Marked (A Dark Serial Killer Romance)

“Are you sure it’s okay? Us being out?” I ask, while gesturing to the next street for Zack to make his turn.

“It’s fine. I have it handled,” he assures me again, and I trust him. It’s been so long since I met someone and didn’t second guess their motives or their words. What Zack says is what he means.

“Okay.” I sigh. “She’s the last house on the right.”

Mom’s outside, watering the rose garden Dad put in when I was a kid. She’s wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and has on her gardening gloves. She must have been weeding; the knees of her denim capris have green spots on them.

She turns off the hose when she sees us climb out of Zack’s car and turns a bright smile at me.

“Harley.” She plucks off her gloves. “I wasn’t expecting you, honey.” She hugs me and kisses my left cheek.

“Sorry. I tried calling, but you must have been out here already.” I gesture to the garden. “The roses are looking good this year.”

She sighs, like keeping up with them is a heavy burden.

“They are. Your dad would be happy.” She turns to Zack. “And who’s this?” She lifts her left eyebrow at me.

“This is Zack.” I link my arm through his.

“Well. Hello, Zack.” Mom offers her hand with a smile, and he takes it.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Turner.” He turns his attention to the garden. The front of the house is reserved for roses, and she’s done an amazing job keeping what Dad planted and adding even more. It really is beautiful. “You definitely have a green thumb.”

She laughs.

“I’m a forced gardener. I only keep this up because it would have made my husband happy.” Her smile twitches a little on the edges. “What are you two up to today?” She asks.

“You messaged me yesterday about the upstairs toilet running. Did you get it fixed?” I ask.

“Oh. No, but you didn’t have run over here for that. It can wait, I don’t go up there that often.” She gathers up the bucket of weeds and the small shovel. “But since you’re here.” She grins and leads us into the house.

After dropping her things in the mudroom just off the front entrance, we climb the short set of stairs to the living room.

“I’m gonna wash up real quick.” She disappears into the bathroom.

“Thanks for coming with me, it will only take a second. I bet the chain’s just wrapped around the thingy again,” I tell Zack.

He smiles at me, like he’s amused. “The thingy?”

“Yes.” I nod. “The thingy.”

“All right.” She’s back, and she’s brought three bottles of water. Zack and I both take one, but neither of us opens it.

“Your picture is crooked, mind if I fix it?” Zack points to the family portrait hanging on the wall over the television.

She tenses but gives an abrupt nod. “I was dusting this morning,” she explains.

He reaches over the television, mindful of the small basket of flowers there, and pushes the left side of the frame up until it’s level again.

“It’s a nice photograph.” He steps back. I catch my mother’s eyes lingering on him before moving to the photo.

“It was taken a year before my husband passed.” She puts her water down and joins him, pointing at my father. “Richard was diagnosed with lung cancer a week after we took it.”

My heart aches with the memories of my father’s illness.

“It must have been a horrible time for you all,” Zack says softly.

She raises her chin. “It was. He was very ill for a long time. None of the treatments worked.” She slips her hands into her back pockets, making her elbows stick out. “We spent every last penny we had trying to make him better, and then some.” She sighs.

“Dad lost his job and his health insurance, so a lot of the bills piled up.” I lean back on the couch.

“Harley was a good nurse though.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “He could always count on his little Harley.”

Zack’s shoulders lift.

Maybe it’s her tone. Sometimes there’s a touch of bitterness in it, but she doesn’t mean anything by it. Sometimes the memories mix together with the pain, and it colors her tone.

“A bit of a daddy’s girl, was she?” Zack smiles at her, and from his profile I notice a deep crinkling around his eyes. It makes him look more distinguished.

“She was definitely his favorite.”

“Dad didn’t have a favorite,” I interject. “He was just as close to Quinn.”

My mother’s body goes rigid at the sound of my sister’s name. An ache builds in my chest. I’ve triggered a deep pain.

“He wasn’t. And you know it.” She turns enough for me to see her deep-set frown. In a blink, it’s gone. “Wow, it must be warmer outside than I thought.” She touches her forehead, like the heat is the reason for the bite in her words.

“It’s supposed to be pretty humid tonight, too,” I say. Talking about Dad and Quinn stirs up a lot for her and seeing her in pain makes me ache to fix it. She’s been through so much, and she’s done everything she could to protect me from the horrors of our past.

“I’ll make sure to turn the air down then. You know I can’t sleep if I’m too hot.” She smiles, then reaches over and pats my arm. “Since you’re here, mind checking that toilet?”

“Of course. That’s why I stopped by.” I put the water bottle down on a coaster with a smile. If I can project enough normalcy, maybe it will finally stick. A mom asking a daughter for a favor, can’t be more normal than that.

