kids, but if they were bigger than him, he didn’t like that either. In the videos there was a lot of other men. I couldn’t see any of their faces because they had some sort of program that put these black dots over their faces. The men I could see clearly. They would prance around the rooms naked like it was normal. It was sick the way they’d act as though what they did was—exciting. They’d sit around afterward and talk about it. I would fast forward and it was literally the same thing, different assholes doing the same thing to a different group of girls or young men. If I hadn’t caught Thomas with the boy in his study, I would’ve been clueless.” Bile rose in her throat, threatening to spill out. She took deep even breaths, praying she wouldn’t be kneeling to the porcelain gods.
“You said this was how you found me. Palmer, I’ve never in all my life ever had sex with or thought of having sex with a boy or even a man. Not that I think it’s wrong if two consenting men enjoy one another, I’m just not into men. Hell, the youngest woman I’ve ever had sex with was eighteen and I was twenty-one.” He pulled back, staring down at her.
Palmer wanted to tell him to shut up about other women, hating the thought of him fucking anyone, but knew he was telling her for a reason. “I know that. I..I don’t know how to tell you this without just saying it. In Thomas’s things after his death, I was going through his desk. I’m not sure what I thought I’d find, maybe the names of his—victims. Or a way to help others like the boy and his mother from before. Instead I found a key. I looked everywhere to see what it went to, but I couldn’t find it. Finally, I went up to his bedroom and just walked around it. We didn’t share rooms, thankfully. His closet is a thing you’d see in movies, or in houses of the really rich, which technically we were. I had planned to go through his things and donate his clothes. There were racks and racks of suits and ties. Shoes lined up perfectly, and then I saw it. A file cabinet that was locked between the black and blue suits. Yes, he color coordinated them.” She licked her lips, wondering how Keys was going to take what she said next.
“I don’t give a fuck if he wore rainbow colored ones, Palmer. What the fuck did you find that led you to emailing me. Not that I’m not happy as hell you did.” He cradled her face between his palms. “I’m sorry for my outburst earlier.”
She nodded, knowing he meant it, but not sure she could forgive him yet. “I had to go get the key but then when I did, I couldn’t believe what he’d had in there. There was money and pictures. God, he was sick and twisted and I was, am so happy he’s dead. He had a file on you, Keys. I think he was holding what he had over my grandfather’s head. Your father was Jack Lion.”
Keys hands fell away from her face. “What the hell are you talking about? Jack Lion, the grandson of Jackson Lion, founder of Lionsville? Pull the other one, Palmer.”
When he went to turn away from her, she put her hand on his arm, shocked to feel the tensed muscles. “You’re a man who believes what he sees, right?”
He looked at her hand on his arm, then met her eyes with stormy dark ones, nodding once. “Show me,” he ordered.
Palmer put her hands on her hips. “Stop being a dick.”
A grin split his lips. “There’s that sassy girl.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “I’ll show you sassy if you don’t stop being such an asshole. Just because you saved my butt earlier by”— she waved her hand in a circle— “setting us up in our suite and all the other stuff, doesn’t give you the right to treat me like shit. For your information, I’m not now nor have I ever been a liar. And I sure as shit would never have allowed Thomas or any other man to hurt boys if I could stop it. I did all I could when I found those videos to ensure he wouldn’t get away with...that atrocity. If I knew where the house was or who the men