Chapter 45

I've often wondered how people with an impending death sentence, whether it's one delivered by terminal cancer or a verdict delivered by a judge and jury, manage to carry on despite the nothingness in front of them. When it's my turn, a sense of calm that I'd never managed to achieve through meditation sweeps across my body. My jaw relaxes, my neck. My muscles embrace their fate. There's almost a sense of relief; thank god, I don't have to worry about anything anymore.

Just as I've fully accepted my impending death, the door opens with a bang. Bentley is still half-naked, his briefs around his ankles. I've already let go of my mental attachments to the earth: my dreams, my emotional connections, the plans I've made for the weeks and months ahead, and it's painful as they come flooding back in.

"William," Bentley says.

From where I lie on the floor, my fiancé looks like a giant. His face is red as though he's been running. The gun from the box in the office is tucked in a holster around his waist. My sweatpants and underwear are on the floor next to me. I'm aware that Bentley's sperm is slowly leaking out of me, leaving a wet patch on the floor. I'm both a victim and a coconspirator.

"Help," I gasp.

There are, after all, still instincts of self-preservation left inside of me.

William grabs Bentley, who has just pulled his pants up, and slams him into a wall. The sound of it is shocking. It occurs to me that I've never known true violence, only witnessed it on TV.

"I told you to stay away from her," he says.

William swings at Bentley, who is cornered against the wall, his pants finally up and buttoned. William's fist makes contact and he pulls back in order to punch him again. Bentley manages to free his arms and William stumbles as he's shoved backward. It's not yet clear who the victor will be. Bentley is taller than William, but William is stronger due to his obsessive exercising. Because Jill was his trainer, every punch he lands is like a punch coming from her.

Though my legs are untied, it's difficult to move on the floor with my arms restrained behind me, and my half-naked body flails across the floor. It's a stupid, helpless position to be in. I manage to back myself into a corner of the room, out of the radius of their swinging fists.

"Did you call the police?" I ask William.

He doesn't answer me and his silence tells me that no help is coming. My life is dependent upon whoever wins the fight. The motions almost look practiced and I can tell that they've fought before. Both of them are bleeding and William's eye is starting to swell. I've always wanted two men to fight over me, but I didn't want it to be like this.

Finally, William pins Bentley down. He reaches for the gun in his belt and points it at Bentley's head as he kneels over him.

"You piece of shit," he says. "I should've done this a long time ago."

I'm already anticipating the future. William will kill Bentley and we'll put his body in the garbage bags that Bentley intended for me and then we'll dump his corpse into the ravine. Somehow, the police will figure out that Bentley was the serial killer all along and whoever dumped his body in the ravine did it as an act of public goodness. After that, we'll get married in a ceremony that costs more than my parents' house. If murdering a brother and hiding his body doesn't make a couple marriage material, I don't know what does. William will never know how my body ached for Bentley before he came into the room, how I spent months thinking about when Bentley kissed me. How desperately I wanted Bentley to fuck me in those moments before what I assumed would be my death. These will be secrets that I'll keep inside my head forever.

Except William doesn't kill his brother.

His grip around Bentley's throat loosens and William stares down at him, his eyes full of fury.

"I want you to leave," he says. "Leave Georgia, the United States. Go somewhere far away where no one will ever find you and don't come back."

Bentley is abnormally passive. For the first time since I've known him, there is fear on his face.

"You need to leave me alone. You need to leave Hannah alone. If I ever see you again, I won't show you any forgiveness. I will kill you on sight. Do you hear me? On sight. And once you're dead, I'll make sure that everyone knows what you've done. The police, Virginia, your kids. I'll buy a billboard with your name on it that says ‘Bentley Thompson is a murderer and an adulterer too.' I can only imagine what the police will be able to find if I tell them about this room. You'll be so hated that they'll send your corpse to prison. Your kids will have to change their name so that no one knows who their father is. Do you hear me? Say that you hear me or I'll kill you right now. Don't think I won't do it because you're my brother. That only gets you so far."

