Page 28 of The Hand that Frays

When I hear a scream around the back of the residence, I rush from my hiding spot across the street without thinking. Scaling the wrought-iron gate, I’m in the backyard quickly, only to find Anne Hatt bent over the table on the stone back porch, Carl behind her.

He’s pounding into her body as he chokes her with what looks to be her pants. Tears spill down Mrs. Hatt’s face, and I cock my head as I watch the exchange.

There’s a girl in front of me, peeking around the house’s edge. She doesn’t feel my presence, which is off-putting. A saner person would. However, I have gotten stealthier in my years of killing.

“Rub her clit, Father. She always likes it when you do that,” the girl whispers, and I startle.

My body remains rigid and confused about what I’m looking at.

It’s so brutal how he fucks her, and the harder Carl drives inside his wife, the more breathless the girl becomes as she watches.

The longer I watch, the more I wonder if Carl knows she’s lurking somewhere in the shadows.

Why would a daughter want to watch her parents fuck?

My gut is churning with the realization that my stupid wife was correct in her assumption.

Something more profound and much darker is going on in the Hatt house.

And I can’t help but be curious to discover what it is.

I text Lyla that I’m headed back to the hotel, and she replies that she needs to discuss her findings with me.

Nothing you can find will trump what I’ve just witnessed, love.

At least, I hope not.

When I get backto the hotel, Lyla is on the bed. She doesn’t have to tell me something’s wrong for me to know it.

I sit beside her, letting the images I just witnessedboggle my mind a moment longer before I relay them to her.

“What did you find?” I ask her, needing her to go first.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know. The middle daughter, Ada, had sealed the records I broke into. After I read them, however, I didn’t know what I was truly looking at.”

Is Ada the one I saw?

“Alright, well, tell me what you found.”

She stands and moves to her setup, many screens hooked to her laptop. My stupid girl has become such a pretty little hacker.

“So I hit a dead end when I found out she has sealed juvenile records and health records, but then I reached out to an online hacker friend I’ve made recently on the dark web, and she helped me get into them.”

I try not to let the words dark web and hacker make my cock hard because we’ll never sort this out if I let myself fall into the allure of my stupid little wife tonight.

“And?” I stand, strolling over to loom over the back of her chair.

“And… she’s fucking insane. Literally. She was initially hospitalized for the ongoing illnesses in a regular hospital, but obviously, whichever parent was dosing her stopped, and she got better. Then, two years later, she was locked away in a mental institution for sexually assaulting a schoolmate.”

“All of this wasn’t brought up in Anne’s trial? Surely this would discredit her as a witness, even to such a heinous crime,” I add.

“Yes, but it was brought up by the defense of the children. The solicitor claimed that because of the maltreatment and poisoning of the children, Ada developed amental illness. The solicitor tied it back to the chemicals Anne added to Ada’s food.”

“It could happen,” I mumble.

“Yeah, with the amount of things found on the children’s tox screen, it’s feasible to think her mental illness is related to what her parents did to her all those years.”

“Are there instances after abuse where the child then becomes a sexual predator?” I ask, knowing my answer is glaringly obvious.

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