Page 65 of Zen's Crash

Rigs fills in the blank, like he always does. “Here’s what I think happened, Terrance. I think your father planted the bag. What I can’t figure out is how your fingerprints got all over the jewelry.”

Terrance jumps out of his seat and takes a few furious steps towards his father before shouting, “The fucker gave me the pieces. Said they were my inheritance from my mom—that she wanted me to have them in advance. He knew I’d examine the pieces to try and figure out what they were worth. We came to the conclusion that it was all junk, just her way of being a bitch to her poor son who had nothing. Imagine my surprise to find out the jewelry didn’t come from my mother at all, but were trophies from your fucking kills. What kind of sick, twisted game is this?”

“Time to shut your fucking mouth, Junior, before you get us both killed.”

Since his father doesn’t see fit to answer his son’s question, Rigs takes another guess. “Your father was worried about being caught, so he planted the bag after you killed his brother and after the police concluded their investigation. There’s no way in hell the police would have missed freshly turned dirt. The kill bag sat in the ground for ten months until our club brothers found it while patrolling Lexi’s property. Just to make doubly sure it would eventually be found, your father salted the ground so nothing would grow in that spot.”

Terrance’s face hardens with fury. “You planted evidence against me, knowing I never had any interest in your sick obsession?”

His father shoots back, “No, you don’t need to involve yourself in my obsessions when you have sick obsessions of your own.”

Terrance says, “Don’t you dare.”

Rigs, ever the insightful instigator, says, “He’s referring to your Frankenstein fetish. That’s what those comics are, right? Some weird attempt to create the perfect woman by mixing faces and body parts?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a fetish. For a religious dude, you sure do try to make everything about sex.”

“Explain it to me,” Rigs goads him. “Explain it to me like I’m five.”

“It’s not sexual, alright? It’s just something I do.”

“Naw, I’m not accepting that weak-ass excuse,” Siege tells him. “It’s too much of a coincidence that your old man kills women and chops them up.”

“Lies,” Harris hisses.

I notice that Lexi hasn’t had much to say, but she’s holding onto my good arm so tight that her nails are digging into me.

“Alright, so he doesn’t chop them up. But your father is a serial killer, and what you’re doing is the closest parallel imaginable. How do you explain that?”

“Oh, leave the boy alone,” Harris pleads.

“Leave him alone? What’s this father of the year act? You set him up for your murders! Shut the fuck up and let’s hear what your son has to say,” Siege says.

Rigs gestures towards Terrance, “We found eighty folders of stalking videos you’d saved on CDs over the years. Was that you procuring victims for daddy, or were you practicing terrifying women until they fled town? Maybe a little of both? Either way, it must have been hugely gratifying for a man like you, because you’re on the same path. By the time you are your father’s age, you’ll have graduated to killing too.”

Terrance looks over at his father and sighs. “You’ll never understand there is true beauty in death. Taking a person who is strung out on drugs or mentally ill and giving them the peace they can never give themselves is doing God’s work. Watching them go from freaking out all the time to enjoying an endless slumber is the closest any of us will be to becoming a god himself.”

Rigs cranks his head around to the father and asks, “Did you teach that shit to your son?”

The older man glares at his son. If looks could kill, Terrance would be dead. He growls, “Shut the fuck up. Fucking hell, you’re not smart enough to take yourself out of the rain or stop incriminating us both. There’s no way in hell you’re ever going to make your first kill.”

Grinning like a fool, Terrance flings back, “I already did.”

“Men don’t count,” his father snaps.

“You promised me half if I got rid of both of them. I took one out, and that means I get a quarter at least.”

He rolls his eyes. “My biggest curse in life is having a dimwitted son. In order to inherit, both of them have to bedead. Lexi’s trust would have reverted to my brother first and then to the closest blood relative after that.”

This is the point where Lexi cuts and runs. I can’t say I blame her. “So, we’ve got ourselves a full-blown serial killer with upward of a dozen kills under his belt, and a budding serial killer who hasn’t yet come into his own. Exactly where does this leave us?”

Rider is shaking his head in disbelief. “I vote for dirt naps for both of them, and I ain’t even joking about that.”

Tank puts in his two cents. “This is some seriously fucked up shit. I’m with Rider on this one.”

Siege raises both hands in a placating gesture. “No can do on the dirt naps. I promised our contact from the Las Salinas PD that he could have them. Arresting a pair of serial killers is a career-making event in a cop’s life. Plus, the families of the victims deserve closure.”

Of course, Terrance and his father start loudly complaining about being turned over to law enforcement, but we just ignore them.

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