"I hear you," Bentley stammers.

Blood is dripping from William's face onto Bentley's.

"You promise, you motherfucker?"

"I promise."

"I'm going to get up and you're going to leave. I want you gone tonight. If I even so much as hear a whisper of your name, I'm calling the police and sending them straight here. There's not enough bleach in the world to cover your sins. And then I'm coming after you myself, okay? I will make you wish that you were behind bars."

"Okay," Bentley says, his voice so full of fear that he sounds like someone else.

William slowly lifts himself off his brother but keeps the gun pointed at him. Bentley stands, his body stiff. There's a moment when I think Bentley might still lunge, but he stops to glance at William, then me, and finally he turns and exits the room.

Tears are falling down my cheeks. I don't have the capacity to evaluate exactly why I'm crying.

"You saved me," I sob.

William doesn't say anything. He struggles to untie the ropes around my hands and finally uses one of the knives from Bentley's briefcase. I shudder thinking about what remnants of Anna Leigh, Kimberly, Jill, Emma, and Kelsey might remain on those blades.

"Are you hurt?" William asks when I'm finally free of the ropes.

I throw my arms around him and breathe in. He smells like William, only now with blood. It's a comforting, familiar scent.

"No, you came just in time," I say as guilt wraps around my heart the same way that the ropes were wrapped around my wrists.

"Thank you," I say. "Thank you."

There's a part of me that wants to stay here forever. Like when an airplane lands in a new city and I have to anticipate retrieving my luggage from the baggage claim, getting a car, checking into a hotel, and all of those little inconveniences that come with being somewhere foreign. The airplane is uncomfortable, but at least it's familiar.

I know, however, that regardless of what happens, whatever is between William and me in this exact moment cannot last. After all, it was always the killer I wanted and not the savior.

William carefully gathers my clothes from the floor, takes off his shirt, and wraps me in it. I'm passive like a sick child being tended to by their parent. Please, please, reduce my fever.

We emerge from the room and I realize that I'm in the same office building that the Thompson family law practice is located in. This is it, the second location that the prosecution was looking for and never found. Because the offices are in a separate wing of the building, no one heard me when I screamed. The irony isn't lost on me that almost being murdered in an office building is the closest I've ever come to a six-figure salary.

We don't speak on the car ride home. William's face is still red, his jaw clenched. I stare blankly out the window. The world is still here.

Without speaking, I get in the shower at the house and William joins me. We don't have sex. Instead, he kisses me all over my body. I'm still here too.

He looks for injuries and finds none, at least nothing that he can see with his eyes.

After the shower, I cover my naked body with the comforter from our bed and sit on the couch. I don't know how to relate to my skin. It's late at night or early in the morning, depending on one's conception of time. I don't wholly believe that the sun will appear when morning hits.

William sits down next to me.

"We have to break up," he says.

"What?" I say. "I thought you loved me."

"I do love you. I can't trust you though," William replies.

It turns out that he spent the day planning the serious talk we were going to have when he got home from work about what was going on between Bentley and me.

"I knew something was wrong when I picked you up from that bar," he says.

Except I wasn't there when he got home. William knew something was really wrong when he saw that my phone and purse were still there. That's when he found my notebook with all my comments about whether or not he was a serial killer.

"I'm sorry," I apologize, too little too late.

There is nothing I can say to redeem myself. I know by the expression on his face that it is unforgivable to secretly investigate my fiancé of serial murder after he'd so kindly invited me into his home and paid for all my food and shelter.

William doesn't acknowledge my apology.

"I knew you were with Bentley," he continues. "And I knew Bentley was at work because I saw him."

"You saw him?"

"Bentley wouldn't let something like kidnapping my fiancée interfere with his billable hours," William replies. The word "fiancée" is a knife.

William grabbed his gun and headed to the office, where he combed through the maze of the building until he found me.

"I'm just glad I got there in time," he says.

