CHAPTER 159

DARLENE

I ran the brush over the dried husk of the tears that had been streaming down my face once more, trying to straighten the hunch that had grown in my spine in the time it had taken me to wash up and beat the makeup brush over my face.

“Saints, give me strength,” I sighed, ignoring the pain that had begun to throb in my eyeballs. This was the night I was going to tell Frederick everything about Laura, the way she had stalked me in that forest, her house in the killer shack that the detectives were almost certain had been used in killing almost a hundred people.

Detective Bowler had come just before dawn, with haggard pea-black eyes and the leathery skin of his cheek drawn in sad lines.

”Mrs. Alex McKenzie, may I come in? I have a few follow-up questions you must answer,” He jeered, crowding into the doorway when I hesitated and sweeping past me with the hard-eyed officer who had followed him in tow.

The detective did not lie when he told us stories of bodies that had been decapi