened to the insistent tapping of rain against glass.
She had lulled herself into hoping that Paul would not irreparably harm Lydia because he still wanted to please Claire. The justifications followed a simple pattern: He had obviously terrified Lydia. He had clearly hurt her. But there was no way he would truly damage her. He’d had his chance eighteen years ago. He had paid men to follow her for years. He could’ve taken her at any point and he had chosen not to because he loved Claire.
Because she was pretty? Because she was smart? Because she was clever?
Because she was a fool.
Lydia was right. She was already dead.
CHAPTER 20
Paul was pacing the room as he talked on the phone. Words were coming out of his mouth, but none of them made sense. Actually, nothing made sense to Lydia.
She knew she was in pain, but she didn’t care. She was afraid, but it didn’t matter. She pictured her terror as a festering wound below a fresh scab. She knew it was still there, she knew that even the slightest touch could make it open, and yet she could not bring herself to worry.
Nothing could occupy her thoughts for very long except for one exquisite truth: She had forgotten how fucking fantastic it was to be high. The stench of piss had gone away. She could breathe again. The colors in the room were so goddamn gorgeous. The Apple Macintosh, dot-matrix printer, five-inch floppy discs, duping machine, disc burner. They glowed every time she looked at them.
Paul said, “No, you listen to me, Johnny. I’m the one in control.”
Johnny. Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Jack Corn and I don’t care.
No, that was Jimmy.
Jimmy Jack Corn and I don’t care.
No, it was Jimmy Crack Corn.
But did she care?
Lydia vaguely recalled Dee singing the song along with the puppets on Sesame Street. But that couldn’t be right. Dee was terrified of Big Bird. Probably Claire had sung the song. She’d had a Geraldine doll that said “the devil made me do it” every time you pulled the string. Claire had broken the string. Julia was furious, because the doll had belonged to her. She had gone to Sambo’s with her friend Tammy.
Was that right? Sambo’s?
Lydia had been there, too. The restaurant’s menu had a black-faced child running around a tree. The tigers chasing him were turning into butter.
Pancakes.
She could almost smell her father making pancakes. Christmas morning; it was the only time Helen let him in the kitchen. Her father delighted in taunting them. He made them eat all of their breakfast before they were allowed to open any gifts.
“Lydia?”
Lydia let her head roll to the side. Her eyelids had stars on the inside. Her tongue tasted like candy.
“Oh, Lydia?”
Paul’s voice was singsong-y. He was off the phone. He was standing in front of Lydia with the pry bar in his hands. Claire had dropped it on the kitchen table yesterday. The day before? Last week?
He tested the weight of the bar in his hands. He looked at the hammer head, the giant claw on the other end. “This is something that I could find very useful, don’t you think?”
Lydia said, Motherfucker, but only in her head.
“Watch this.” He held the pry bar like a bat on his shoulder. He swung the claw at her head.
He missed.
On purpose?
She had felt the breeze as the metal chopped through the air. She could smell a metallic kind of sweat. Claire’s sweat? Paul’s sweat? He wasn’t sweating now. She only saw him sweat when he was standing over her with that sick grin on his face.
Lydia blinked.
Paul was gone. No, he was sitting at the computer. The monitor was massive. Lydia knew he was looking at a map. She wasn’t close enough to make out any landmarks. He was glued to the screen, tracking Claire’s progress as she went to the bank, because Paul had told her Claire was hiding the USB drive in the bank. In a safety-deposit box. Lydia had been tempted to tell him otherwise, but her lips felt too full, like giant balloons were glued to the skin. Every time she tried to pry her mouth open, the balloons got heavier.
But she couldn’t tell him. She knew that. Claire was doing something. She was tricking him. She was trying to help Lydia. She said on the phone that she was going to take care of this, right? That Lydia needed to hold on. That she wouldn’t abandon her again. But the USB drive was with Adam Quinn, so what the hell was she doing at the bank?
Adam Quinn has the USB drive, Lydia told Paul, but the words were only in her head because her mouth was taped shut because she had finally managed to say some things to Paul that he did not want to hear.
Claire hates you now. She believes me. She will never, ever take you back.
We are never ever ever getting back together.
Taylor Swift. How many times had Dee played that song after she caught Heath Carmichael cheating?
This time I’m telling you. . .
“Lydia?” Paul was standing beside her. She looked back at his computer monitor. When had he moved? He had been looking at the computer. He was saying something about Claire leaving the bank. How was he standing beside her now when he was at the computer?
She turned her head to ask Paul. Her vision staggered through each frame. She heard the bionic sound like Steve Austin made in the Six Million Dollar Man.
Ch-ch-ch-ch. . .
Paul wasn’t there.
He was standing in front of the rolling cart. He was replacing the old items with new ones. His movements were slow and precise. Ch-ch-ch-ch came the bionic sound as he moved in stop-motion like in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.