"I can't believe it was Bentley this whole time. I feel so stupid. Why did you have all that stuff in your desk that made me think it could've been you?"

"What stuff?"

"You know, the matchbook, the hair tie, the gym card. The mementos of murder from the women. I found them in your desk in the same box as the gun."

William's face twists into a scowl.

"Ever since we were kids, Bentley has been hiding things in my room to try to get me in trouble. One time, he put a dead rabbit in my room. It was disgusting."

"He said that was you."

William lets out a pained laugh.

"I can't believe that you were with me, Hannah, if that was what you thought of me. It was all Bentley. The rabbit, the murders."

"Gracie too?"

William stiffens at the name.

"What did you say?"

"Bentley told me about what happened with Gracie. He said that you killed her."

William is silent for a long time.

"I loved Gracie," he says finally. "And she started dating my brother. That was painful, to say the least. One night we were at a party and both of us got drunk, really drunk. We snuck off into the woods together and started kissing. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't stop myself. Bentley did a lot of coke in those days and I guess he got Gracie into it too because she offered me some. There was something wrong with it and Gracie got really sick, really fast. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't call an ambulance because I didn't want to get her in trouble for having drugs. I couldn't call Bentley because I didn't want him to know what happened between us. I sat there and I watched her die. It was the worst moment of my life. It destroyed me. It continues to destroy me. That's why, when I got arrested, I was almost glad. It was like I was finally being punished for what I'd done."

William's posture is slumped, his gaze pointed at the floor. I see him now in a new light. William is a killer, but not like Bentley. His was a murder of passivity. He watched Gracie do drugs and then he watched her die and let his father cover up the evidence. He did, after all, keep souvenirs from his kills; I'd just been wrong about whom he had murdered. That's why he kept those notes from Gracie after all of these years. That's why he moves like a man swallowed by guilt.

"Did you know it was Bentley?" I ask.

The question is heavy. A tarp full of water about to burst.

"Yes," he says finally. "I didn't know for a long time. Women were dropping like flies all around me. Do you know how terrifying that is? There were a few days where I considered the possibility that I was somehow doing it in my sleep or had an alter ego that took over my body. In the end there was no alter ego, only Bentley. Always Bentley."

"Why didn't you tell the police?"

William shakes his head. I wonder if his neck hurts from all that shaking.

"It's more complicated than that. I was already a suspect at that point. I had nothing to tie the murders to Bentley. And besides, he's my brother. I couldn't do that to him, my family. Especially not after the things that I'd already done. I got away with murder once and I lived this whole life. It only seemed fair that he would get to do the same."

"You let those women die," I say.

William shifts uncomfortably with the volume of my voice. I see him as if for the first time. A man so mired in self-loathing that he's willing to let other people suffer if in return he gets to suffer too.

"Please calm down, Hannah," he tells me.

"I don't want to calm down."

"You don't understand my family," he continues.

"I might be the only person who does understand your family," I shoot back. "What about Virginia, the children?"

"Bentley would never hurt them."

"There are ways of hurting people that don't include murder."

"It doesn't matter anymore, okay? He's gone. He's not coming back. I'll make sure of it."

"What are they going to think?" I ask. Is it worse to have a serial killer father living at home than no father at all? Is killing genetic? I think about the baby inside of Virginia's womb. Is each child a new potential murderer? Ultimately, it's impossible to escape the psychic wounds that come with having a family.

"I'll take care of them," William says. I know that he's telling the truth. After all, he's always loved taking care of me. It's a form of penance, I now realize. If he takes care of me, maybe he can make up for Gracie.

I suddenly feel very tired, my wrists and ankles sore from where Bentley bound me.

"Can we go to bed?" I ask.

"I was going to sleep in the guest room," William replies stiffly.

"Please?" I say, I beg. "I just need someone to hold me."

"Okay," William acquiesces.

In the end, he fucks me one last time. He doesn't tie me up or try to kill me and I don't orgasm. Maybe he was never the person I wanted after all.