Page 75 of Cruel Riches

“But you said you only need four or five weeks to do what you want with me. So…” I stopped and slumped backward as the dark realization crashed over me. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Of course I am. But not before I make you feel everything you made those girls feel first. Trapped in the dark for weeks, begging for their lives. Terrified and tormented.” Nate slowly shook his head. “You’re going to get everything you deserve.”

Black spots appeared in my vision as dizziness overwhelmed me. My new and horrifying reality was finally setting in.

“No…” I shook my head. “Please, Nate. You’re wrong about me. So wrong.”

“I’m not. You’re just like your father. A filthy fucking murderer.”

“For the millionth time, that’s not true!” I shouted. “He never did anything! It was the Golden Circle!”

“The what?”

“The Golden Circle,” I repeated. “They’re some sort of secret society. Or part of a mafia organization, maybe. I don’t know. But whoever or whatever they are, they framed my father ten years ago. They were protecting the real Butcher!”

Nate snorted. “Jesus. You actually expect people to believe that a big, mysterious criminal organization is responsible for setting up a random professor a decade ago to protect another killer—for no apparent reason, by the way—and now they’re probably doing it again?”

“Yes,” I muttered, knowing how ludicrous it sounded. “My father told me about them. They’re real.”

He raised a brow. “I know for a fact that you weren’t allowed to visit him in prison while he was there, so how did he tell you?”

“He wrote a letter to me and gave it to his lawyer to pass on to me when I got older,” I explained. “The letter directed me to some of his old notes. That’s how I know about all of it.”

He let out a short, amused snort. “You know the simplest answer to a problem is almost always the correct one, right? That means your father, whose office was fucking packed with evidence of the Butcher murders, was the killer,” he said, cocking his head. “No mafia. No secret society. Just your father.”

“That’s not true,” I spat out. “Why are you so obsessed with me and my dad, anyway? He never did anything to you, and neither did I!”

He went silent for several beats and looked at me coldly, as if I were a specimen in a lab. “You’ve never spoken to any of the families of the Butcher’s victims, have you?”

I shook my head, confused by the change of topic. “No. But I know the names of all the victims, and there wasn’t a single Lockwood.”

“No, there wasn’t. But family isn’t always about the last name you have, is it?”

“I guess not,” I mumbled.

Nate shifted in his spot, lips pressed together in a grim line. “Do you remember the name Emilie Santal?”

“Yes. She was a twenty-three-year-old grad student at Blackthorne. The Butcher killed her.”

“Yeah, he did.” He rubbed his chin. “Her mother Colette has worked at my family’s estate for over twenty years. She’s always been like a grandmother to me, seeing as my real grandparents aren’t around. Emilie was similar. She was thirteen years older than me, so from the minute I was born, she helped out with me. At first she was just a babysitter earning pocket money to help my parents out, but after a while she became like a sister to me. Or a second mother. It’s hard to explain. But she was my family.”

“I’m sorry she died, Nate,” I murmured. “But—”

He lifted a hand to silence me. “I used to blame myself for what happened to her.”

“Why?”

“I was a really shitty child. Typical rich, spoiled brat.”

“What’s changed?” I mumbled under my breath.

Nate gave me a filthy look and went on. “Emilie was the only one who could ever deal with me and calm me down. I think it was because she was around so much compared to my parents.” He went quiet for another beat before going on. “A few weeks before the murders, I was being a little prick again. Mom couldn’t deal with me, so she called Emilie and asked her to skip her classes that day to take care of me. They ended up deciding to take me on a picnic at a park down in Thunder Bay. I’m sure you know the one I mean. It’s the one with the wildlife reserve and giant playgrounds.”

I nodded. “My dad used to take me there,” I whispered. The memory was like an arrow piercing my heart.

“Well, I don’t really remember this part, but my mom told me that I was being a total brat in the car that day. Shouting and kicking her seat even though Emilie was there, trying to calm me. Mom ended up having to stop halfway through the drive and pull over at a rest stop. It’s just off the eastern coast highway, about a half-mile after the lighthouse.”

I nodded. I knew the place he meant. It was a small grassy area with a wooden picnic bench, slide and swing set for kids, and a surprisingly clean public bathroom that backed onto a thick cluster of pine trees. I’d stopped there a few times when my bladder demanded it while I was out driving.

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