Still Lake - Anne Stuart [50]
Sophie really had no intention of searching Grace’s room. She was merely interested in snitching her resurfaced copy of Murder in the Northeast Kingdom. It should have been lying on top of Grace’s neatly made bed, or in an orderly pile on the floor beside it.
It was nowhere.
There were books arranged neatly, by size, in the bookcase, but amid all the Ted Bundys and Boston Stranglers there wasn’t a Vermont killer to be found. On a whim Sophie looked under the bed, but there wasn’t even a stray dust bunny. When she opened the closet it was more like the old Grace—clothes piled on the floor, hung on hooks instead of hangers, her shoes caked with dried mud.
Sophie closed the door again, thoughtful. When had Grace wandered out on a muddy path? She tried to keep track of her—the only time she thought Grace wasn’t accounted for was when she’d visited their surly neighbor in her bare feet. So when had she gone traipsing through the mud? And why?
She leaned against the closet door, staring at her mother’s room as if looking for answers. Her windows were open, and she could hear Grace’s soft voice from the porch as she said goodbye to Doc. She’d come inside then, only to find her daughter searching her room, Sophie thought, suddenly ashamed of herself. If she wanted to read the book all she had to do was ask her mother.
Except that the book had disappeared, and Grace wouldn’t remember where she’d put it.
There was something deeply shameful about spying on one’s mother, Sophie thought, opening the dresser drawers as quietly as possible. Even if it was for Grace’s own protection, it felt strange, uncomfortable. After all, what did she expect to find? She’d stopped looking for the book—if she really wanted it she could probably get it online. It wasn’t as if she had any interest in the old killings, apart from trying to figure out what John Smith’s particular fascination with them was. So why was she rifling her mother’s drawers?
They were like the closet, jumbled, messy, everything mixed together. The expensive lacy stuff that Grace had always preferred, mixed with the utilitarian cotton that Sophie had bought her on the premise that they were easier to launder. No missing paperback to be found, and Sophie had no earthly reason to keep searching.
Until she found the knife.
He would pray for their souls, he thought, bowing his head. His true path was being pointed out to him, and there was no way he could shun his duty, much as it pained him. The righteous must triumph, the wicked must perish, or there would be no meaning to life, and he had to cling to the belief that it all meant something, otherwise why would God have taken his children from him?
The wicked would die, the righteous would be born again, and he would grieve his part in meting out justice.
Not the fact that he must kill them.
But his pleasure in the act.
Three of them in that old house. Three women, all sinful in their souls, from the old, crazy one to the randy young one. And even the Madonna in the middle was courting temptation. It would be a gift, to have her die in a state of grace. He would tell her he killed the others, so she wouldn’t worry. She worried too much about her small family. She would be much happier knowing they were no longer her responsibility.
He could do it all, though it grieved him. He was young, strong, immovable with the Lord’s wrath to guide him. He would take them all. And then maybe he could sleep at night.
11
Sophie woke up with a start, her heart pounding, covered in a film of cold sweat. The moon was shining in her window, almost daylight bright despite the late hour, and she sat up, letting her eyes focus on the dark shapes in the room. They seemed to shift and move, but it was only the shadow of the tab curtains moving in the breeze from the open