“Think I need my tools from the car?” Zack asks.

“No. It’s the thingy, I told you.” I smile at him as we walk through the dining room to the stairs leading up to the second floor.

“Quinn and I had separate rooms up here, with a shared bathroom. Mom and Dad’s room is downstairs, just off the living room,” I explain as we step off the stairs into the small upstairs foyer.

“My room is on the left, her room was the right, and the bathroom’s right there.” I take short steps forward to the closed door and push it open.

The phone rings from my old bedroom. I like to tease Mom that she has the last landline in Chicago.

Mom’s right, the toilet is running. After lifting the lid of the tank, I find the problem and untangle the thin chain. Problem solved. “See. The little thingy.” I turn around with a wide smile, but Zack’s not behind me. He’s pushed the door to my old bedroom open to step inside, and my mother’s voice carries out from inside.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice is sharp, coming through the answering machine still attached to the phone I had in my room as a teenager.

I lean against the doorframe of my bedroom. She hasn’t touched it since I moved out after college. And she never let me change it during high school. After Quinn was gone, she wanted everything in the house to stay still. Unchanging.

The therapist she dragged me to suggested the familiarity might be good in order to get my memory back. And Mom did anything the doctors told her would help me.

Even while going through the worst event of her life, and dealing with guilt, and pain, and horror, she was always there, carrying around a safety net beneath me. If I fell, Mom was there to catch me.

Sometimes, realizing how horrible it was for her makes my own guilt worse. But I can’t tell her that. I won’t be the cause of any more of her pain.

“Mrs. Turner. After your daughter’s death, you managed to pay off all of your debts. It totaled well above three-hundred thousand dollars,” the caller on the other end of the line says.

“Well,” my mom scoffs. “The community came together to help me. There were donations.”

“Yes, I found that in my research. But the donations weren’t enough to pay–”

“Why can’t you leave us alone? My daughter was murdered for Christ’s sake! And you want to dig it all up again? Just leave us alone!” my mother yells and slams the phone down.

I bring my gaze to Zack, who’s watching me.

“I fixed the toilet.” I turn away from the room. He follows me out, shutting my door quietly and crossing the small hallway to Quinn’s room.

“Zack, wait.” I try to stop him, but he’s already inside.

I step in behind him.

My heart aches at the scene.

She’s done nothing in here.

The bedding Quinn slept on is still on the unmade bed. A rocking chair is the only addition to the room.

“Mom sits in here sometimes,” I say, lightly pushing the rocking chair until it starts to move. It creaks as it sways.

“She’s kept it clean.” Zack wipes a finger over the dresser.

“Harley?” Mom drops my name behind me like a hammer through the wood flooring. “Honey, what are you doing in Quinn’s room?” She hurries inside and steps in front of Zack, who is standing next to Quinn’s desk. Her journal sits opened to the last page she was writing on.

“Who was on the phone?” I ask. She’s distracted with us being in this holy place, she might actually give me the truth.

“A reporter. Please. please, get out.” She spreads her arms and shoos us from the room.

Once in the hallway she pulls the door closed, leans her forehead against it, and closes her eyes. We’ve tainted the room for her.

“What reporter?”

She spins around, pressing her back to the door, as though to protect the precious space from us.

“You know how they get this time of year.” Her pale blue eyes land on me.

I nod. “I do. I’m sorry, Mom.”

She takes a deep breath and pushes on a brave front. I’ve seen her do this so many times over the years, it’s not really necessary anymore.

“Did you fix the toilet?” She moves to the bathroom and leans in. “Thank you, hun.”

“No problem. It was just the chain. Do you want me to show you again?” I offer, but she shakes her head.

“That’s fine. Thank you.” She leads us to the stairs, and I nod my head for Zack to follow her.

Once we’re back in the living room, I sit on the couch, Zack next to me while Mom takes the recliner facing us. She fidgets with her hands. We must have really unsettled her by going into Quinn’s room.

“I saw Special Agent Laurens yesterday,” I blurt out before I can find a tactful way of saying it. But since she’s already on edge, might as well get it over with.

Now that memories are coming back, I could use her help to sort them in the right order. Zack also wants to be sure she’s protected.

If Special Agent Laurens is as dirty as we think she is, Mom could be in danger, too.

“Why would you see her?” The question drops like a bowling ball between us, but she recovers quickly and pushes on a gentle smile. “I’m sorry. It’s just I thought she stopped working on the case.”

“Well.” I take deep breath. “I remembered something, Mom. A name. Actually a few things, really, but the name came first.” I squeeze my knees. “Artie Anderson. And another name, Vince.”

