SHIVER
By
Suzanne Wright
Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2018 Suzanne Wright
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2018 Suzanne Wright
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For Mrs G, because you always encouraged me to ‘think’ and ‘theorize’ and ‘question.’ Sound advice for me.
CHAPTER ONE
Kensey Lyons, age 7
I sat on the hard chair, legs swinging, as my mom boasted, “She received the Student of the Week award.”
My dad’s eyes briefly slid to me, gleaming with pride. “Again?”
“And her teacher was so impressed with Kensey’s story that she read it out loud to the entire class.”
“Well, of course she was impressed,” he said. “I love all the stories that Kensey writes for me.”
My mom looked down at me. “Oh, give Daddy the picture you drew.”
I handed him the folded piece of paper. He reached for it with a smile, and his handcuffs rattled.
I stilled. Don’t look at them, I told myself.
Like always, I tried to pretend they weren’t there. Just like I tried to pretend that he was wearing a normal shirt, not a bright orange tee. Just like I tried to pretend we were sitting at the kitchen table at home, not at a desk that was fastened to the floor in the cold, dull place that smelled of metal and concrete.
There were no homey sounds of a fire popping, curtains rustling, or a washing machine chugging. Only the sounds of door buzzers, echoing footsteps, and iron doors sliding open and closed.
Before I was old enough to understand what prison was, I’d once asked why he never went home with us. He’d said, “Daddy did something bad, angel. What happens when we do bad things?”
I’d thought about the times my mom told me “no TV” when I didn’t tidy my room. “We’re punished,” I’d replied.
He’d nodded and said, “That’s right. Daddy did something bad, and now he has to stay here.”
At the time, I’d thought the “something bad” couldn’t be very bad. My daddy loved me, and I loved him right back. He drew me pictures, wrote me poems and stories, and sent me lots and lots of letters. He always smiled at me, hugged me, and kissed my cheeks. Never got mad or mean. Always told me that he loved me and was proud of me. Sometimes his eyes would turn hard, but never when he looked at me.
Holding my picture like it was something precious, he smiled. “It’s beautiful. Very creative. Thank you, baby. Now I have another to stick on my wall.” He tipped his head. “You’re quiet today. What’s going on in that clever head of yours, my Kensey?”
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want my mom to know that anything was wrong. But there was no point in saying that I was fine. He always knew when I lied. Like he had a superpower. “I heard something.” I hadn’t meant to whisper it.
“What did you hear?” he asked gently.
I didn’t want to say it out loud. Couldn’t. “It was the girls. At school. One of them heard their parents talking about it, and she told the others.” And then they’d all teased me about it at recess and called him horrible names, but I didn’t say that. It would only make my mom cry.
“Talking about what?”
“You.”
“I see. What did you hear them say?”
I swallowed. “That you killed people,” I whispered. “Ladies. Lots of them.” My mom sucked in a breath.
His gentle expression never changed. “Is that all that the girls said?”
Slowly, I shook my head. “They said you’re not my daddy. Said that Mommy married you while you were already in prison.” They’d also said that my real dad was married to someone else and that he was a lot older than my mom.
“You listen to me, my Kensey. There’s a very big difference between a father and a daddy. I had a father, but he wasn’t in my life, so he wasn’t my daddy. See the difference?”
I nodded once. “Yes.”
“Your father isn’t in your life—which just goes to show that he’s stupid—but I am part of your life. I’m your daddy. Don’t let anyone make you think differently.”
Again, I nodded.
“You’ll hear more bad things about me, angel. Some will be true, some won’t be. You can always ask me about it. I’ll tell you as much of the truth as I can—some things you’re not old enough to understand yet. But no matter what you hear, you must never, ever forget one very important thing—Daddy loves you. Okay?”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
Kensey, age 10
Pushing myself off the ground, I looked at my knee. It was an angry red with a big cut slicing down the middle of it.
“You’re gonna need a band-aid,” said Sarah Armstrong, my best friend.
I didn’t like wearing band-aids. They itched, and my mom would use that antiseptic cream that stung—my knee was sore enough as it was. Like someone was pricking it with lots of needles.
Cade’s nose wrinkled. “Ew. The blood’s starting to drip.”
Sarah scowled at her older brother. “This is your fault, dumbass. You tripped her up.”
“No, I tackled her. That’s what you do when you play soccer. And you’re not supposed to say ‘dumbass,’ dumbass.”
She sniffed at him. “Idiot.” Turning to me, she took my elbow. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
We went through the backdoor of my house, straight into the kitchen that smelled of the lemon cleaning spray my mom used. As we got close to the living room, I stopped. Because I could hear sniffling.
“Tell me the truth, Clear, what’s got you in such a state?” asked Sherry, who was Sarah and Cade’s mom. She was also my mom’s friend—only friend, really—and my godmother.
“A TV producer called last week,” replied my mom. “He’s doing a documentary on serial killers. He wants to include Michael. He went to the prison to interview him.”
