Page 60 of The Way We Rot
Looking back up, I waved her concern away. “You should have waited for me to getyousomething. I invited you here.”
She smirked. “Well, you can cover the tab if you like?”
I caught her gaze again, seeing a glimpse of her sister’s cheekiness coming through. But it was different; with Lacey, it had me chuckling and teasing some more. With Penelope, it made me want to choke her. Lean in or lean out.
Chatting with Lacey was simple, and we soon fell into a rhythm of conversation. I took notes about Penelope, a list of places that were important to her growing up, some details about her habits, just listened to Lacey yammer on like her sister wasn’t a serial killer. It would almost be easy to forget why we were here, who we were talking about.
“Penny’s never been totally normal, you know,” Lacey was saying, her eyes a little glazed over as she told me a story about when they were in high school, about how Penny was an outcast, skipping lessons, vandalizing the property, causing low-level mischief. She said it all with a hazy sort of forlornlook on her face, like they were bittersweet memories. “She never did anything bad, but Mom said she had issues with authority since she was in the womb.”
I chuckled, because it felt right, and shared a warm smile with Lacey. She took a deep gulp of her wine and sighed, leaning back in her stool.
“I hate to ask, but…” I let my words fizzle off with a wince, but Lacey frowned and nodded, leaning forward again, elbows on the table.
“She was already halfway to this when it happened,” Lacey whispered. “She found uh… sorry, this is…”
I reached over and grasped her hand, giving a comforting squeeze. She squeezed back with a grateful smile. “Stop, we don’t need to do this. It was inappropriate.”
Tears heated Lacey’s eyes, and I felt like the biggest dick on the planet for even half bringing up her attack. If Penelope had stopped with him, Lacey’s rapist, then the court of public opinion would be well and truly on her side. Lacey turned her palm up and held my hand.
“I just want her safe,” she whispered, the music and chatter of the bar fading away. “They never did listen to me when I told them how unwell she was. I’m sure… look, before anything with me even happened, I’m sure it happened to her too. She changed, Adrian. She changed so much, so suddenly. And the police never wanted to hear it. Something dreadful happened to my sister.”
“She killed three men,” I said, an image of Jake flashing through my mind. I hadn’t told Lacey how deep the connection went, but was tempted then.
Lacey nodded. “And I think with the right intervention we’d learn why.”
I so wanted to understand Lacey’s sympathy, what she thought could be achieved for her sister. Her sister, who was now a prison fugitive, was one of the most looked for and dangerous people in the country according to every news outlet. Even behind the bar, a news report flashed with her mug shot, with reports of the riot and her escape on a loop. They hadn’t figured it out yet, but they would soon.
For a few moments, Penelope stared down at me from that screen, her hair in disarray, eyes wide, manic, a smear of blood hastily wiped from her chin. I’d spent so long staring at her mug shot before her trial, and often since, I knew every shadow and imperfection.
She was under my thumb now, locked up where only I knew, but still, the mug shot haunted me. I might have missed a detail, a clue. With a frown, I turned back to Lacey, who was waiting with a patient smile.
I couldn’t forget who Lacey was to her, why I’d met her in the first place. She was this innocent, easy to hurt and manipulate extension of her evil sister. I squeezed Lacey’s hand a little tighter, and her eyes widened a fraction before she smiled, misunderstanding my intention.
“I’m finding it hard to be here,” I said then, gesturing around, hoping she thought it was because it was loud, busy. “Did you want to go for a walk?”
Lacey tilted her head but nodded. “Sure,” she replied, picking up her wine to finish it off. “I can show you one of the places Penny used to work.”
I gave a smile and tipped my head, like I didn’t already know everything I needed to. But it would get us alone. Away from prying eyes and stifling voices.
Alone with the other, nicer Karner sister was an exciting prospect.
When I walked through the back door of the theater, I half-expected to discover it ransacked, to find Penelope vanished into thin air or brandishing some weapon at me in anger, having freed herself from her bindings and gone rampaging while she waited for my return.
But it was silent. Everything was as I had left it.
The front of the theater was boarded up tight, with bolts across the heavy wooden doors and bars on the inside. No one could see what a fortress it was from the street, and no one could leave without my say so if they happened to be stuck in here.
It was that extra touch of security I needed, though I knew the leather strap around Karner’s body was tight enough, and the drugs in her system kept her lucid but sloppy.
But I’d been gone a few hours, and if anyone had the ingenuity to get herself free, it was my little killer.
Lacey took me to the old diner where Penelope worked before her first killing. It was a real dive, filled only with truckers and drug-dealers, the kind of placethe police only went in when there was a problem. It wasn’t far from here, in the shitty part of town, with tired waitresses and minimal security. The place suited Penny, dirty, low-rent, unsafe.
I offered to buy Lacey a coffee there, but she shook her head, and we carried on our impromptu tour through the town. Their upbringing wasn’t a terrible one, so why Penny had chosen to work in such a hole I didn’t know.
“Penny!” I called, teasing, energy thrumming through my veins after my evening with her sister. My little killer could hear me, I was sure.
And she was mine. However little she wanted to be.
