Page 83 of Devotion

“I was on leave for quite some time after that. And during those months I was down, Maxwell’s health began to decline. So, once he knew he didn’t have much time left, he checked himself into a facility, then asked for me.”

Dad’s silhouette is sharp and contrasted in front of the window when lightning brightens the night sky, followed by another crash of thunder that shakes the house.

“I wasn’t fully healed yet, and doctors advised against it, but I visited Maxwell at the psychiatric hospital like he asked. It’d been nearly ten months since his last session, ten months since I’d laid eyes on him, but… that’s when he told me everything. Well,almosteverything—the number of lives he’d taken, his reasons for each kill. But still not enough to officially get the police involved. No names, no dates, no locations. Besides, given Maxwell’s declined mental state, nothing he said would’ve been seriously considered. So, I just… held it all in.”

There’s a sense of the burden he’s carried all these years still being just as heavytodayas it was all those years ago.

“I was allowed to record the entire confession. From start to finish. He considered it his gift to me for having been so vague in the past. He felt I deserved to know the full story. Only, the story wasstillincomplete. In so many ways. But it was enough, I suppose. Enough for me to at least know I wasn’t crazy for thinking there was more to this man—the most complex patient I’ve ever taken on.”

I let his words sit with me, piecing together the rest of the story in silence. What began as Maxwell’s rendition of a soul cleansing before his inevitable death, became my father’s idea for a debut novel. A tell-all narrative, written with intent to suggest that his patient may have been one of the nation’s most noteworthy serial killers. A man he’s likened toJack the Ripperfor his ability to not only evade capture,but police suspicion altogether.

“The one thing I couldn’t get him to confess was the existence of the cult.”

My eyes narrow in his direction. “Cult?”

“Madmen like him always seem to have their fair share of followers, but Maxwell… I believe there was an entiremovementbehind that man. He was charismatic and charming, the kind of guy people would easily follow, easily buy into whatever wicked nonsense fell from his mouth. I got the idea about the cult when he mentioned it in jest once or twice during our sessions. Like it was just this… abstract concept or something, but hearing the way he talked about it felt sort of… I don’t know… tangible. But every time I questioned it, he’d laugh, making it seem like I was ridiculous for even thinking such a thing was possible.”

“He never confirmed it?”

Dad shakes his head. “No, but during his final confession, he made another passing joke, teasing that—if this fictional groupdidexist—no one would ever find them. He went on to explain that this hypothetical community he fathered was possibly the most secretive, thriving congregation in North America. The roots of which run so far and so deep that they could never be pinned down.”

I’mbreathless, but there’s one more question I need answered.

“Was he here the night Mom died?”

“Waswhohere?”

“Maxwell’s son.”

Dad draws in a breath, then his eyes leave mine again. “He was.”

My head lowers as the pathways linking my life and my past to Damien begin to light up. And now, I can’t ignore the sudden sense of distrust that’s been awakened. I’m almost certain the threatening phone calls to my father were coming from Damien, but what’s still unclear is the roleIplay in all this.

If my father’s book is at the core of it all, what was Damien’s plan? Was finding his way back into my life all part of some scheme to stop my father from publishing?

My head spins, trying to make sense of it all, but it’s impossible with so many dark spots, so many holes in the collective story.

“It was… actually Maxwell who called the police that night,” he shares, and this is the first I’d heard of it. “He phoned me late, needing to discuss an issue that’d come up. I asked him to hold when your mother came into my study, and something he overheard must’ve tipped him off that she wasn’t quite right. The details are a bit blurry for me now, but I do know that Maxwell rushed over, and while he was enroute, he called the police. I don’t recall much after your mother… after she…”

He stops there. Or rather, the painful memory of her attempt on his life stops him. But I know the rest of the story quite well, because I’ve seen how it plays out at least once per week.

In my nightmares.

While Maxwell likely rushed toward the ambulance to check on Dad, Damien rushed towardme. It washishand that held mine, his words that soothed my heart on the darkest night of my life.

Even way back then… he was trying to fix my problems.

“Did he—”

My sentence cuts off when light from outside filters in through the window.

Red and blue lights.

My eyes flit back toward my father, and I’m confused. “Dad?”

“Sweetheart, just relax.”

I glance toward the window again, feeling a knot forming in my stomach as I stand. “What the fuck did you do?”

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