He didn’t want to know mostly because he simply didn’t want to know. Partly he didn’t want to know because Rhonda clearly had no clue Mike had started a relationship with her sister-in-law and it wasn’t his right to know until Dusty told him.

He opened his mouth to find some way to inform her of this without exposing anything when she kept talking and the acid of her word felt like it flayed away his skin.

“Denny Lowe molested her when she was fifteen.”

Mike stood completely still.

Dennis Lowe had been born in that town. Dennis Lowe had grown up in that town. Dennis Lowe had found a woman in college, married her and brought her back to that town. Years later, Dennis Lowe took an axe to his wife and they had to identify her from the wedding band on a finger which was one of the only parts of her body he hadn’t hacked to goo. Dennis Lowe had then gone on a killing spree in the name of Alec Colton’s now wife February. Then Dennis Lowe had committed suicide by cop. So Dennis Lowe was known nation-wide as just what he was. A thankfully dead whacked in the head serial killer.

And although not a dead ringer, Dusty looked like February Colton. Blonde hair, curvy figure, dark brown eyes.

They knew of one girl he’d raped prior to his losing total control on the very tenuous hold he had on his mind and then going on to murder five people, a dog and attacking another man.

And now he, Rhonda and, apparently, before his death, Darrin knew that Denny Lowe had molested Dusty.

Mike swallowed the bile creeping up his throat and Rhonda went on.

“It was…it was bad, Mike,” she whispered then jerked her head to the side, yanked open her purse and came out with two books. She looked back to Mike. “She wrote all about it.”

She jerked the books his way.

Mike stared at them like they were hissing snakes.

“I…she…I don’t know!” Rhonda suddenly cried and Mike’s eyes cut to her face to see it was twisted with despair and indecision. Then she fucking kept talking. “I read them all. Cover to cover. She…Mike…she was in love with you,” she leaned forward, “totally.” She leaned back and kept right on going. “And it wasn’t…I know she was young but it wasn’t little girl love. It was very rich, Mike, and beautiful. She wrote all about it. Then it happened. Then he…Denny…” she trailed off then fucking started again. “And it all went bad.”

“Rhonda –” Mike forced out but she talked over him.

“You have to read these. We have to help her. I don’t know how many times Darrin talked to me about Dusty. How he was worried about her. How she kept pickin’ the wrong guys. Total jerks. And they were. I met a couple of them and they weren’t good guys. We’d…we’d,” her face flushed, “well, we’d talk in bed about it at night. Not all the time but it happened. And I knew Darrin worryin’ about Dusty was the last thing on his mind before he went to sleep. She took off right after high school when everyone in the family knew she loved that land just like her Dad, just like Darrin. Then, it wasn’t like she settled in Danville or Avon or something. She settled in Texas,” she stated like Texas was on another continent then she kept talking. “Escaping, Darrin knew. I always thought she didn’t come back a lot ‘cause the occasions she came back for, Debbie was usually here and they don’t get along too good so she tried to avoid it and only came back when Debbie wasn’t going to be here or Debbie couldn’t stay long. But now I know.”

Now she knew.

And now Mike knew.

Mike’s eyes dropped to the books but his head filled with Dusty. Dusty as a little kid, her smile an easy flash, her laughter and singing filling the house, her wisecracks quick and clever. Then Dusty when he tried to talk to her, so much black makeup around her eyes, her hair a disaster, her clothes hanging on her, her face twisted with anger, her words sharp and bitchy.

Because a psycho had put his hands on her and she clearly dealt with that alone the best way she knew how. She didn’t tell anyone. Even her brother who she was closest to had to learn from her diaries.

And now she was with a guy who was clearly not right. Thirty-eight years old, never married and picking who she called “morons” but if this recent one was anything to go by, considering cops had to be involved to keep the asshole away from her, was far worse than that.

“Mike?” Rhonda called and Mike’s eyes cut back to her face.

“Rhonda that was a long time ago and Denny Lowe is dead. There’s nothing I can do,” he said quietly, his voice carefully even, his gut so tight it was a wonder he didn’t throw up.

She stared at him then whispered, “But –”

“Dusty’s gotta need to want help, Rhonda.”

“Sometimes they don’t…girls like her don’t –”

Mike cut her off. “She’s not a girl. She’s a woman and right now there’s nothing I can do.”

There was nothing he could do.

Nothing he could do.

Fuck.

Rhonda closed her mouth and stared at him again.

Then she whispered, “Right.”

“My advice, don’t share that with Mr. and Mrs. Holliday.” He jerked his head to the books. “Right now, you all don’t need that shit. And it’s Dusty’s to share. Yeah?”

She nodded slowly.

“Which means, Rhonda,” he went on, “don’t share you know with Dusty. You’ve all lost someone close to you. She’s dealing too, just like you. Now is not the time to bring that shit back up if she’s buried it.”

She nodded again.

Mike drew in breath then said softly, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

Yeah, he was sorry. Seriously fucking sorry.

He had no fucking clue what to do with this shit.

Then Rhonda did something Rhonda should never have done. She moved to the back of his couch, put the books on it and without looking at him, whispered, “I’ll just leave those here in case you change your mind.”

“Rhonda –” he started but got no further.

Quickly, she muttered, “’Bye Mike,” and took off down his hall.

