Page 60 of Coming Home

“Get over here, Gage,” she ordered, “or you’ll never get any chocolate out of me again.”

The former Navy SEAL grinned and hustled toward them. “You said the magic words, Ainsley Martin.”

Ainsley Martin…

She really liked the sound of her new name.

Gillian took a few photos, and then Bertha insisted that Gillian join the others, while the county clerk snapped a few shots.

“We’ve taken up enough of your time, Bertha,” Jackson said. “Again, thanks for making today special for us. And remember, when you get off work, you’re invited to our reception at my sister’s house.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the county clerk said.

They left the judge’s chambers and went outside to the various vehicles. Naturally, Ainsley went with her new husband. Once they were inside it, he framed her face in his hands and kissed her, a slow kiss which brought instant heat to her belly.

“It’s hard to believe, but we did it.” His thumbs gently caressed her cheeks.

“It seems a little surreal, doesn’t it?”

“All I know is I am the happiest man on the planet. We’re going to have a wonderful life together, Ainsley. Yes, there will be ups and downs. A few fights along the way, where we both believe we’re right—but we’ll learn to compromise. I feel as if today is the first day of the best part of my life.”

Jackson kissed her again, an achingly tender kiss which showed her just how much he cherished her. Ainsley knew they were two of the lucky ones and that they would live their lives in love.

CHAPTER 21

Anthony was on a natural high.

He had made his first kill since being brought to trial—and it had been the sweetest balm, feeding his soul.

He went through the pictures again, reliving and savoring each moment. He had deliberately waited to kill again, in part to prove to himself that he could do so. He needed to control the beast. Not the other way around. This kill hadn’t been prolonged or messy, a different sort of necessary destruction to protect the new him.

Methodically, he had changed several things in order to remain a free man. He had a new storage unit now. A new used car and sets of license plates to place on it. He determined new ways to stalk his victims, though he was ready to return to his typical kill—tall, slender blonds.

Because she had been one…

He supposed in the long run he had mommy issues, just as many killers had. In his case, however, they were also sister issues. At least that’s who he had first thought Anita was. His sister. He had been raised with the single sibling, and she had never been affectionate toward him. Anita was thirteen years older than he was, which had made it easier to pass off her baby as her baby brother instead.

His first kill had been the man who had impregnated Anita.

Their father.

It had been his first murder, not soon after he had learned the ugly truth from the woman he believed to be his mother. She had turned to drink and gradually, over the years, had become a sloppy drunk, one with loose lips. Her drinking was done at home, and she would become quite maudlin. Anthony had believed she held some secret that she kept from him. Perhaps it was a certain look in her eyes, or the way he would catch her studying him every now and then. He waited and one night, deep in her cups, he got her to talking about the past. About her strange relationship with her firstborn. Anita had left the house when Anthony was almost five and she about to turn eighteen. Their father had reported her as a runaway, but the police had done little to track a girl of that age.

In her drunken state, dear old mom had finally admitted to him that he was her grandchild. That his sister had been his mother—and that she blamed her own mother for not protecting her. For not preventing the incest which had occurred in their house.

Anthony—formerly Gerald—had been fifteen at the time. He knew his mother wouldn’t remember the drunken confession, but he felt loathing for the woman before him. It angered him that she hadn’t done more to save her own flesh and blood from a monster. As far as his father went, Anthony had never had much of a relationship with him. Joe McGreer was interested in boxing and NASCAR racing and had an average IQ. He resented and belittled Gerard, calling him a fucking nerd and four-eyes. Gerard excelled in school, particularly math and computer sciences. He tested off the charts. At twelve, he was already hacking into businesses and moving money around for his own private use.

That night of revelations from his grandmother changed the trajectory of Gerard’s life. He was on the cusp of leaving the McGreer house for Cal Tech, which was giving the boy genius a full ride to the university. With his new knowledge, he was suddenly interested in tying up loose ends before he left for college. Crime had always fascinated him, and he devoured crime novels and podcasts, as well as watching every movie and TV show which dealt with forensic science. He scoured websites and had already learned to think like a criminal, feeling certain urges within him. Dark urges waiting to escape and flourish.

His grandmother died that night, but not by his hand. She had stumbled into the kitchen, mumbling to herself, as he retreated to his bedroom. As usual, Joe McGreer was out late doing who knows what. When Gerard went to the kitchen two hours later in need of a snack, he found his grandmother’s body on the floor, quickly piecing together what had happened as he saw exactly where she had struck her head on the edge of the linoleum counter, falling to the ground, breaking her nose. He didn’t move the body as he idly wondered if the first blow had killed her or if she’d drowned in her own blood.

He deemed this divine intervention because her accidental death would help him to put into motion a plan he had already been working on since their conversation that night.

Dialing 911, the operator had asked him what his emergency was. Gerard turned on emotions of fear and extreme anxiety, playing his part to perfection. With just the right amount of hysteria in his voice, he had told the dispatcher he had come to the kitchen for a late-night snack and had found his mom lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Unresponsive. He had begged the woman to send help, going to first unlock the door and then returning to wait by the cooling body.

The first responders had arrived within four minutes, entering the house and coming to the kitchen, where he sobbed loudly. They checked his ‘mother’s’ body. One of them comforted him as best she could.

His father arrived home just as the body was being transported to the ambulance, and the plans he had made changed abruptly. His parents didn’t have friends, only each other. They were barely civil toward one another, but the police wouldn’t need to know any of that. Gerard decided his father would be so despondent over his wife’s accidental death that he would commit suicide tonight.

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