“What could have been. My wife. Melanie was so much more beautiful, but this woman had a laugh that sounded so much like hers I couldn't resist her.” His voice grows emotional as he strokes his fingertips down along the side of the woman's face. “My wife was everything to me. When I found her, it was like my life finally started. I woke up. The world was new and wonderful. It didn't matter how my father acted or what was going on with anyone else. If I got to see her, it made everything better. I knew her a week when I knew I wanted to marry her. We were high school sweethearts. We got married the day she turned eighteen. It was the happiest day of my life. I know everyone says that about their wedding day, but it was true. I saw my future. I saw a life ahead of me. She was going to be the start of the family I never had and so desperately wanted to give to my own children.”
“But she got hit by a drunk driver,” I say.
Jake shakes his head. “No. In a way, I suppose that's true, but that's not what happened.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I already crafted the type of life I wanted, the world I imagined, and the family I wanted to be in. I told you the stories I told myself a thousand times. I was almost starting to truly believe it. So, I told you a story about her, too.”
“What really happened to her, Jake?”
“My father.” The breath catches in my throat, and I swallow it down painfully. Jake looks at me with hardened eyes, and tears slide unchecked down his cheeks. “He was obsessed with her. He wanted her from the second he met her, and I did everything I could to protect her. Everything. But he went after her. It was like everything else in his life; it didn't matter who he hurt or what he had to do. If he wanted something, he was going to get it, and that included my wife. We were married three months when he showed up at our house and smashed me over the head with his gun. He tried to rape her while I was on the ground. I attacked him and told her to run. Melanie escaped, but he hit me again and got away from me. Before I could stop him, he got in the car and went after her. He ran her down in the middle of the road.”
“Jake, I'm so sorry.”
Despite all I see around me, the pain and sympathy are real.
“She was my hope for my future. My dream. She had just found out she was pregnant with our first baby. And he took it all away from me. He had to be punished. I could have ripped him limb from limb with my bare hands in that very moment, but it wouldn't have done me any good. It would have been satisfying right then, but it would also have meant living out the rest of my life in prison. My father would have won. He always saw me as a failure and a disappointment, a representation of everything wrong in his life, and it probably would have amused him from beyond the grave to see me put away. So, I bided my time. I didn't tell the police what I knew about Melanie's death. I wanted my own justice. For the next several months, I slowly tormented my father, making him believe at any moment he would be arrested. Replacing his alcohol with colored water and extracts, so he slipped into delirium. I tortured him. When the time was right, I started to slowly poison him. I didn't want his death to be dramatic and cause a lot of attention. Something slow, painful, and horrific that could be explained away as a sick old man who destroyed his body was perfect. When he did, I got everything he had, everything he never wanted to be mine. I buried him close to Melanie so I could always turn my back on my father when I went to visit my wife, and for all eternity, he would have to relive what he had done.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“So, your father was actually the first person you murdered,” I point out. “Not that man from the bar.”
He smiles. “I guess you're right. I just don't think of killing my father as murder. I prefer to think of it as I carried out his execution. But it was that first death that taught me I was capable of killing. I was good at it and could use it to get what I wanted. I didn't think about that for a long time after, but the night I saw that man in the bar, it all came back to me. Killing him was as natural as breathing.” He looks at me with an expression of treacherous tenderness in his eyes. “You could have been my future, Emma. You are the only person who has gotten my attention since my wife. You could have given me the life I wanted. But then I found out who you really are.”
My stomach sinks.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You know exactly what I mean, Emma Griffin. It wasn't hard to figure out you are more than just someone looking for a new start to her life. I can understand a fascination with crime, but I saw something in you, something I've never seen in anyone. Other than me.”
“I'm nothing like you,” I say.
“Oh, but you are. You know exactly what you want. You go after it, no matter who's standing in your way. And when you think you know what's right, you will do anything to stand up for it. You protect what matters to you, and you fight fiercely against anything that may threaten it. You are exactly like me,” he says. “But you're also like everyone else. You're a liar, pretending to be someone you're not. And you were catching on to me. It wouldn't be long until you realized your theory was unraveling, and everything was leading you right to me.”
“I came here to find you because I was worried about you,” I tell him.
“I know you did,” he whispers, walking up to me and putting his hand on the back of my head. He pulls me close and kisses me in the middle of the forehead. “I know.”
With one swift punch to his gut, I send him to the ground and jump down on him with my knee direct in the center of his chest. I incapacitate him long enough for me to reach into his pocket and take out the key to the door. Another stomp in the middle of his stomach keeps him down. I spin on my heel, running to the door to unlock it.
He's already back on his feet as I wrench the door open and run up the stairs. I don’t even risk looking back as I scramble up, hoping beyond anything that the door slams shut on him. But I hear him grunt and his hand catch it before it does. I silently curse my luck and lunge for the top of the stairs.
He's pulled the wardrobe almost back into place. I have to squeeze myself through the gap. I don't have time to reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, so I run blindly through the dark, dank basement in the direction I hope will lead me to the steps. I can hear him behind me, getting closer as he screams my name.
“Emma!”
It echoes around the walls, doubling back on itself.
“Emma!”
Finally, my feet hit the bottom step, and I trip forward, landing on my face on the rough, unfinished wood. I scramble up the stairs on my hands and knees, finally pulling myself up when I get to the door. Outside, the sun has set, and the house is filled with gloom and shadows. Jake’s footsteps have gotten even closer. I feel his hand clutch the back of my shirt. Whipping around, I smash my forearm into his face, sending him tumbling back over an armchair.
Bursting out of the house, I run for the woods. His footsteps fall heavy on the wooden steps leading down from the porch. I hope for the darkness to conceal me, for the moonlight to not betray me. Once in the trees, I try to find the path with the least branches, trying to keep my feet quiet. I know now it was him following me in the woods that night. He pursued me almost silently, watching me as I moved along this very path and then back toward the cabin. He knows how I navigate the trees. He knows how I move about these woods.
Abandoning the path, I head in the opposite direction, kind of hoping it brings me somewhere I can find help or at least a place where I can hide until daylight. Exhausted and out of breath, I drop down behind a fallen tree. Pressing my back to the damp bark, I struggle to fill my lungs with air without making noise. I stay there as long as I can spare before standing up.