“We could’ve gotten away,” Alice said.
“Yeah. It would’ve been a cinch. There was only Wesley. He didn’t have a gun or anything, either. But he said he’d kill Mom and Dad if we didn’t do everything he told us.”
“And he told us to get in the cages.”
“So then he ended up killing them, anyhow—only not right away.”
“Maybe not Mom.” Alice sounded a little offended.
“If he didn’t kill her, where is she?”
I figured I knew where she was, but I kept my mouth shut.
“I don’t know,” Alice muttered.
For my benefit, Erin explained, “He kept Mom in one of the cages just like the rest of us. Dad, too, but they took him away a long time ago. With Mom, she was here the whole time till she got away.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“A few nights ago.”
“Four,” Alice said. “Counting tonight.”
Four. That would’ve been the night I hiked upstream, searched our battlefield, and found the woman at the bottom of the lagoon.
“Yeah,” Erin said. “They were bringing Mom back to her cage after… it was her night for going to the house. She hadn’t ever tried anything before. Because of us, you know? What Wesley said he’d do to us if she ever tried to escape. But she figured we didn’t stand any chance unless she made a getaway. Then she could sneak back, you know? And save us. So she waited till they were trying to put her back inside her cage, and then she shoved free and made a run for it. They both went chasing after her, though. And they got her.”
“Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t,” Alice said.
“They got her.”
“Just because they said so…”
“Come on, Alice. You think they would’ve been acting like that if they hadn’t caught Mom? You know darn well.”
Alice went silent.
I thought about asking more questions. What time had their mother made her break? Were they familiar with the lagoon? How far was the lagoon from here?
But I didn’t have to ask.
The dead woman I’d found in the water had to be their mother. Who else could it be?
And Matt, I’d already figured out, was their father.
Wesley had made orphans out of these kids.
One of his many crimes, and one of his worst.
“Anyhow,” Erin said, “back to what I was saying. The day Wesley got here? We all ended up in cages. Then he hung around for a couple of days. He never did anything to Dad, but he like… took turns… fooled around with the rest of us.”
“He likes to hurt people,” Alice muttered.
“He’d take us out of our cages. Just one at a time. And make us do stuff.”
“Awful stuff,” Alice added.
“And if we didn’t do everything just right, he’d make someone else pay for it. Like he wanted me to… do something to him. I wouldn’t. So then he put me back in my cage and took Mom out. He whipped her right in front of us, then made her do it to him. ’Cause I’d said I wouldn’t.”
Erin’s hand felt hot and sweaty, holding mine. I gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Anyhow,” she said, “he did that sort of stuff to us right from the start, when he was here the first time. He didn’t stay very long, that time. When he went away, he left us in our cages with some food and water, and said he’d come back.”
“But not when,” Alice added.
“Yeah. After a while, we started to think he wasn’t gonna come back at all. We got really low on the food and water. Before it was totally gone, though, we heard this huge explosion.”
“Our yacht going up in smoke?” I asked.
“Yeah. And next thing we knew, he was back. He came in from the jungle, all smiling and happy.”
“And not wearing a stitch,” Alice added.
“He hardly ever does,” Erin said. “Like he thinks everybody wants to be looking at his thing all the time.”
“Which they don’t.”
“Not me.”
“Did he say how he blew up the yacht?” I asked.
“Sure,” Erin said. “He bragged all about how easy it was. He used that razor of his to cut open a fuel line. Down in the engine compartment? Then he made a fuse out of a bedsheet. After he lit it, he snuck overboard and swam away underwater.”
“He was laughing about it,” Alice said. “He thought he was so smart.”
“He outsmarted us, all right,” I told them. “We all thought he blew it up by accident and got himself killed.”
“That’s what he wanted you to think,” Erin explained. “Billie says you figured it out pretty quick, though.”
“Well, we guessed. After people started getting murdered. I mean, who else could’ve been doing it? As far as we knew, the island was uninhabited. We didn’t know there was a whole family… Are there any others?”
“Other what?” Erin asked.
“People. Families. Houses. Do you have neighbors?”
“We’re it.”
“Nobody here but us,” Alice said.
“We had the island all to ourselves. It was great. Until Wesley came along.”
“Mom and Dad brought us here so we’d be safe,” Alice said. “That’s a good one, huh?”
“We lived in Los Angeles,” Erin said. “We moved when the riot happened. That was the last straw, you know? They were afraid we’d all get killed, or something. They wanted to take us someplace where we wouldn’t need to worry about stuff like crime and drugs.”
“And look what happened,” Alice said.
“We know what happened,” Erin told her. “But it was great while it lasted.” To me, she said, “We did home study. No school. Mom and Dad taught us. She used to be a schoolteacher, and Dad was a writer. It was great, not going to some awful school full of nasty kids. And we went swimming and fishing almost every day. It was the greatest, till Wesley came along and ruined everything.”
“I wish we’d stayed in Los Angeles,” Alice said.
“No, you don’t.”
“Mom and Dad’d still be alive.”
“Maybe. But you never know. Maybe the quake would’ve killed us all.”
“Would’ve been better than this.”
“No, it wouldn’t have been.”
“I’d rather be dead,” Alice blurted. “I’d rather be dead any day of the week than get… Rupert, you don’t know what he does to us.”
“Huh-uh,” I said.
I wasn’t about to let on that I’d watched him and Thelma with Erin. It would’ve been too embarrassing. And it would’ve made the twins wonder what was wrong with me—how come I watched them mess with Erin, but didn’t try to help her?
“They play with us,” Alice said. “It’s bad enough we’ve gotta stay in these cages, but it’s a lot worse when they take us out. They take us out to play with us. They play dress-up with us. They play house with us. They make us eat with them and dance for them and fight with them. Anything they can think of, they make us do. And it always ends up the same way, with getting beaten to a pulp and getting fucked.”
“Hey,” Erin said. “You don’t have to get crude about it.”
“It is crude. Everything about it is crude! I wish I was dead!”
“No, you…”
“Hey! Knock it off! Jesus H. Christ, it’s the middle of the night. Some of us are trying to sleep around here, thank you very much.”
“Connie?” I said.
Silence.
Then she asked, “Who said that?”
“Me.”
More silence.
Then, “Rupert?”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“Holy fucking shit! Rupert!”