Pretty Broken Things - Melissa Marr Page 0,66

their feet to do. That’s part of collecting a lamb. You need to see them clearly.” She lets her attention drift visibly to a young woman who is watching us. “That one has promise, but she’s the sort of girl you can’t manage quickly.”

“Manage?”

Tess smiles, a secretive little grin that frightens me a bit. “She’s looked at her phone several times while we were standing here. Either she is texting or on social media. People know where she is, possibly even know that she’s headed somewhere else. Livestock like her aren’t impossible, but they’re not as easy to cull.”

“I thought you said Reid was the killer.” The question is clear even if I don’t phrase it as such.

Tess shrugs. “There are things I learned. He watched them, all the time. The pretty things who would be dressed in red . . . Little lambs who lost their way . . .” She steps away from me then. “I tried to stop him. I tried to be good. I really did, but . . . I was never enough.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “I survived, Michael. What I did was survive. Until he finds me, I’m alive.”

I’m not sure why, but until that moment, I’d thought Reid was dead. I stared at her. She’d lived with a killer and left him.

“You’re hiding. He’s still out there, and you’re hiding. Why would he look for you? It’s been years, hasn’t it?” I think back over everything I know, the bits of her past, the stories I know and the things she’s admitted today.

“I’m his wife.”

“You’re . . .” My mind boggles at this revelation.

“And Michael? Teresa Morris was my name then.”

I have no words. The woman in my bed is the wife of a known serial killer.

Tess is still talking. “The missing heiress? Escaped or most likely killed by the Carolina Creeper?”

The last piece is too much. Teresa Morris, Tess, Tessa in my book . . . This woman was a victim of the Carolina Creeper. The only known survivor. There was no way I could keep all of this to myself. There was no way I could avoid talking to the police.

33

A Girl with No Past

Being with a man like Edward changed me. He saw me, the potential and the weaknesses both. I didn’t know how unmolded I was until he started to shape me.

“Why, Tess?”

“So, I understand.” I swallowed the blood in my mouth. He was always gentle with my face. It made him sad when he had to hit my face, so he always did it carefully. His palm open, more slap than punch. Rarely did he punch me now.

In our earliest months together, I was disobedient more often. Now, I am much, much better.

“You know it hurts me that you make me do these things.” He kissed me, roughly enough that he could taste my blood.

I didn’t resist.

When he pulled away, I promised, “I can do better.”

“And you will.”

“I will.” I reached out to touch him, to make up for my slip-up tonight.

He looked past me to the source of my mistake. The girl in our bathtub wasn’t awake, but that didn’t mean that I should’ve bothered him.

“What do you want me to do?” I bowed my head like he preferred. “To make you happy?”

“Be good,” he reminded me.

“I try, Edward. I do. I want to be good.”

He kicked me. “Please don’t interrupt me, Tessie.”

The thud of my body hitting the wall didn’t wake her. The girl in the tub kept her eyes closed, and I was grateful for that small mercy.

I leaned forward and put my hands on the floor to push to my feet. Simply trying to stand up hurt. I’d learned to brace myself when he’d hit my stomach or ribs.

“Stay down.”

“Yes, Edward.” I stayed on all fours where I was. I didn’t even look up at him.

I wanted to ask for instructions, but I was afraid that this was test. Sometimes he changed the rules but forgot to tell me.

Slowly, I counted to fifty. He still hadn’t spoken or touched me by then, so I reached up with one hand. He slapped it away.

“Look at her.”

I did. The girl in our bathtub was a little older than me, brown hair, short-shorts and a tank top.

He grabbed my hips and jerked me to my feet.

My back was to him, and he shoved me forward again, not quite punching me between my shoulders but hard enough that I’d have a new bruise there.

“Look at her!”

“Yes, Edward.”