“I’ll bet Michael loved that.”
“No, he turned the guy away. Michael doesn’t like it when the media drags his name into the spotlight all over again—he doesn’t want any of that crap touching Kensey.” Mom sniffled again. “I told the producer that I wasn’t interested in being interviewed for his documentary. He turned up at the house a few days ago, offering more money. I said no again. Then …”
“Then, what?” pushed Sherry.
“He went to Kensey’s school today; tried to talk to her through the gates during recess.”
“What?”
“He took pictures of her.”
“Bastard,” Sherry muttered. “How is Kensey?”
My belly rolled, like I’d be sick, as I remembered the stranger calling out to me and asking me to come closer. But I hadn’t moved then, and I didn’t move now. Even though I could feel blood trickling down my leg, wet and warm, I didn’t move.
“She seems fine. She didn’t talk to him; she screamed ‘stranger danger’ and had everybody running over there. God, Michael’s going to be so mad when he hears about this.”
“Really?” Sherry sounded like she didn’t believe that.
“He loves her. He loves me.”
“Do you really believe that? Honestly?”
“He started receiving proposals from women literally the day he was dumped in that place,” my mom said, voice sort of … sharp.
“Incarcerated, not dumped.”
“He receives over two hundred letters a day from groupies. When
I wrote to him, I didn’t think he’d ask me to visit him, but he did. Do you hear that? I didn’t just turn up. He invited me.”
“I know all this, Clear, but—”
“He was so nice. He seemed to see just how lonely I was. He knows what it’s like to be alone. He admires me for not aborting Kensey or giving her away; for trying to make a good life for us.”
I frowned, wondering what ‘aborting’ meant.
“The moment he laid eyes on her, he fell in love with her. He proposed to me. Out of all those women trying to get his attention, professing their undying love, and asking him to marry them, he. Chose. Me.” My mom took a shaky breath. “You know the story of his upbringing. You know his mother went through the same thing that I did. But she didn’t love him. She let her boyfriends abuse him and then she gave him away. No, she sold him. Sold him for crack to sick bastards who did despicable things to him.”
My hands balled up and I swallowed hard. What mom would sell their kid?
“And when he looks at you, Clear, he sees that he was right—his mother could have done better by him, and he was right to kill her and all those other women that were substitutes for her. Are you hearing me, Clear? He murdered his own mother. Murdered a bunch of other—”
“I know what he did, Sherry.”
I started to shake. My mom had told me that the girls at school lied; that he hadn’t killed anyone. But he had. Tears blurred my vision, and my eyes stung just as bad as the cut on my knee. Blood was still dripping down my leg, wetting my sock, but I still didn’t move.
“He’s different now,” said my mom. “Like he said, prison changes people. They have nothing but time. Time to think and reflect. He’s sorry for what he did.”
“He’s a sociopath, Clear. They don’t feel love or guilt or remorse.”
“I don’t believe that. Maybe he simply feels a different kind of love. Heaven knows I’ve seen plenty of men have affairs when they supposedly love their wives. Honestly, I think most of them do love their wives. But if they still find that having affairs is okay, they feel the kind of love that I don’t understand.”
“What do you think would happen if Michael ever got out of prison? He won’t. He’ll never even be up for parole. But what do you honestly think would happen if he was released?”
“I think we’d all be happy.”
“I think he’d kill again.”
That was when I ran back outside.
Kensey, age 15
Back hurting from the weight of my backpack, I adjusted the strap on my shoulder. Almost home, I thought, as I reached the curb. It had been a shitty day that consisted of a trigonometry test, a standoff with Libby the Loser, and detention for slapping Libby the Loser. It didn’t matter that the bony bitch had started it. Nope. And it never did.
Well, whatever.
Once there was a lull in the busy traffic, I crossed the street and strode up the path of my yard. I frowned when I saw that the front door was ajar, and then I heard arguing.
“We’re not moving,” clipped Clear.
“You don’t belong in Redwater. Never have.”
I knew that voice. Eloise Buchanan. Not a pleasant woman, by anyone’s standards. The Buchanan family was wealthy and stuck-up. Eloise, the ‘matriarch’ of the family, was the Principal of a snooty private school in the upper crust of Redwater City, Florida. She was also my paternal grandmother. Biologically, anyway. In practice? Not so much.
“I don’t see why that should bother you, Eloise,” said Clear. “Your family lives at the other end of the city.”
“Yes, and you live here.” There was distaste in her tone. Yeah, well, this neighborhood was a far cry from where the Buchanans lived. There were no private schools, mansions, or pretty sky scrapers here. No, there were run-down houses, derelict buildings, a landfill, and a homeless shelter. There was also a biker compound on the outskirts, which I thought was pretty cool.
“I’m offering you the kind of money that could set you up in a nice place somewhere else,” added Eloise.
“I don’t want your money, and I don’t want to be somewhere else. This is my home. This is my daughter’s home.”
“A daughter who broke my grandson’s nose!”
