Chapter 2: Mad
Consciousness returned as a nauseating sway. The world tilted on its axis, the ceiling a white blur above her. Kate’s head throbbed, a deep, sick pulse behind her eyes. The inside of her mouth tasted like chemical lemons and rust. She tried to sit up, and the room lurched, a dizzying spin that sent her grabbing for the bedsheets.
Memories flickered, disconnected and sharp: the living room door ajar. The smell. The impossible red.
A low moan escaped her. She pushed herself up, ignoring the pounding in her skull, and stumbled to her feet. The floor seemed to shift. She caught herself on her dresser, her fingers brushing a framed photograph—her, Erik, and Lyle, sixteen and sun-bleached, laughing on the Santa Monica pier. The innocence of it was a physical slap.
Her bedroom door. She stared at it. The lock was on the outside.
The reality of it, the final, simple mechanics of her imprisonment, cut through the chemical fog. A sudden, electric fury burned up the nausea.
She crossed the room in three strides and hammered on the solid wood with both fists. “Lyle! Erik! Open this goddamn door! Open it right now!” Her voice was a ragged shout, raw in her throat. She pounded again, the impacts shuddering up her arms. “Let me out! What did you do? What the fuck did you do!”
She slammed her shoulder against it. Nothing. She kicked the base, the toe of her shoe scraping the white paint. “Answer me!”
There was a click. The door opened slowly.
Erik stood there, pale as parchment, his eyes swollen. He looked like he’d been crying for hours. “Kate—”
She didn’t let him finish. A wordless cry tore from her, and she flew at him, her fists connecting with his chest in a furious, pounding rhythm. “You fucking animals! You monsters! I saw them! I saw what you did!” Each accusation was punctuated with a blow he made no move to deflect. He just stood there, taking it, his body rocking slightly with the impacts.
“You killed them!” she screamed, her voice breaking into a sob. The anger fractured, and the terror and grief came pouring out. She was crying now, great heaving sobs that wracked her whole body. The hitting became weaker, more desperate, until her hands just rested against his shirt, clutching the fabric. “Why? How could you? I saw… there was so much blood…”
Erik’s own tears started fresh. Gently, he pried her hands from his chest and held them in his. They were trembling violently. He brought her knuckles to his lips, kissing each one, his eyes closed tight. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, the words choked. “I’m so sorry you saw that. We never wanted you to see that. We were trying to… to clean it up. To handle it. We didn’t want that in your head. It’s why we… why Lyle…” He couldn’t say chloroform. He just shook his head, his thumbs stroking her palms. “We were trying to protect you from the mess.”
“Protect me?” she spat, trying to pull her hands away, but he held them fast. “You murdered your parents in the living room and you’re talking about protection?”
“They were going to ruin us, Kate.” Lyle’s voice came from the doorway. He stepped inside, filling the space. He looked exhausted but calm, a terrifying equilibrium in his gaze. He approached her slowly, as one would a spooked animal. Erik released her hands.
Lyle cupped her face, his thumbs brushing the hot tears from her cheeks. His hands were clean. She stared up at him, searching for madness, for rage, and finding only a profound, unsettling certainty. He leaned in and kissed her forehead, his lips cool and dry. “It’s over,” he said softly, his voice a low vibration she felt in his chest. “All the bad stuff. The threats, the inspections, the constant fucking… evaluation. It’s done. They can’t hurt us anymore. We can breathe now. We can finally live in peace.”
The logic of it was insane. It was a universe governed by a rulebook written in blood, and he was quoting it verbatim. Peace. Through double homicide.
She was too spent to argue. The fight drained out of her, leaving her hollow and shaking. She just stood there, crying silently as Lyle continued to wipe her tears with his thumbs.
“Come on,” he murmured. In one smooth motion, he bent and slid an arm under her knees, the other behind her back, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. Bridal style. The intimacy of the gesture was obscene. She didn’t resist. Her head lolled against his shoulder as he carried her out of the bedroom, past the closed doors of the other rooms, down the grand staircase.
She kept her eyes shut, not wanting to see the living room doors. She heard nothing. No police. No sirens. Just the hum of the expensive, silent house.
He carried her into the kitchen. The clinical brightness was a shock. Stainless steel and white marble. It smelled of fresh coffee and nothing else. He set her down gently on the wide granite countertop, her legs dangling. The stone was cool through her shorts.
“Water,” Lyle said, turning to the fridge. He pulled out a bottle of Fiji, cracked it open, and handed it to her. She took it, her hands finally steady enough to hold it. She drank, the cold liquid a shock that cleared the last of the chemical taste.
Erik had followed. He stood beside her, one hand resting lightly on her leg. His thumb began to trace slow, absent circles on her bare thigh. The touch was familiar, comforting in its rhythm, and the normality of it made her want to scream all over again. She didn’t move his hand.
Lyle leaned against the opposite counter, watching her drink. “We fucked up,” he said, matter-of-fact. “Letting you walk in on that. That was on us. We were sloppy.”
Kate lowered the bottle, staring at him. Sloppy. Like they’d spilled milk.
“So,” Erik said, his voice quiet, tentative. His thumb kept moving on her skin. “How do we make it up to you?”
She let out a breath that was almost a laugh, but it caught in her throat. “What?”
“How do we fix this?” Lyle echoed, spreading his hands. “For you. Name it.”
