My heart beat faster at that news. Not because I was happy, but because I wanted us—Dolly and me—to be the ones who killed him. Not cancer. Our bullets and blades. Our payment for what he had done.
“Seems your arrival here was fortuitous,” he said. “Much longer and I would not have been alive.” He smiled, and that was the smile I remembered. The smile that signaled he got off on the pain of children. The one he gave me as he plied me with whiskey. The one he gave me as the Cheshire Cat led me to my bedroom, changing the course of my life forever. The one he gave me when I returned and he passed me off to whichever fucker wanted my ass next.
“I wouldn’t have been here to chat. To tell you why I did what I did.”
Dolly remained silent. She was barely moving. My jaw clenched. “Why?” I asked, hating myself for even giving him the floor.
His stare singed mine. “Because I loved it,” he gloated. I felt the temperature of my blood spike to an all-time high. “Because I really do like to fuck children. Because I like to play with people’s lives. Because life is boring without pleasure . . . and children give me so much pleasure. It’s that simple.”
I breathed. I breathed. I breathed as I restrained myself from fucking killing him right then.
“I have money,” he went on. “I have all I could ever want. Money can buy you anything.” He smiled the thinnest of smiles. “Even you, Heathan James.”
“What?” I said, teeth clenched.
“Your papa,” he said with a tired flick of his hand. “All it took was a few thousand to ensure that if anything happened to him, I would acquire you. I would become your legal guardian.” I felt the color drain from my face. “Only took a few thousand for a desperate man to ensure Mr. James had an unfortunate accident, ending his life, right when his son was ripe for the picking. Age, you see. It counts a lot to men like me, and my colleagues.” He flicked his hand again. “You hold zero appeal to me right now.”
I felt sick as his words sank in. Then his gaze fell on Dolly. She was a statue on my lap. “And Ellis, my sweet, sweet girl.” He beamed a smile at her. I wanted to reach across the table and rip off his predatory head. “My girl, who believed she was Alice. Who paraded around in a pretty blue dress.” He nudged his head at her outfit. “Seems not much has changed.”
I felt Dolly’s legs twitch.
“It was a shame your mother found out about my . . . preferences.” My breathing paused. Every part of Dolly tensed. “I couldn’t let her know that I knew, of course. But like you, she loved her tea. Earl Grey, if I remember correctly.” He looked past us. I turned and saw a picture of Dolly’s mama hanging on the wall by the door. Earnshaw shook his head. “A tiny drop of arsenic in her many cups of tea ensured she would never steal my little girl away from me, like I knew she planned. I had plans for Ellis. I knew what my friends liked, and she was definitely it. They played good games of poker for the privilege of breaking her in.”
He sighed. “The only spanner in the works was you, young Heathan. Your obsession with my daughter.” He shook his head. “If only you hadn’t killed one of my best friends, you would have remained by her side.” He shrugged. “Perhaps she wouldn’t have gone mad. Ellis, my fun little girl, became a deaf-mute.” He flicked his head toward her, sitting statuesque on my lap. “Seems not much has changed there either.” Dolly remained still. I panicked. Had she become repressed again?
Earnshaw took a long wheezy inhale. “I would love to hear how you escaped from the Water Tower, Heathan.” He whistled low. “You and those men you escaped with have pissed off a lot of people. Important people who relied on that place to bury their indiscretions.”
My lip hooked at the corner in disgust. I fucking hated this prick. He laughed when he saw my expression. “Heathan James,” he murmured and laughed again. “You think we are so dissimilar?” He leaned forward, putting his hands on the table. “I like to fuck kids. You like to kill. I get hard from their screams. You get hard from your victims’ spilled blood. Our tastes may differ, but we are cut from the same cloth.”
“I’m nothing like you,” I hissed, holding Dolly even tighter.
He smiled victoriously. “You are.” He sat back. “You like the power killing gives you.” He licked his dry lips. “You use your anger to fuel it. I guess you have me to thank for that. All those years of being fucked must have royally pissed you off.”