“Well, if your precious grandson hadn’t come down here to bitch at Kensey, it wouldn’t have happened. He grabbed her by the throat and tried shoving her against a wall! You should be glad that all she did was headbutt him.”
“He was only defending his girlfriend!”
No, he wasn’t. Libby was a First-Class bitch who could create drama in an empty room. One of the reasons she picked on me was to impress my half-brother, Joshua.
“Your daughter threatened Libby,” said Eloise. “She’s completely wild. Always getting into fights.”
Wild? If I wasn’t hanging with Sarah or Cade, I was reading or writing. Hardly a wild lifestyle. And I didn’t get into fights, I fought back when people cornered or hurt me; there was a distinct difference.
“I’ve seen the way she dresses,” Eloise went on. “No girl in their right mind would walk around looking like that. She’s obviously as messed up as the monster you decided to marry.”
A year ago, I adopted a goth-slash-steampunk style. Everything I wore, including my lipstick, was black. And, yeah, maybe I’d taken it a little too far with the multiple facial piercings and the inhuman contact lenses—I was wearing my reptile ones today. But with my fucked-up family situation, I was ripe for bullying. People called me a freak, so I gave them a freak; fought back by taking the sting and power away from their insults.
“There’s nothing wrong with my daughter. And you honestly have the nerve to call her messed up when your grandson actually physically assaulted a young girl?”
“Joshua’s angry, and that’s only to be expected. If you hadn’t seduced my son, Maxwell’s marriage would have been a good one. But Linda could never get past Maxwell’s betrayal and now she’s divorcing him.”
“Can’t say I blame her—she should have done it long ago. As for seducing Maxwell? I was seventeen and naïve enough to believe he loved me and that he was already in the process of divorcing Linda. I thought we’d be a family.”
“Family? You know nothing about family. You humiliated yours when you seduced a married man!”
“Considering your son refuses to acknowledge his daughter and has never paid any money toward her care, I don’t think your family is in a position to throw stones.”
Wealthy and successful, Maxwell could sure afford to tip his gravy our way. Instead, he denied that I was his. As I mostly resembled my half-Latina mother with my dark hair and honey skin tone, he might have gotten away with it … if I hadn’t inherited his mismatched eyes—one green, one blue.
I was a walking, talking reminder of his ruthlessness and infidelity. So, yeah, the Buchanans—or as I affectionately referred to them, ‘the Assholes’—pretty much hated me and Clear. Especially since Clear later went on to marry a convicted serial killer. Being loosely associated with the situation further stained the precious Buchanan name.
“I never asked Maxwell for a single cent,” said Clear. “Never bothered any of you all these years. But you just can’t extend that same courtesy to me, can you?”
“Look at you, acting all innocent and claiming to be the injured party. There’s nothing good about you. No. You claim to love your daughter, but I don’t believe that. You put yourself before her when you married Michael Bale. You had to know what problems it would bring her and how it would darken her life, but you didn’t care about that. No. You only care about you and what you want. I heard about the boy who turned up at her school, ranting and raving that he was Bale’s son and she’d stolen him. That’s the kind of person you invited into her life when you married that monster. The only good thing you did for her was refuse to take his surname.”
I could have told Eloise that she was wasting her time trying to make Clear feel bad for marrying Michael. Nothing would ever make her regret that. Cl
ear had been upset to hear that damn asshole, Ricky Tate, had turned up at my school after sending me weird letters, but not so upset that it made her question her decisions. In fact, she’d cried that she wished she could speak to Michael. She leaned on him like he was a crutch. As for not taking his surname … Clear had actually wanted us both to use it. Michael wouldn’t allow it as it would make me and Clear too easy for reporters to find.
“Michael might have killed,” began Clear, voice shaky, “but he’s done more for Kensey than Maxwell—her biological father—ever has. So tell me, Eloise, what does that say about your son?”
“Come on, Gran, let’s just leave.” Joshua.
The little fucker was in my house? I pushed open the door and strode inside. Standing in the hallway, Eloise put a protective hand on his shoulder.
He sneered. “Well, if it isn’t Redwater City’s very own freak.” He swaggered toward me, punching his fist into his hand. He probably thought it made him seem intimidating. It didn’t.
“You’re walking funny, Joshua. Got your panties in a twist again?”
His squinty eyes flashed, but he forced a smirk. “You don’t look pleased to see me.”
“Do I ever?”
“Joshua, come here,” ordered Eloise.
He ignored her. His attention was solely on me. “You know what’s funny, Lyons?”
“I know it’s not you, so that’s a start.”
Joshua’s smirk died. “Always ready with a smart remark.”
Clear lifted her chin and spoke to Eloise. “I think it’s time that you and your grandson left.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Not until we hear that you and your homewrecking mother are leaving Redwater for good,” Joshua spat.
“You always did reach too high.” I raised a hand. “You don’t want us here, you hate us, you think we’re twisted. This is not new information. Go chat about it to your imaginary friends. They probably think you’re stupid too.”