Jack plucked the remote from the coffee table. All he had to do was push two buttons, and then the TV was on, the home video playing. Raven’s dad must’ve left it in the player so that he could stumble in here at any time and hear her voice. See her face.

Raven slid to his knees. His mother was before him, her eyes brighter than he remembered. For years, those eyes had been his favorite sight. That laugh, his favorite song. She was holding him in the video, and he pressed his fingers to his mouth, trying to remember the feel of her as she twirled him around in the pool. But the memory was buried in the recesses of his subconscious, too old to conjure.

It was lost to him.

Raven’s eyes stung as Jack rewound the video, stopping it when Arianna started calling to him. “Please,” she pleaded, her arms outstretched. “I can’t do this without you. I need my baby boy.”

The little boy in the video leapt, and Raven’s heart leapt with him. When her arms encircled him on the TV screen, Raven swore he could feel her embrace. He looked up to find Jack holding him. Watching him with soft eyes. “This is what you heard in your bedroom,” Jack said gently. “Isn’t it?”

Raven nodded, tears sliding down his cheeks. “Why did Evelyn have this? Did she find it after she married my dad?”

Jack shook his head. “Your dad brought it to her office when she was counseling him. She asked him to bring in mementos of a time when he and your mom were happy, and after she moved into your house…”

“She played the video in my bedroom at night.” Raven frowned, glancing toward the hallway, and the stairs beyond. “But that doesn’t make sense. I got up and searched my room a dozen times. I looked outside the window.”

“She wasn’t getting to you through the window, and she wasn’t sneaking into your room,” Jack said, brushing a tear from Raven’s cheek. “She was getting to you through—”

“The vents,” a voice responded, and Raven spun around to see a figure approaching in the darkness. He caught a glimpse of familiar black hair and deep, dark eyes. A smile that could cut you to pieces or bring you to life.

This time Belle’s smile was grim as she drew near. Lily was beside her, and Raven realized their fingers were entwined. “The day Evelyn was killed, I came close to figuring out how she’d been torturing you,” Belle said, her gaze trailing up to the third floor of the house. “But the answer wasn’t in your bedroom, Raven. It was in your dad’s.”

26 Two Kinds of Girls