Page 109 of Behind the Shadows
The Pied Piper stared at me, not saying anything for a minute. “Some of that is residual from the brainwashing.” He shifted in his seat. “But before we dive into that, are you sure you don’t have any other questions about Jameson?”
I did. I had a ton of them, and the more answers he gave me, the more questions I had. My first one was how would I kill the twisted motherfucker in front of me? Then, it dawned on me.
“Mother told me Uncle Vinny died but?—”
“When you dug up his grave, it was empty,” he finished for me.
My gaze narrowed on him. “How the fuck did you know?”
He ignored my question. “Your uncle pissed off the wrong people, including your mother, and he went into hiding. He dug his own grave in case anyone suspected he was still alive. Vinny recently retired from working with me. He’s a close friend, and I was saddened when he was diagnosed with dementia. His mind is gone, or I would have brought him with me to see you. He always thought you were a good kid with a bright future.”
Stunned, I massaged the back of my neck, remembering Samantha’s locket I’d found. Vinny must have dropped it whilehe was digging. Did I even want to see Vinny after everything he’d done to me? Done to all the girls he’d sold? No. I had nothing to say to him. As far as I was concerned, he got off lucky not remembering the shit he’d done. I wished he did remember, that it was seared into his brain like Mother’s knife had seared my skin.
“I don’t know why I dug it up in the first damn place,” I said.
“I was in control that night. You needed to question what Lily was telling you about so many things, so I guided you to the breadcrumbs. If I’d told you everything right then, you most likely would have broken beyond repair. I couldn’t take that chance, so I guided you to what you needed to know, bits and pieces at a time, including my daughter.” He smirked.
“As for her, I approve of you two together. It has turned out better than I could have hoped.” He paused, as if waiting to see if I had anything else to say or maybe to let our meeting sink in. I wasn’t sure anymore.
“Anything else?” he asked as if he were checking off a to-do list. Maybe in his mind he was.
I sat there, silent.
“All right. Then I’ll loop back around and answer how I know so much about you and why I brought you here.”
48
HOLLAND
A grainy scanned document filled the screen. Handwritten therapist notes and doodles in the margins. At the bottom: a child’s drawing. Sloppy but vivid.
A cage. A small boy inside. A taller figure just outside—red hair, messy. Glasses drawn in jagged lines. And on the boy’s arm, barely visible—a tattoo of a rabbit with its neck snapped.
I froze. The child in the cage slammed me with horrible memories of my own capture.
Ella leaned in. Her eyes narrowed. Then she turned toward Dope. “That tattoo …” she said. “You have that on your arm.”
Dope glanced down, then slowly pushed up his sleeve. Exact same design. Exact same place. “Huh,” he said with a half-laugh. “Yeah. Forgot about that.”
“Why a broken rabbit?” I asked.
He scratched his jaw, suddenly restless. “It was a crazy night when I was seventeen. Got high, blacked out, woke up with it. Didn’t even remember doing it.” He chuckled like it was no big deal.
Ella didn’t push. Neither did I. But something in me shifted. No child would’ve drawn that by accident. And Dope’s tone? Toocasual. Too smooth. Like he was playing dumb … or terrified to remember.
Ella glanced at the floor, and I watched her retreat into something unspoken. Then Dope rolled his sleeve back down—too fast. Like he couldn’t bear to look at it.
His hand went to the mouse, but he didn’t close the file.
Instead, he right-clicked the image and dragged it into a folder hidden deep inside his desktop—one I never would’ve seen if I hadn’t been watching. But I was watching.
The folder name flashed for a blink: “Oblivion_Temp”
My spine straightened. My stomach turned. He clicked away like it had never happened. Face blank. Knuckles white.
And just like that, the moment passed.
Except it didn’t.
