"Mommy, look what I found!" Brianna said, charging into the kitchen.
Madison glanced through the window once more to find the drive still empty, then turned to see her daughter carrying a large photo album. There was anticipation on Brianna's little face. But Madison had to bite back a groan when she saw that it wasn't just any album. It was the album she'd hidden under her bed.
"See? It's my baby book!" she announced proudly. "Come on, Mommy, let's look at it."
The album contained pictures of Brianna's birth and infancy, and a few photos of when she was a toddler. Madison and Brianna used to spend a lot of time poring over this particular book. Like most children, Brianna was fascinated by pictures of herself and the concept that she hadn't always been as she was now. But there were also photos of Madison's father in there that Madison didn't want to see. Not now. She'd just taken down every picture of him.
"It's getting late, punkin," she said. "Why don't we look at that tomorrow?"
"No," Brianna said. "You promised you'd read me a bedtime story. I want to look at my pictures instead."
"But--"
"Please, Mommy?" Brianna wore such a beseeching expression that Madison couldn't refuse.
"For a little while," she said.
Brianna rewarded her with a beaming smile and started pulling her into the living room. "Come on, let's sit down."
Madison took a deep breath, steeling herself for the moments to follow, but it didn't help. Once they were seated on the couch and going through the album page by page, Brianna not only insisted on pointing at every person in every picture, she demanded Madison tell her all the old stories. How the doctor had missed the delivery when she was born and the nurse had to step in. How Daddy had fallen asleep in the chair by the bed and nearly slept through what had almost turned into an emergency. How Grandpa used to stand her up in the palm of his hand before she could even walk. How Grandma had once dressed her up in a snowsuit and taken her to Utah to visit Madison's Aunt Belinda, or Aunt Bee, as Brianna knew her.
By the time they'd gone through several pages, the memories crashed over Madison like waves, hard and fast, threatening to drag her out to sea. Through it all, she couldn't help wondering--what had gone wrong? If her father had killed those women, what had been so incredibly different about him that he could harm others, seemingly without remorse? Surely there must've been some clue that she'd missed. But she couldn't figure out what it would be. Her father had been quiet and difficult to know because of that, but not every strong, silent male becomes a mass murderer.
She knew he'd had a difficult childhood, that he was brought up in a strict household where corporal punishment was sometimes taken to the extreme. But other than maintaining a rigid belief in the father as patriarch of the home, he didn't seem too affected by the past. He went to bed early, got up before dawn, worked hard and took care of everything in the house with a fastidiousness seldom seen in the American world of "easy come, easy go." He'd been a simple man. Or so she'd thought.
"What's wrong, Mommy?" Brianna asked, frowning when Madison didn't turn the page.
Madison closed her eyes, remembering. Her father had never been demonstrative, but he'd always had a roll of Lifesavers in his pocket for Brianna. Whenever they visited Grandma and Grandpa's house, Grandpa had let Brianna help him husk corn or snap peas or tinker in the garage.
That she'd trusted her father enough to let him get so close to Brianna terrified Madison now, just in case he'd been what everyone said he was.
"Mommy?" Brianna asked, sounding worried.
Madison pulled herself out of the sea of memories long enough to force a smile for her daughter. "What, honey?"
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking."
Uncertainty flickered in Brianna's eyes, but Madison easily distracted her with the next picture. "This is when Grandma baked you a Barbie cake for your second birthday, and Grandpa made you that playhouse in the backyard. Do you remember?"
Brianna's forehead wrinkled. "Daddy said he built the playhouse."
"No, it was Grandpa." Her father had come over to build the playhouse because the guy Danny hired didn't show. Madison remembered being upset because it was Sunday, a day Danny didn't have to work, yet he'd been gone anyway. Madison knew her father found it strange that Danny wasn't more of a support to her. She'd thought Ellis was going to say something about it as he left that day. Instead, he'd squeezed her shoulder--for him, the equivalent of a long conversation.
With her father, so much went unsaid. And yet she'd always known he loved her....
"Mommy, why are you crying?" Brianna asked.
Madison hadn't realized she was crying. Dashing a hand across her cheeks, she searched for words that might make things clear for her daughter. But she knew Brianna wouldn't understand even if she tried to explain. Madison herself didn't understand, at least not fully. The fact that someone she loved and trusted so deeply could ruin the whole essence of who he was for reasons she couldn't begin to fathom was simply confusing and painful. And that was before she considered the victims and their families and friends....
"That's enough for tonight," she said, closing the book. "It's time for bed."
A knock at the door stole Brianna's attention. She hopped off the couch to answer, but Madison caught her by the arm. "You know it's not safe to go to the door alone, especially after dark. I'll see who it is. You get your pajamas on."
"Mo-om," Brianna complained.
"You have school in the morning."
Her daughter's scowl deepened.
"Even princesses need their sleep," Madison said.
"But it might be Caleb."
Madison arched an eyebrow at her. "I thought you didn't like Caleb. I thought you didn't want me to let him move in."
"I don't like him," she said quickly, "but Elizabeth does."
If not for the spell cast by that darn photo album, Madison might have laughed. "Elizabeth isn't even here," she pointed out.
"She's in the bedroom. I'll get her."
Brianna scampered off and Madison set the photo album aside, trying to convince herself that she wasn't excited by the prospect of seeing Caleb.
She should've known Caleb was much too handsome and charismatic to fit smoothly into her life.
She tried telling herself their kiss was nothing as she headed down the hall, but it didn't feel like nothing when she opened the door. Caleb stood there, still wearing the same suit he'd been wearing this morning, with his tie loosened and his hair slightly tousled as though it had been a long, hard day.