Fear Nothing (Detective D.D. Warren #7) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,112

he’d been beaten or raped or otherwise corrupted by the relentless hopelessness of foster life, while pretty AnaRose had been pimped out to earn money for her mother’s desperate habit.

And Shana never even mentioned their names. Entire families, vanquished by her actions. It was as if they no longer existed for her. Because they didn’t. She had needed. She had wanted. Then she was done.

I pulled myself together, shutting off the shower.

This morning, my sister had gotten to me, because that was what she did best. I showed up to break up with her, as she put it, and suddenly she had this story she’d never told me once in twenty years. Standing there, listening to her talk, I’d been swept up in her spell. Just as that first prison guard, Frankie, or maybe the second one, Rich.

She was manipulative. Not being able to feel sentiment herself, she suffered no blinders when it came to human nature. She could observe, analyze, collect. The perfect predator.

And Donnie Johnson, thirty years ago, trudging to the lilac bushes to deliver his older cousin’s message? Had he been scared that night? Nervous about Shana’s reaction? Or at twelve, had he been too young to fully comprehend the dangers of breaking a teenage girl’s heart?

Right until her face had changed into a snarl. And she’d turned on him, lashing out with a knife. Impulsive. Wild. She was angry, and so she acted enraged.

My sister, who weaved a story to make me stay. Who talked at least two, if not three, men into their own deaths.

I frowned, finding a towel, drying myself off.

Words. Those were my sister’s weapon as well. And no less dangerous. But, if you were into patterns—and psychiatrists loved patterns—my sister’s MO was to talk first. Engage. Seduce. Coerce the desired behavior.

If she could do that with trained guards, why would she not have tried that first on a twelve-year-old boy? Sold him some story devised to make him fetch Charlie for her right away. She was sick, she needed Charlie, she wasn’t mad at all; she just needed to give him something back.

She would. I knew it. She would’ve talked to Donnie first. Because my sister wouldn’t have wanted to waste her wrath on the twelve-year-old messenger. No, Charlie had rejected her, and her razor-sharp mind would’ve gone straight there, lasering in on target.

My sister hadn’t killed Donnie Johnson.

Someone else had. But had she seen it? Maybe arrived toward the end of it? A person . . . A girl, I thought, a girl bending over a boy with a blade in her hand, like my mother with my father all those years ago.

Instant psychotic episode.

My sister had never stood a chance.

But the ear in her pocket?

She could’ve taken it. Maybe even done the mutilation herself. At that point, she would’ve been on autopilot, the episode having triggered not only all of her deepest, darkest desires but also her deepest, darkest memories. Had my father ever removed some poor girl’s ear? I’m sure if I went through the files, I’d find at least one instance.

Someone else had killed Donnie. Maybe even looked up in shock when Shana appeared. Except my sister hadn’t responded with outrage. Instead, she’d stepped forward, already captivated by the smell of blood. . . .

That person had found his or her perfect patsy. One person to do the crime but another to serve the time. And my sister hadn’t been able to fight back, because she lacked all memory from that night. Not to mention, the murder looked exactly like something she knew, deep down inside, she would do.

She was the daughter of a serial killer, accused of murder, who went on to become a serial killer. Destiny, I think Shana would say. She simply got tired of fighting it.

So what did she want from me?

And what could I realistically offer her?

I stepped into my closet, seeking pajamas. I didn’t realize it until after I opened and then closed the top drawer of the bureau. Then it nagged at me. The closet wasn’t right. Something was off. Something . . .

The movable cherrywood bureau. It wasn’t where it should be, safely positioned over my hidey-hole. Instead, it was forward at least a couple of inches. As if someone had moved it and not gotten it back in place.

My heart, starting to accelerate.

I could’ve done it. Last night, removing vials, my frantic bid to dispose of evidence. Except I always returned it precisely to position, a paranoid habit developed