Todd Strasser - Kill You Last

It was hard to imagine anything more disappointing, or humiliating. My own father…was practically a child molester.

Suddenly, I couldn’t stand being in the same room with him. I understood exactly how Mom felt. I ran upstairs and sat down on my bed, seething, the same question rolling over and over into my brain, as if it was coming off an assembly line: How could he?

How could he?

How could he?

He was despicable. I thought of the photos of those famous actors and models, and how Dad had faked them, just as he’d faked everything he’d been doing, pretending to be a successful photographer when he was really just preying on young women for money and sex. There was symbolism in thinking of our family at that moment. Mom and I upstairs in our bedrooms, the high and righteous. Dad downstairs, not exactly in a dungeon, but low and contemptible just the same. He deserved it. Unlike the other times, I couldn’t even begin to try to forgive what he’d done.

I heard a soft knock on my door. “May I come in?” Dad asked.

I didn’t answer. I had to think about it.

“Sweetheart?” he said after waiting.

I gritted my teeth. Had he called any of those other girls sweetheart? The thought threatened to make me ill. I waited until the sensation passed, then thought the same thing I always thought: he was still my father. “I guess.”

He stopped inside the door, as if afraid to come any closer, his hands shoved into his pockets. He was a rumpled, disheveled mess, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry. I was incredibly stupid. I made mistakes. I…never really thought about the consequences.”

It sounded heartfelt, and despite how angry I was, I also felt sad that he’d come to me and not to Mom, as if he assumed that she was a lost cause. As if I was his only chance.

“Sweetheart?”

That word made me want to scream, but I gathered myself in. “Don’t ask me for forgiveness, Dad,” I said, keeping my voice flat and unemotional, “because I am so far away from that right now…I just have to ask you one more time, because there’ve been way too many surprises. Just swear to me that this is the end of it. That this is as bad as it gets and it doesn’t get any worse.”

“It doesn’t get any worse. I swear.”

“Then why can’t we go to the police and tell them what Gabriel did? If they’re going to find out about you and those girls anyway…”

Dad ran his hand over his head, letting his hair flop wherever it wanted. “I don’t want them to know.”

“So Gabriel gets to threaten me with a knife and go free?” It was incredible.

Dad gazed at me with sad, weary, reddened eyes and didn’t answer.

“And what about the money? He said he’d go to the police if he didn’t get it by the end of the week.”

As if lost in thought, Dad gazed off. Suddenly, I caught a glimmer of what was in his head. “You’re not…seriously considering paying him, are you?”

No reply. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe he would acquiesce to Gabriel’s demands. “Dad, you can’t… ”

“Shelby, please, don’t. Not now. Give it a rest.”

He sounded like he was in agony. I had to wonder if he could pay Gabriel even if he wanted to. I had no idea if my parents had any money in the bank. We had our house. And the only other things of value that Dad owned were his camera equipment and his car, which reminded me.

“Why did they take the Ferrari?”

“DNA tests. I assume they got a sample from the body they found in Scranton and want to see if anything in my car matches it.”

“Was…she ever in your car?” I asked.

Dad made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Who remembers?”

We were on overload, being bombarded by too much all at once. Gabriel’s blackmail demands, the death of one girl while the other two were still missing, and all of Dad’s admissions about the things he’d done wrong, each worse than the last. Under those circumstances, could any family have banded together to face their common enemies?

Not ours.

I don’t know how I managed to sleep that night. The next morning before school, I checked the Soundview Snoop and found Whit’s story about Jane/Janet’s criminal history and the theft of her sister’s identity. Even though we still didn’t know if Dad had been aware of her past when he hired her, I was glad Whit had gone ahead with the story, if for no other reason than that it diverted some of the spotlight from my father.

The house was quiet when I left. I didn’t know where Mom or Dad were. Outside, the police officer assigned to the media horde cleared a path out of the driveway, and I went to school.

For the first few periods, it felt like a normal day at school. But then, in third period English, the boy who sat next to me tapped my shoulder and gestured toward the door. Roman was out in the hall, making an urgent “I have to talk to you now!” face.

I got a bathroom pass and went out. Roman started talking before I even closed the classroom door: “That woman who worked for your dad? Janet? The police have taken her into custody. They say she’s a person of interest, not a suspect, but who are they kidding?”

I felt a sad heaviness settle around my shoulders. It sounded like Whit’s theory had come true. Jane/Janet had probably killed the girls because they’d threatened to go to the police. “And listen to this,” Roman said, pulling her iPad out of her bag. “There’s a story in the New York Times about your friend.”

“What friend?” I had no idea who she was talking about.

“Lennie? From Of Mice and Men?”

I reached for the iPad. The story was about the rise of hyper local Internet news sites like the Snoop, and it featured Whit’s story about Janet as an example of how the journalism on these sites was improving. They even had a photo of Whit.

“Pretty impressive,” Roman said.

“Know what’s amazing?” I said. “The first time I met him, he talked about how he hoped that covering this story would get him the recognition he needed to get a good job. Like he had it all planned.”

“What if he’s the killer?” Roman asked. “He commits the crime and then covers it as a reporter. And since he knows better than anyone else who did it, he can constantly scoop everyone. And that makes him look like a media star!”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Sounds like a great movie. And while you’re at it, why don’t you make him a vampire?”

“Be serious,” she scoffed. “That’s been totally overdone.”

Inside the girls’ room, I took out my phone.

“Texting someone?” Roman guessed.

“Uh-huh.”

“Even though he reminds you of Lennie?”

“Just congratulating him.” I pressed Send, then realized that Roman was giving me a funny look.

“What?” I asked.

“I just told you that the police took Janet into custody,” she said. “Which suggests that they no longer think your dad is a suspect, right? So why aren’t you acting like this is the best news since the invention of sliced bread?”

“Uh…If anything, what I’m feeling is huge relief,” I said, still upset by all the other things Dad had done that Roman didn’t know about.

“Did you ever think she was the culprit?”

I was about to answer when a text came back.

“That was fast,” Roman said with a smile.

Whit had texted: C U after scl?

I felt a chilling jolt, and the breath rushed out of my lungs.

It was the exact same message Gabriel had sent the day before.

“Whoa, did you just go white?” Roman asked. “What’s that about?”

“Nothing.” I started to breathe again. It had to be a coincidence…didn’t it?