I rubbed my eyes and continued with the story. “My mom was there too. She was just as horrified as me to hear all of this stuff suddenly spewing out of his mouth. She charged across the room at him like a banshee. Started screaming and slapping him. He was much bigger than her, though. He picked her up by the neck. Started choking her and calling her an ungrateful cunt. Saying that’s where I got my selfish attitude from.”
“Jesus….” Hunter shook his head.
“I was furious at him. And terrified, too. I thought he would kill Mom. Then me. So I just—” I paused again, cheeks flaming with shame. “I grabbed this heavy clock that used to sit on the mantel. Then I ran up next to my dad and I… I smashed it into the side of his head. I hit him so hard that I heard his skull crack. Then there was blood everywhere, and other stuff, and I…” I stopped and rubbed my face again. “He started gurgling. Dropped Mom. Slowly collapsed to the floor.”
“Shit.”
I sniffed. “We didn’t know what to do. We just stood there and watched him struggle.”
Hunter looked right at me as I spoke, his body wired tight, every muscle straining in anticipation for the end of my story.
“He was dying. We knew that. There was just no way anyone could survive that kind of head injury. But he didn’t die slowly. He managed to prop himself up on an elbow at one point, and then he dragged himself a few feet across the floor and grabbed a baseball bat that was lying by the counter. He obviously knew he wasn’t going to make it, and he wanted to make sure we didn’t make it either.”
“What happened then?”
“Mom picked up the clock. Hit him again in the same spot. He went quiet after that.”
“He was dead?”
I nodded slowly. “Yes. We killed him together,” I said, closing my eyes for a few seconds. “We didn’t plan it or anything. We were just in this horrible, panicked state. It felt like it wasn’t even happening. Like we were suddenly in some sort of horror movie.”
“What did you do then?”
“We couldn’t call the police,” I murmured. “We knew what it looked like. There was no evidence of the horrible things he told us because we didn’t record it. And we couldn’t ask Peter to back us up, because we put him in prison. He’d love to watch us go down for ruining his whole scheme, so there was no way he’d ever admit that he offered my dad money for me.” I swallowed thickly. “I know we could’ve risked it. Could’ve hoped that the police believed the stress we were under and how we were genuinely afraid for our lives that night.”
“But you didn’t.”
I shook my head. “Mom said I’d already suffered enough. Especially with the rape trial coming up, where I was going to have to face Peter again. She couldn’t bear to see me face even more shit.” I swallowed thickly. “So we covered it up.”
“How?”
“Well, before we had Mignon, we had a black Labrador named Tara. She was old, but she had the energy of a puppy right up until the day she died, and she loved going on walks. My dad used to take her every morning.” I sat up straighter and took a deep breath. “You know the wooded area behind my house?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a bunch of trails in there. One of them leads all the way up to the edge of an abandoned quarry. It’s a big one, too. Really steep cliffs.” I twisted my hands again, heart thudding painfully in my chest. “Anyway, it’s a twenty minute walk from our house, so my dad used to take Tara there and back every morning before work. Mom and I decided to use that to our advantage. We got an old carpet and rolled him up in it. Then we put him in the back of his truck, waited until two in the morning, and drove to a lookout that’s near part of the old quarry trail. We dragged him to the edge of the trail together, and then we unrolled the carpet and let his body fall off the cliff.”
Hunter rubbed his brows. “Right,” he muttered. “What then?”
“We went home, burned the carpet and scrubbed the back of his truck. Then the next day, we reported him missing. We told the police that he’d gone for his usual morning walk with Tara, but only the dog came back.” I stopped to scratch my chin. “At first they told us it was probably nothing. Everyone around town knew he was a big drinker, so they thought he probably just took a few beers with him on his walk, lost track of time, and ended up lost in the woods somewhere. They said he’d probably turn up by the afternoon.”
“And then?”
“They started to take it seriously once two whole days had passed, and he hadn’t shown up to a single one of his handyman jobs. They sent out a team to look for him on the trail he always walked along, and then on the third day, they found his body in the quarry below it.” I paused and exhaled loudly. “We were terrified. We thought they’d know right away that he didn’t just slip and fall. But we were lucky. They didn’t investigate it too thoroughly. After all, it was just a poor dead guy in a little hick town.”
“Right.”
“They still did an autopsy, because they had to, and the coroner said he had severe head injuries consistent with a long fall onto rocks. So his death was ruled an accident.” I sighed heavily. “But… it wasn’t. Mom and I killed him and covered it up. Then you found out, and I guess the rest is history.”
Hunter stared at me, eyes wide. He looked oddly confused. “That’s it? That’s the whole story?”
“Yup.” I let out another deep sigh. “Even though you kidnapped me and tortured me this weekend, the shitty thing is that I can honestly say I’ve had worse days before.”
Hunter’s eyes went even wider. He didn’t say anything. Just sat there looking deeply bewildered, wringing his hands in his lap.
I cleared my throat again. “So… now you know everything. Every nitty-gritty detail of why I did what I did. I know there’s no excuse for killing someone and covering it up, no matter how awful that person was, but I hope you can at least try to understand. I’m not a ‘filthy fucking murderer’ like you said the other day. I’m a murderer, sure, but I’m not a bad person. I swear. I would never hurt someone like that ever again.”
Hunter scrubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t understand,” he said in a low voice. “That’s really the person you killed? That’s it?”