I want to steer the conversation away from the terrifying, damaging rhetoric. I don't need to hear it, and it changes nothing.
“You said she was perfect.”
He nods. “She was. When I first considered her, I wanted her for one of the scenes. But when it didn't go as I planned, and everyone realized the disappearances were connected, suspicion started ramping up. You connecting her to LaRoche has actually created the ideal foundation. So, this new plan was born. I'm sure by now, the police have called in a forensic team to investigate the bar.”
“Yes.”
“They'll examine the blood and do swabs to test it, hoping they find traces of DNA other than mine they might be able to use to link to my killer. And they're going to find other DNA. A lot of it. They'll also find that much of the blood around there isn't exactly… fresh.”
“It's been frozen,” I say.
Jake smiles and nods. “You're catching on. See, people like predictability. They like formulas. So, when someone disappears, the first thing anyone does is find the last place they were and start trying to find the path from there. But if they don't really know where that last place was, they can't find the path. Blood splattered around in conspicuous places is always good for starting an investigation in the wrong direction. I've kept extra blood frozen, not knowing what to do with it until now. When they realize the DNA isn't all mine and the scene has been staged, they're going to look to the person who has the most experience with crime scenes and what investigators look for.”
“LaRoche,” I murmur.
“It will seem like he contaminated the scene purposely to throw off the search and confuse people. It won't take much for people to start making connections and finding the same threads you did. I'm sure Andrea will be more than happy to come forward when she thinks one of the men she trusted is dead, and the other one killed him.”
“You're the one who sat at the bar watching her. Not LaRoche.”
“A couple times a week. He wanted to make sure she wasn't cozying up with anyone else. Of course, she didn't want anyone around to know who I was or that I was bringing her to see him so often. I don't know what this hold he has over women is, but he's able to convince them it's for the best that they keep any connection to him totally hidden,” Jake explains.
“I don't understand. Why would you do that for him? Why would you go out of your way to help him have these relationships and keep the women a secret? I thought it disgusted you.”
Jake shrugs. “Keep your friends close.”
And your enemies closer.
“What happens when Andrea does come forward and people start to suspect him?” I ask.
“That's where you were supposed to come in. I knew you would keep searching. You wouldn't just take what you saw for face value. Already convinced it was LaRoche, you would keep digging and tying up those threads. After a few days, I would emerge from the woods, battered, starved, and tormented, but alive. Safe again in your arms. I would tell the harrowing story of LaRoche blackmailing me because of a secret he knows about my past. He used it for leverage to get me to cooperate with his affairs, but when I found out about the killings, he put me on his list. He abducted me, dragged me out into the woods, and kept me hostage there. But I managed to escape. It's a convincing story, especially with someone like you standing beside me, telling them everything you already suspected about him.”
“And the town would be desperate to put the case to rest. It wouldn't take much to convince them.”
“As confused as your version of the events is, it makes enough sense to warrant an arrest and keeping him in jail during a long, drawn-out murder investigation. And you probably know what happens to lawmen in jail,” he says.
“They'd kill him,” I confirm.
“Most likely. But if he did happen to survive, he would likely be convicted. Even if he wasn't, he'd never be able to show his face around here again. I'd have everything I ever wanted,” Jake tells me.
“What is it that you've always wanted?” I ask.
Jake turns around to face the vignettes. He gestures to them, gazing at them with an affectionate smile on his face.
“This,” he says warmly. Like he’s talking about a family. My blood is ice.
“To kill people?” I ask. “Innocent people, who have done absolutely nothing to wrong you? Why would you want that?”
The smile fades as he looks at me. “No. No, no. That's not it. This is an evolution, a discovery. What you don't know is this isn't all of them. No one else knows that. There are others. Scattered in fields and woods, floating in the water. Across five states, there are others. I started with them for the sheer purpose of elimination.”
“What were you eliminating?” I ask. I look around the room and back at him. “It was all a lie, wasn't it? Everything you told me. All those stories were lies. That's what this is about.”
Jake gives a short, mirthless laugh and walks over to the edge of the Christmas scene. He stares at the older man.
“My family was horrible. My father was a cruel, abusive alcoholic raised by a cruel, abusive alcoholic. Most of the time, he wasn't even home. He stayed at the bar and crawled his way up to the apartment at night.”
“I went to the cemetery. There are no graves for your mother or any siblings. Are they real?”
“Oh, they're real. They aren't buried there. I don't know where they are. My mother preferred my sister. She was the only thing that mattered. She got everything she wanted, including every existing drop of my mother's love. There was nothing left for the rest of us. My brother was distant and cold. He stayed away most of the time. We grew up here.”
He looks around like he's gazing up at the entire house. “This was my home. No one knew that, of course. Nobody in town realized people still lived all the way out here. Few people in town even knew my siblings existed, and only Cole Barnes ever met my mother. They knew me because my father dragged me to the bar to put me to work by the time I was old enough to wash a dish.”
“What happened to them?” I ask.
Jake leaves the Christmas scene and walks over to the dinner table. He runs his fingers along the hair of the woman, and my body shudders.
“The only solace I had when I was young was my grandmother.” He looks up at me with a smile. “She was very real.”
I nod. As much as everything inside me wants to lash out, I'm staying in control. Keeping Jake calm is the only way I can hope to stay alive another minute, another hour, and find out what I need to know. Building his trust back up will be what gets me out of here.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It sinks in there are no elderly corpses in the room. No women over slightly older middle age. Just the men and women, the young men and women, and the girl with the baby. Jake's mother and father. His sister and brother. And someone else. But no grandmother. He didn't need to create her because she was real.
“I know. The quilt in the cabin. My favorite one. She made that, didn't she? It has fabric in it from the dress she was wearing in the picture of Easter morning.”
“Yes. But that wasn't Easter. We never celebrated any holidays as a family. At least, not my parents and siblings. My grandmother would try to do things for me when I got shoved with her. I spent as much time with her as a possibly could, and when I was lucky, my parents would just leave me with her for days at a time.”