Page 87 of Kept

I swallow back the small ball of relief. Not that I seriously thought they would hurt me… but then, I didn’t actually think Enzo was a serial killer who carves up evil men in a dungeon underneath their house.

I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t trust my own instincts at this point.

They seem to be broken.

“What are you showing me?” I ask, leaning forward. Maverick snaps his eyes up.

“Sit back,” he says firmly. “We’re showing you the other part of our work, Zella. What happens at the end.”

At the end?

I turn the words over in my head, sitting quietly with my own thoughts as we drive into the night. I press my face against the window as I see a sea of lights in the distance, rising high into the sky. “What’s that?”

“New York,” Ryder says softly. His hand plays with the edge of my braid, pulling it between his fingers. “That’s where your apartment is.”

Was.

“Right,” I whisper. New York looks gigantic to me. I can’t believe I’ve spent so much of my life there, and yet it feels so unfamiliar.

The lights disappear as Maverick continues to drive. Ryder settles in next to me, and my head leans against his arm. When the car finally stops, I blink, half asleep as I lift my head up. “Are we here?”

“We are,” Maverick confirms. When I look out of the window, there’s a row of houses opposite us. Lights are on in a few, and my eyes are drawn to a little flickering light in a dark window. A single candle, the little flame bright.

Maverick turns around in his seat. His light eyes look dark, purple shadows underneath.

“Where are we?” I ask softly, my eyes still on the little orange light.

Maverick draws in a breath. “This is where Sherileen Jacobs lived.”

It takes me a second.

“Sherileen Jacobs. Fourteen years old. She was looking for her dog when he called her over. Told her he’d help her look, and then he buried her, prey. He buried her so deep, her family never had a chance at finding her.”

My mouth dries, and I look between them. “I don’t… I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“Sherileen’s parents are Roger and Sandra Jacobs,” Ryder says from next to me. His eyes are on the candle too. “They lost their daughter ten years ago, when she went missing on a dog walk and never came home. Every night, Roger and Sandra light a candle in their window.”

“We’ve been watching them, Zella,” Maverick murmurs. His face looks sorrowful when I turn to him, my heart starting to twist inside my chest. “They know that their little girl isn’t coming home, but their pain is eating them alive. They have no idea what happened to her, and it torments them.”

I turn back to the light, to that little beacon. “You’re going to tell them,” I breathe, looking back to them. Something cracks inside my chest when Maverick nods.

“They deserve to have closure, sweetheart.” He reaches out, catching something on my cheek. When I touch my fingers to the same place, my cheeks are wet. “They deserve to know why their daughter never came home, and we can give them that.”

It hurts. Inside my chest, something twists and breaks, as I imagine Sherileen’s parents waiting for an answer that never came.

I swallow heavily, sniffing. “Can I come?”

Maverick blinks as if surprised. Ryder stiffens next to me when he nods. “Mav.”

“Let her see, Ryder,” Maverick says softly. He doesn’t move his eyes from mine. “This will not be easy, Zella. Brace yourself.”

The air feels cold, biting on my face. I shiver inside the sweatshirt Ryder pushed over my head before we left, grateful for the warmth as I silently follow Maverick up the tidy wooden steps. The house is dark, but Maverick knocks anyway. I hold my breath, but a bright light flickers on within seconds, and the sounds of feet pounding echoes through the door a second before the door is thrown open.

An older man, gray-haired and tired looking, clutches the edges of the door as he peers out. I see the second the light fades in his eyes, the way the little piece of hope is snuffed out, and it breaks my heart.

A woman comes up behind him, patting her hair with shaking hands. “Roger?”

“Can I help you?” he asks. His eyes flit between the three of us, and he takes a step back.

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