“How’s your sister?” I call into the darkness. “You certainly got back into town fast.”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Valerie says, stepping into the light of the window several feet behind me.
“No, Valerie, you shouldn’t have come here. Do you know how close we came to arresting Pastor Robins? Not something I’d think you would want for someone you love.”
Her face falls. “Patrick? Is he alright?”
“He’s fine. I can’t say the same for after we tell him about all this. And your husband is alive, by the way. You didn’t do very well staging his suicide. Never slice across the wrist. Always down it. You’ve read far too many books. Speaking of which, did you get the idea from the book, or did the book speak to you because it was your life? That one with the inscription I found in your bedroom? You picked it off the shelf the day we were there to talk to Vincent about the clues. The one leading to the second child you tried to kill.”
She stiffens. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. Fracture. That’s a tough one. I’ve read it. Can’t say I got quite the same thing out of it that you did. The woman who thought she was living her perfect life until she fell in love with someone else and lived out her life with both; her daily life devoted to her husband and her longing passion for her lover keeping her life interesting. A bit of a cliché, but with a bit of a twist, I guess. That’s why you could never divorce Vincent for William Jennings. You felt like you needed to have both in order to fulfill you. But here’s the thing. You don’t care about Jennings anymore. He’s behind you because you found someone else who is even more desirable and even more blissfully unattainable. Here’s my question… do you always realize when you’re writing in someone else’s handwriting?”
Valerie’s eyes narrow. “Bianca’s was easy. It looks like a preteen girl’s. And even if I got it slightly wrong, everyone would just think she was drunk.”
“I’m not talking about Bianca.” The smug look falls from her face. “Those notebooks we took from your house. I thought they were all written by Vincent. It looked like he was losing touch with reality. Just scribbling down whatever came to mind. But that’s not what they were. They weren’t a journal or a novel. They were from your couples’ therapy with Pastor Robins. He wanted the two of you to learn to communicate better with each other by writing to each other. But by that point, Vincent wasn’t even a person to you anymore. He was an idea. The husband who lived day to day life with you, but could never give you the true, passionate love you believe can only be attained when you can’t be with someone every day. In your mind, you embodied Vincent, you created a narrative, and it played out when you wrote back to him in those books. Your handwriting became like his. Just like your handwriting became like the pastor’s when you were thinking of him. You became so enmeshed with this idea of your forbidden love that if you let yourself think about him, you started to write in his handwriting.”
“How would I know his handwriting that well?” she spits.
“The affirmations he writes down for you during your private sessions. He does the same for Bianca Hernandez. But I’m sure you know that. Every child you chose had a connection to the pastor. Was that part of your plan? You were going to keep kidnapping and killing them until we finally arrested Vincent, then you were going to fall into the arms of Pastor Robins? You would comfort each other, and then you’d finally have the passion you’ve been aching for? But you could never have him as your husband. He already has a wife and a child. He would be your secret, and you his. It’s unfortunate you couldn’t stop thinking about him enough to not write in his handwriting when you wrote the clues. He almost went down for the crimes you committed.”
Valerie lunges at me, and I latch onto her in midair. She punches me, and I knee her in the stomach, disabling her long enough to get to my feet. She clamps onto me again, and I knock her to the ground, landing on her with my knee in her chest. She tries to buck me off, but I grab onto the front of her shirt to stop her. One final flail of her body slams her head onto the ground, and her eyes flutter closed.
I can already hear the sirens outside. Sam’s here.
It’s over.