He didn’t move mostly because he couldn’t move. He just stood there staring at the books even after he heard his front door open and close. Even after he heard her car start up and pull away. And even after a long time passed.

Dusty. Open. Sharing. One hundred percent.

Except when they came close to talking about her teenage change. Then she made it clear without words she was not going there.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

We snap out of it. Promise, she’d whispered.

She hadn’t. She picked the wrong guys, avoided her hometown, didn’t open up about it and thus deal with the fact that she’d been molested by a serial killer before he became a serial killer and thought less of her sister who defended rapists.

He forced his body to turn and move to the backdoor. Then he let his dog in. She bounded around him as he moved through the living room.

But he didn’t move to his gym bag. He didn’t go to the gym. He didn’t go to the phone and call Dusty.

Because his ass was plain fucking stupid, he went to those fucking books.

Then he leaned his stupid ass against the back of the couch and cracked one open.

An hour and a half later, he’d long since rounded the couch, sat in it and was bent forward, elbows to his knees, the second book held open between his legs and he’d read them both.

The first was her first. He figured, from where it started, he’d broken up with Debbie and was on his way to college. This meant he was free for her imagination to soar.

And Rhonda was not wrong. She loved him. She was too young to know what to do with that love but she was not too young to know how to express it.

And it was beautiful.

But it wasn’t all about him. He skimmed through the young girl crap, studied the shit she drew so breathtakingly in corners, around words, sometimes taking both pages to draw what popped into her head. All of it, even drawn by a girl of fourteen, was better than most shit he saw on people’s walls.

Then he turned a page in the second diary and that all changed. Gone were the gel pens of many colors she wrote with and the soft multi-colored shades of the pencils she sketched with. Suddenly, all the writing and the sketches were in heavy black. There were no flowers, butterflies or portraits of loved ones. The images were dark. Monstrous. The words were heavy, morose, angry. Her relationship with her sister who consistently confronted her, sometimes cruelly, about her change deteriorated rapidly. She couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of The ‘Burg. She couldn’t wait to be “free”.

And the encounter with Denny was surprisingly detailed.

He’d got her separated from her girl pack with some lame excuse that she dropped something. He’d then engaged her in conversation. And finally, he’d manhandled her until he got her away from the crowd and to the back of the high school. All of this during a football game. She’d kept her peace because he’d threatened her viciously. And he’d got his hand up her shirt, her bra down and his hand between her legs over her jeans. She’d managed to bite him at the same time kicking his shin, got free, ran and succeeded in getting away. At that time, Lowe had to be years older than her seeing as he was older than Mike.

It had to have been terrifying.

Then again, the evidence was in his hands that it clearly was.

The description of the event was all there was. She didn’t write anything else about it. Not her feelings, not if she was coping, not if she told anyone about it. Nothing. Just the event then a lot of angst in black ink.

The last entry of the second book was a bleak, Fuck this shit. Doesn’t help. Nothing helps. Nothing ever will.

Done, Mike closed the book, bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Audrey was broken, he spent fifteen years trying to fix her and failed.

Vi, whose husband had been murdered, was also broken and he volunteered for the job but she picked another man to help her find happiness.

Denny Lowe had got Dusty against the back of high school with his hand between her legs.

His head came up, his eyes opening to stare unseeing at the blank TV.

He was not a moron. He was not a loser. He was not a psycho. He could be a dick but this occasion was rare. And he did not need a woman who was drawn to that finding out he was not that and getting quit of him when she felt the need to find that again so she could live out the bullshit Denny Lowe planted in her head that that was all she was good for.

He wanted his kids happy and well-educated. He wanted a woman in his bed who wanted to be there, who made him want to be there and who, more than occasionally, made him laugh.

He did not want more children.

He did not want to deal with a long distance relationship, missed calls, voicemails, emails and night after night of phone sex that was good but nowhere near as good as the real thing. Lives lived apart and days, weeks, months never really connecting. And at the end of all that shit, decisions could be made where he gave something time that was precious and he eventually ended up alone in his bed.

He did not want to be sitting at a Thanksgiving table next to the woman he was currently fucking and opposite a woman whose virginity he’d taken and deal with the discord that was already creating. He also didn’t want to expose his children to that shit.

He did not want a woman who had to be fixed.

Because he’d tried that twice and he’d failed once, miserably, and lost out the second time around.

Clearly this was one of those occasions where he could be a dick. But he was forty-three. He knew himself. He knew what he wanted. And he knew he did not need this shit in his life.

His decision made, his gut heavy, a sharp pain piercing through his chest, he stood.

Then suddenly and uncharacteristically his arm sliced back then cut forward and Dusty’s teenage girl journal tore through the air then thumped hard against the wall before falling to the floor.

Layla jumped up from where she was lying by his feet and barked.

Mike ignored his dog and stared at that fucking book lying on his carpet.

He was glad Denny Lowe was dead not just because he was a complete whackjob who murdered people. Because he took the Dusty everyone knew away from her family and he took Dusty away from Mike.

Twice.

“Fuck,” he whispered, lifting a hand and tearing it through his hair. “Fuck,” he repeated, continuing to stare at the book on the floor. “Fuck,” he clipped then bent, tagged the book on the couch, walked to the book across the room with Layla following and then sauntered to the stairs with Layla still following, jogged up them and hid them in one of his drawers.