Notice.
A spotlight to shine on the story he was determined to tell in blood and dead bodies.
“So morose this evening,” Seth noticed with a twinkling grin. “What’s going on in that smart head of yours? I hope you weren’t too traumatized by what happened at First Light today.”
I moved my broccoli around my plate with my fork, feeling nauseated. “Traumatized is a bit strong. I do think the cops are underestimating this murderer, though. It’s clearly more than just a disturbed man killing without consideration. He has some kind of agenda, and he’s clever. Maybe he even has more than one person helping him.”
“Is that typical, though?” Seth asked with a self-conscious laugh. “Forgive me, I can list every bone in the body, but I don’t know the first thing about crime and psychology. I’m afraid I always fell asleep in my psych classes.”
“I can’t imagine you being less than an A-plus student,” I teased because Seth was meticulous and incredibly smart. I’d once caught him reading the Bible in Latin. “And I thought you listened to my podcast every week? Or were you just being polite?”
I was used to that. Supportive friends and family claimed to tune in to Little Miss Murder, but most of the time, they were too squeamish to do so. I didn’t hold it against them.
Seth leaned forward in mock confession. “I do listen on my commute home on Mondays, but I’m usually too tired to do anything but register the sound of your voice. Do you forgive me?”
I patted him on the hand and clucked my tongue. “I suppose. I haven’t spoken about him on the air since he sent that gruesome…package to the studio, and we’ve suspended the show for a bit because I don’t want to give him another spotlight, you know?”
“Oh? You think that’s what he wants? Attention?”
“Yes, he seems like a classic clinical psychopath in that he’s narcissistic and very aware of his own heightened intelligence.”
Seth pursed his lips over his steepled fingers. “Clever enough not to get caught?”
“The entire provincial RCMP and the local PD are on it now, I think it’s only a matter of time and maybe a matter of a few more murders before he makes a mistake,” I hypothesised, enjoying myself for the first time that night.
So of course, my mother had to ruin it.
“Bea,” she murmured from beside me, her mouth covered by her napkin to hide her whisper. “This is not polite dinner table conversation.”
Irritation itched at the back of my neck. I arched an eyebrow at my beautiful mother, decked out in the pink pearl set my father had gifted her for their tenth wedding anniversary. How she could still stand to wear anything that he had given her was beyond my comprehension, but she always pulled out the relics of our old life when we dined with our friends from First Light Church. My mother could disassociate her two lives even easier than Lou once had between Louise and Loulou. Two days ago, she’d donned a classy leather jacket while shooting the shit with Maja, Buck, and Smoke.
Today, she could pretend that entire life had nothing to do with her.
I shivered as I realized I’d spent so many years doing the same thing, being ashamed of the person I really wanted to be and the people I honestly wanted to surround myself with. I was so afraid I wouldn’t live up to my sister’s glory that I’d unwittingly become my mother by attempting to straddle two very different worlds and, therefore, two different souls.
It was exhausting and ineffectual.
She’d have to make a choice at some point, and I’d just found I was more prepared than I’d thought to make mine.
“It’s fine, Phillipa,” Seth allowed, reaching over to squeeze my hand sympathetically. “If it makes Bea feel better to talk about it, I think it’s healthy she should.”
“By all means, let’s listen to the sister of a whore talk about inappropriate topics,” Margaret snipped as she took a deep draught of wine.
“Excuse me?” I asked, honestly shocked by her rancour.
The older woman, beleaguered by long nights in hospice visiting her dying husband, stared me down without a shred of remorse. “You heard me, young lady. It’s obvious that the club”—she spat the word—“your sister married into has brought more chaos down on this town. It’s about time The Fallen were all incarcerated as they should be.”
I blinked, turning to my mother, who was looking down in her lap, wringing her napkin between her manicured hands.
But she remained silent.
Loathing burned through me, igniting something in my belly only Priest had previously had access to. My sister was my idol, my primary source of love and affection for my entire childhood. In marrying that “criminal”, she had gifted me a found family more exquisite than any I could ever conceive of being born into. In marrying that criminal, she’d given me mine.