Page 91 of Be Very Quiet

Rader noticed their silent communication and turned his gun on Liliana. Luca’s lungs seized.

The floor creaked, and Audria stepped inside. Perfect timing. She placed her rifle on the ground before standing beside Luca. Audria was Rader’s type, and he was instantly infatuated with her, praising her looks. Luca needed to keep him talking so he’d move the gun away from Liliana. “How did you hide from the cops all these years, Ted?”

Rader looked surprised Luca was still there. He’d taken an instant liking to Audria.

“Theo was telling the truth about caring for me in the shed behind his mother’s house. But the kid knew diddly squat about first aid. My mother had hired a mortician who used to be a doc until he drank himself out of work. He could be bought for a bottle of Jim Beam.”

“Jasper Meeks,” Luca recalled. They’d tried to interview him, had searched for him for months. “He disappeared.”

“Yep. I couldn’t risk his drunk ass ratting me out.Heis buried behind the shed.”

And he’d done a particularly nasty job of stitching Rader up. The scar on his face looked like it belonged to Frankenstein, and his eye appeared sewn shut. How apropos. Freaky looks for a genuine monster.

“Theo’s mom never found out about you?”

“That looney tunes?” Rader shook his head. “I could’ve walked right up to her, and she wouldn’t have known who I was. I’m afraid Theo got his crazy genes from her.”

Nah, they both got them from their father, or maybe . . . “What about your mom, Ted?”

Anger transformed his disfigured face into a mask of rage. “Don’t speak of that evil woman!”

“She was your mom, Ted. Or should I call you Teddy?”

“Shut up! Never call me that. She was no mother. She was my tormentor! What woman takes out her hatred of her husband and the entire world on her only son? She never showed me an ounce of love or affection. Ending her was the most satisfying kill of my life!”

There was speculation that Rader murdered her, but nothing had been proven. The fire that had destroyed the funeral home was an unsolved mystery, until now.

“I’ve got news for you, Teddy. She wasn’t your biological mother.”

“What are you talking about?” Rader scoffed. “Of course she was.”

“Nope. Margorie Deakin Rader couldn’t have children. She’d been sick when she was young and had to have a hysterectomy. You were born to the woman your father had an affair with. Would you like to know her name?” Luca didn’t wait for his answer. “Marta Harvey.”

“Liar!”Rader roared.

Luca shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Teddy. Your mother took her firstborn from her, probably so she would have an heir to her funeral home legacy, but that’s pure speculation on my part. She let Marta keep her second. Theo was your full brother.”

“Strange she named both kids Theodore,” Audria mused. “I’m thinking she might have had an obsession with her lover.”

“I don’t believe you,” Rader spat.

Luca hitched a shoulder. “That’s your prerogative. Why did you wait so long to kill again?”

One side of Rader’s lip curled. “Thanks to you, I no longer have the strength, and my eyesight is shit. Theo was too young, and he needed to get his education first. I insisted upon it. He is . . . was, going to make something of himself.”

Why? So the brains he stuffed with knowledge could end up splattered across the hardwood floor of a vacant house? There was no other way this could’ve ended when Theo graduated from accomplice to perpetrator. Maybe he’d have become a twisted serial killer without Rader’s influence. Maybe not. They’d never know now. “You taught him your methodology.”

“Well,” Rader drug the word out, “instructed is a better word. I encouraged him to carve out his own niche. Follow his own path. I was merely his spiritual guide.”

Spiritual. Sheesh.

“It was his idea to leave flowers?” He purposefully didn’t say lilies to keep Rader’s attention from her.

Rader grinned. “I might’ve planted that bug in his ear.”

“Why the expedited timeframe? Before, you took your time. Theo killed every day.”

“I’m afraid that was my fault. My days are numbered. Cancer. It’s ravishing my body. Theo wanted to fulfill my greatest wish before I succumbed to the dreaded disease.”

---