Bex’s eyes flashed toward the screen again, toward Michael and Denise with their drawn faces looking worried in front of her. Until now?
She reeled. No. There was no way.
For the first few years after her father left, there was nothing. When she was ten, there were signs, though Bex could never be sure if they were from him or if she had made them up—mumbled wrong numbers or hang-ups in the middle of the night. Blank postcards with Beth Anne’s name written in a scrawl she never recognized. There was nothing concrete that said that he was out there, that he was innocent and missing her and thinking of her—except that the killing stopped.
Girls went missing from Raleigh and the Research Triangle in those other years, sure. And girls were murdered. But they didn’t have his signature. Their names were never splashed across newspaper pages in thick, black headlines or run along the bottom of the screen news tickers with phrases like,
Wife Collector Claims a New Bride.
Beth Anne tried to believe that meant that he was innocent, that the real killer had moved on. The police believed that meant he was guilty and that he had moved on. When she had the stomach for it, she checked the Internet, doing blanket searches for sensational murders with victims missing digits. When nothing came up, a stripe of relief shot down her back because her father was out there and women were still alive. But nobody wanted to hear that. Nobody wanted to believe that, because Jackson Reimer was allegedly the Wife Collector—and even if he wasn’t anymore, Beth Anne Reimer would always be the Wife Collector’s daughter.
Heat prickled the back of her neck, and Bex prayed that Michael and Denise couldn’t see the sheen of sweat that popped out on her upper lip. Guilt or fear or doubt sped up her heartbeat, and she gripped the edges of the table before shaking her head quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I-I guess I’m just a little nervous to start school. You know, new place, new people, and all.”
Michael set the water glass down in front of Bex. He tried to look cool, but Bex could see him and Denise exchange a glance.
Great. They already think I’m a nut job.
She downed the water in one gulp and tried to put the news clip—and her father—out of her mind. “I should probably just get to bed. Jet lag and all.”
Bex stood and climbed the stairs, feeling Michael and Denise looking curiously after her, probably wondering how a quick jaunt across the state could cause jet lag. But Bex wasn’t in the mood to argue. The image of the girl on the screen was burned into her mind—because I’ve seen it before, that little voice protested. No. Bex shook her head. My father is gone and this is—what? A coincidence?
Every molecule inside her went white-hot and willed her to run: run downstairs and flick the TV back on, listen to the news, to the solemn cadence of the anchorwoman’s voice. Listen for the one detail that hadn’t been mentioned…
Bex remembered another living room, the light from the TV flickering silver over her father’s face as he watched the news at their house on Flame Court. In her mind, she heard the chime—bum, bum, BUMMM!—of the Raleigh Super Eight news.
Though the authorities are being understandably tight-lipped about the details surrounding the discovery of this most recent body, they are willing to say that preliminary reports suggest she is most likely another of the Wife Collector’s victims. Like the three previous, this current victim is female, blond, in her late teens to early twenties, and missing her left-hand ring finger—what has become known as this particular killer’s “signature.”
Bex remembered the fear that had trilled through her, that narrow knife slice of nausea as she thought about this poor, young blond woman—cold, dumped at the edge of Raleigh’s industrial district, and missing her finger.
“Daddy?” she had asked.
Her father had paused a beat before clicking off the television and turning to her. “Yes, Bethy?”
“That won’t happen to me, right? The Wife Collector. You won’t let him get me?”
Bex tried to think back—had thought back so many times to that moment when her childish voice called out and her father stared at her. How had he looked? Guilty? Pleased? Smug? Was there any tiny nuance in his expression, in his voice that Bex could pick up on and point to as the aha moment as evidence of her father’s guilt or innocence?