felt wrong to pretend.”
Lydia shook her head. It wasn’t Claire’s fault, but she still wanted to blame her.
“She’s beautiful,” Claire said. “I wish Daddy was still around to meet her.”
Lydia felt a current of fear ripple through her body. She had been so focused on what it would feel like to lose her daughter that she had never considered what it would do to Dee if she lost her mother.
Lydia realized, “I really can’t do this.”
“I know.”
She didn’t think Claire could possibly understand. “It’s not just me. I have a family to think about.”
“You’re right. I honestly mean it this time. You should go.” Claire unbuckled her seatbelt. “Take the car. I can call Mom. She’ll get me back to Atlanta.” She reached for the door handle.
“What are you doing?”
“This is the road Paul lived on. The Fuller house is around here somewhere.”
Lydia didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “You’re just going to walk down the street and hope to find it?”
“I seem to have a real knack for landing in shit.” Claire pulled on the handle. “Thank you, Liddie. I mean that.”
“Stop.” Lydia felt certain Claire was hiding something again. “What are you not telling me?”
Claire didn’t turn around. “I just want to see Lexie Fuller for myself. Lay eyes on her. That’s it.”
Lydia felt her eyes narrow. Her sister had the carefree air of someone who’d made up their mind to do something stupid. “Why?”
Claire shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Pepper. Go home to your family.”
Lydia grabbed her for real this time. “Tell me what you’re going to do.”
She turned to face Lydia. “I really am proud of you, you know. What you’ve done with your life, the way you’ve raised such a smart, talented daughter.”
Lydia brushed away the flattery. “You think Lexie Fuller is another one of his victims, don’t you?”
Claire shrugged. “We’re all his victims.”
“This is different.” Lydia tightened her grip on Claire’s arm. She felt a sudden flare of panic. “You think she’s locked inside the house, or chained to a wall, and you’re going to go in there all Lucy Liu and save her?”
“Of course not.” Claire looked out at the road. “Maybe she has information that will lead us to the masked man.”
Lydia’s flesh crawled. She hadn’t seen that part of the movie, but Claire’s description was terrifying. “Do you really want to meet that guy? He murdered a woman with a machete. And then he raped her. Jesus, Claire.”
“Maybe we’ve already met him.” Claire shrugged, like they were talking unlikely hypotheticals. “Or maybe Lexie Fuller knows who he is.”
“Or maybe the masked man is in that house with his next Anna Kilpatrick. Did you consider that possibility?” Lydia was so frustrated that she wanted to bang her head on the steering wheel. “We’re not superheroes, Claire. This is too dangerous. I’m not just thinking about my daughter. I’m thinking about you and me and what could happen to us if we keep digging up Paul’s secrets.”
Claire sat back in the seat. She stared down the long, straight road ahead of them. “I have to know.”
“Why?” Lydia demanded. “He’s dead. You know enough about him now to view that as divine justice. The rest of this we’ve been doing—it’s just asking for trouble.”
“There’s another video out there that shows Anna Kilpatrick being murdered.”
Lydia didn’t know what to say. Again, Claire was ten steps ahead of her.
Claire said, “That’s the whole point of the series, to ramp it up to a crescendo. The movies show a progression. The final step is murder, so there must be a last movie that shows Anna being killed.”
Lydia knew that she was right. Whoever abducted the girl wouldn’t get rid of her without having his fun first. “Okay, let’s say by some miracle we find the movie. What would it show us other than someone who might be Anna Kilpatrick being murdered?”
“Her face,” Claire said. “The last movie with the other woman showed her face. The camera actually zoomed in on it.”
“Zoomed in?” Lydia felt like the inside of her mouth had turned into sandpaper. “Not auto-focus?”
“No, it zoomed into a tight frame so you just saw her from the waist up.”
“Someone else has to be working the camera to make it zoom.”
“I know,” Claire said, and Lydia could tell from her dark expression that her sister had been skirting around this possibility for a while.
“Lexie Fuller?” Lydia tried, because she knew that suggesting Paul as an active participant would be the thing that finally broke Claire