Page 61 of Killer Knows Best

The tires screech as I pull up to Whispering Woods, barely killing the engine before we jump out of the truck. The cabin looms in front of us, lit up yet ominous and shrouded in thick silence.

Riley whips open the door from inside with a panicked expression. “She’s in here.”

I barrel past her with Fallon and Buddy close on my heels. We find Jet hovering over my mother, who happens to be sprawled out on the couch, shaking like a leaf for no good reason. Her skin looks waxy and pale and she looks sickly in general. She’s drenched in sweat with her hair plastered to her forehead, and my chest tightens at the sight.

“What’s happening?” The words shoot from me like bullets.

“Bad meth,” Jet says without a lot of feeling behind it as if he expected this on some level.

I know I did.

Riley nods. “I guess she was smoking it.” She motions to the table where the paraphernalia is scattered like a crime scene.

“Geez.” I drop to a knee in front of her and my hands shake as I reach for her face. “Look at me,” I demand sharply. Her pupils are blown wide and she’s sluggish to react. Her breathing is shallow yet erratic, and every muscle in her body looks as if it’s about to seize up. “Riley, call for an ambulance.”

“No,” my mother riots as she struggles to rise but falls back onto the sofa because her limbs are too heavy to cooperate.

“Yes,” I bark back. “My house, my rules.”

She grunts as she rolls her eyes at Jet. “When did he get so demanding?”

“Hey”—Jet lifts his arms as if he were absolving himself of the mess—“you raised him.”

“Sandy”—Fallon sits on the coffee table in front of my mother and leans in—“you’re going to be okay,” she says it firmly, more like a command than a fact. “I need to ask you something. The other day, you mentioned you knew of a madame who sometimes worked with Gunther. Do you think if I showed you a picture of her, you could identify her?”

I inch back slightly and shoot Fallon a look.

Now? Really?

But then again, this could be just the diversion we need to keep my mother calm until help arrives.

Fallon shrugs at me before refocusing on the task at hand, which just so happens to be my mother.

“Yeah, sure.” My mother’s teeth chatter, or at least what’s left of them, and her fingers twitch in her lap like she’s trying to grip onto something that’s not there.

Fallon pulls out her phone and scrolls for a second before flashing an image of Karen Holt at my mother.

“No,” Mom says, shaking her head weakly. “That’s not her. She looked different. Dark hair. And younger, I think.”

A siren wails in the distance and both Buddy and Misty are at the window, sitting up at full attention.

“No, no, no,” my mother moans, reaching out for Jet, her fingers clawing at the air. “Don’t let them take me. I don’t want to go!”

“You’re going,” I tell her. “And once they’re through with you, you’re heading to rehab.”

A scream evicts from her like the primal sound from an injured animal, and it envelops all of her rage and desperation. She sobs, howls, and curses up a storm.

The EMTs make their way in, and soon they’ve strapped her to a gurney.

She fights them, weakly, but she’s no match for their steady hands.

“I hate you, Jack,” she shouts as she gives me the finger. “Don’t do this to me, Jackie! I love you! You know that I do!”

We follow them out and watch as they load her into the open maw of the waiting ambulance.

My mother snaps her fingers and struggles to sit up. “Her name was Erin!”

Fallon gasps and she looks right at me. “We’re headed to Elmwood.”

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