Ivy laughed. “You’re right. You’re both so dead. No one’s coming to save you. There’s been a sighting, you see, down in Murfreesboro. The ones who aren’t tied up with the little situation on the square are already on their way south. By the time they realize they’re mistaken and get back up here, you’ll be dead, and I’ll be gone.”

“Planned it all out, did you?” Ethan asked.

“I’ve been planning this for years, you swine. You’re terrible in bed, by the way. Limp dick. Couldn’t get it up. Sloppy kisser, too. I don’t know how she stands it.”

And to Sutton, in a completely new tone, curious, watchful. “I thought you’d at least recognize me when I found you.”

“You look nothing like me.”

“Oh, but I do. If you cross me with your sweet punk rocker, Hayden Stone, add in some red hair, and give me blue eyes, I am a dead ringer. Can’t you see me? Or are you being dense, Elizabeth?”

Sutton flinched at the use of her given name. She flashed back to the stringy black hair and sophomoric homemade tattoos of Hayden Stone. She could barely pull his face into her memory, her hazy memory, so conveniently erased after all these years removed from the situation she placed herself in. At least she knew, now, who’d gotten her pregnant that night. Bile rose in her throat.

“He was a sick fuck. Taking advantage of me like that. If he is your father, I see you get your psychopathy naturally.”

“He told me you wanted it. He told me you asked for it. Yes, that’s right, Mom. I talked to dear old Dad. He remembers you fondly. Remembered, I should say. He’s gone now, too. Don’t think I did it for your honor. He was a waste of space, like you are.”

Sutton shook her head, her newly dark hair raining around her face like a shroud. “What a disappointment you are, Ivy. After all this time, instead of simply telling me who you are like a normal person, you had to make this into an event to make yourself feel more special.”

Sutton stood up. The gun wavered briefly.

“Sit down.”

Sutton took a step, then another. “I could have been a mother to you. I was a friend, but clearly that wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough for you, will it? No one will ever be enough.”

The flash of anger in Ivy’s eyes was black and absolute. “When you’re dead, and I’ve taken everything, then it will be enough.” She leaned against the doorjamb, braced the gun with her left hand cupping her right, a small smile playing on her face.

“Do you know how easy it was? To slip the syringe in his little mouth and push? He went away almost immediately.”