Her jaw clenches, but it’s so faint, I’m not really sure I saw it.

“Artie Anderson?” She shakes her head. “I don’t remember anyone by that name.”

“He’s the one who held us in the…” I stop. Fuck this is hard. And I know I’m cutting into a barely healed wound for her. “He was the one who held us wherever we were held.”

“They never figured out where we were kept, Harley,” she reminds me. We weren’t found by the police. We’d been dumped at our local hospital, unconscious. Quinn’s body was dumped, too. It’d been washed completely of any traces of any evidence. Not a shred of evidence on any of us was found.

“I know, but I remember. It was dark, I remember that. And you weren’t with us for most of the time. I remembered that, too.” I start talking fast, now, as the memories start to uncover themselves. “And there was a lot of metal-on-metal sounds. I thought it was just the door, but I think maybe there were cars around us? Oil? Maybe gasoline? Something like that I remember smelling.”

I take a breath. It’s all starting to get clearer.

“Harley,” my mom whispers my name.

I hadn’t realized I stood up. I’m standing over her.

Slowly, I sink back onto the couch. Zack puts his hand on my knee. A comforting touch that grounds me.

“You told Special Agent Laurens all of this?” She asks softly, like she’s worried.

“No, just the name. Everything else started coming after I spoke with her.” I force my shoulders to relax. “I know it’s hard, and with the…I’m sorry, Mom.”

Zack squeezes my knee.

“It’s really hard, I’m sure for both of you,” Zack says quietly, drawing her out as she tries to fold into herself.

“You’re not trying to find him, are you?” She asks me, leaning forward. “You can’t go poking around this, Harley. It’s not safe. Honey, I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She swallows. “You’re all I have left. I can’t lose you too.” Her voice cracks with her worry.

“Why isn’t it safe?” I ask. “Do you remember that name? Or what Vince looked like? Do you?”

She shakes her head. “Please.” Jumping up from the recliner she paces the room. “Harley. We can’t do this. Honey, we have to move on. We have to accept what happened, and just move on.”

“But don’t you want them to pay for it?” I push. “I mean, they made you–” my words cut short when her eyes snap to me. Fear trembles her.

“Please, promise me you’ll let this go. Don’t go poking.” She glares down at me, and I haven’t seen her this angry since the night I snuck back into the house after sneaking out in high school through Quinn’s bedroom window.

“All right, Mom.” I get up from the couch and make my way to her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up, I’m sorry.” I haven’t just scratched a wound, I think I’ve made a new one. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper.

Her bottom lip trembles.

“I’m not sure the memories coming back are a good thing, Harley. It’s a lot to remember, to sort through. It’s going to be like going through it all over again.”

She’s not wrong, but at least the fog will be gone. I will at least see the demons I’ve been fighting.

“Promise me you’ll stop.” Her hands are cold when she grabs mine. “Please, honey. I don’t want you to go through all that again.”

“All right, Mom. I promise.” The fear rolls off of her, surrounds me.

She searches my eyes. I’ve never been able to lie to her, she can always sense it.

“I will stop,” I say more firmly.

“Good.” She drops my hands, sucks in a deep breath. “Now. If you don’t mind. I think I need to lie down for a bit.” She touches her forehead again.

“Yeah, Mom. Of course,” I say, glancing at Zack. He’s stayed out of our interaction, but he’s been mentally making notes. I can see it in his expression. He has a definite opinion, and a dark spot in my gut tells me I’m not going to like it.

“Zack, it was nice meeting you. I hope you’ll come back again some other time, and we can have dinner.” Her manners will always overrule her emotions. Being rude to a guest just won’t do.

“Of course.” He stands up and inclines his head.

She flashes a fake smile, then heads to her bedroom, silently shutting the door behind herself.

“Let’s go.” He gestures to the front door. “She needs to sleep.”

I climb down the front steps onto the lawn and turn back at the house.

“She’s never gotten that upset before. I mean it always upsets her if we talk about what happened, about Quinn. But this was different. She was panicked.”

He nods.

“I made it harder.” I turn toward the stairs. “I need to make it better.”

“She’s all right, Harley. She just needs to rest.” He stops me.

I look back at the house, then at him. He’s right. I know he is.

“C’mon let’s get in the car.” He leads me to the car, opening my door for me before rounding the front and getting in on his side.

“What’s wrong?” I ask when he throws the car into drive and peels away from her house. “You look like something’s wrong.”

“Let me do a little digging before I say, all right? Until I know for sure?” He shifts gears and turns down a main road.

“All right.” I settle into my seat. “I can do that.”

He pets my leg. “Good girl.”

And with two words, my heart stops racing and my mind quiets.