They were serious. They were standing in a house with two corpses in the den, and they were asking her what she wanted as a peace offering.
“A… a movie day?” Erik offered. “We could just crash in the media room. Blankets. That trilogy you like.”
“A vacation,” Lyle said. “We’ve got the credit cards. Caymans. Bora Bora. Tomorrow.”
“A spa day,” Erik added, leaning into her a little. “You love that place in Beverly Hills. The one with the jade rollers.”
They were listing options like she was a upset child, or a queen whose favor they needed to regain. The surrealism of it was absolute.
Lyle’s lips quirked in a faint, genuine smile. His eyes met hers, holding a dark, shared joke. “A threesome?”
The unexpectedness of it, the sheer, audacious wrongness, broke something loose inside her. A tiny, airy sound escaped—a choked giggle that was half sob, half genuine shock. She shook her head, looking down at the water bottle in her hands. “You’re both insane,” she whispered, but the tension in her shoulders had eased a fraction.
Erik squeezed her thigh, his own relieved smile tentative. “So… spa day, then?”
She didn’t answer. She took another long sip of water, the coolness spreading through her. Outside the large kitchen window, the California sun beat down on the flawless emerald lawn. Everything was quiet. Everything was still.
The bad stuff was over. That’s what he’d said.
All she could see when she closed her eyes was the dark, wet crater where a face had been.
All she could see when she closed her eyes was the dark, wet crater where a face had been. She opened them quickly, focusing on the sleek, empty kitchen. The memory was a physical imprint, a stain on the back of her eyelids that no amount of blinking could clear.
“Okay,” she heard herself say. Her voice sounded flat, someone else’s. “A spa day.”
The word was a white flag. A tiny, meaningless surrender that changed everything and nothing at all.
Over the next few months, she was spoiled by them. It became their full-time occupation, this lavish atonement. They bought her everything. A Cartier tank watch appeared on her nightstand after a week of fitful sleep. A cobalt blue Birkin bag, because Lyle overheard some actress at Nobu say it was impossible to get. Erik ordered her a complete wardrobe of soft, cashmere loungewear in every shade of cream and grey, fabrics that felt like being touched by nothing.
The transactions were frantic, a ceasasefire offering paid for with their dead parents’ limitless credit. The boxes piled up in the foyer, a daily monument to their guilt. She accepted it all with a quiet nod, a ghost in a gilded cage.
She stopped trying to leave. The gates felt less like an exit and more like a boundary between this controlled reality and a world where what they’d done would have consequences. She couldn’t face what was out there.
One hot, airless night, Erik led her out to the pool. The water was a slab of black glass, reflecting a smear of stars. “I can’t sleep,” he confessed, his fingers laced with hers. His palm was damp. “I keep hearing the… the sound.”
She knew the sound he meant. Not a gunshot, but the wet, final aftermath.
“Make me forget,” she said, and it was a plea.
He laid her down on the cool, dew-damp concrete. He was tender, achingly slow, mapping her body with his mouth as if trying to memorize a terrain he feared losing. He made love to her under the stars with a desperate, silent intensity, his tears sometimes mixing with the sweat on her collarbone. She held him tightly afterwards, both of them shaking, staring up at the indifferent cosmos. It felt less like passion and more like a shared exorcism performed on holy ground.
Lyle handled her differently. He took her on best friend dates. He’d sling an arm around her shoulders and say, “Get dressed. We’re blowing this popsicle stand.” They’d go to arcades in Santa Monica, where he’d win her a grotesque stuffed animal by brutalizing a skeeball machine. They ate street hot dogs on the Venice boardwalk, laughing at the performers, his hand resting casually on the back of her neck.
To other people, they definitely looked like more than friends. He was constantly touching her—fixing a stray strand of her hair, his hand on the small of her back guiding her through a crowd, his arm draped over her booth seat at a trendy sushi bar. He kissed her a lot. A quick, firm press of his lips to her temple when he picked her up. A soft, lingering kiss on her cheekbone when he dropped her off, his stubble scratching her skin. It was possessive, casual, and utterly confusing.
“What are we doing, Lyle?” she asked him once, leaning against his Audi after a movie. The neon of the theater sign painted his face in pinks and blues.
“Hanging out,” he said, unlocking the car door for her. He looked genuinely puzzled by the question.
“People think we’re together.”
“Let them think what they want.” He shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips. He leaned in and kissed her, not on the cheek, but just beside the corner of her mouth. His lips were warm. “It’s simpler this way. You’re my best friend. That’s the whole story.”
It wasn’t the whole story, but it was the one they were living. The money, the sex, the curated affection—it was a cocoon of their own making, woven from silk and secrets and blood. She woke up each morning in her luxurious room, the smell of her own innocent perfume on the air, and for a few seconds, before memory returned, she almost felt clean.
Then she’d walk past the living room, now permanently locked, and the ghost of that copper smell would seem to linger in the hall. She’d push it down, run her fingers over the diamonds at her ears—a gift from last Tuesday—and go find one of them. She was learning how to breathe in the beautiful, poisoned air.
She was learning how to breathe in the beautiful, poisoned air. The skill was in the distractions, in the sheer volume of light and noise they could generate to drown out the silence of the locked living room.
One sweltering evening, the static became too much. “Tennis,” Kate announced, standing in the game room doorway. “Now. I need to move.”
The brothers exchanged a glance, a silent conversation passing between them. It was the first time she’d initiated an activity that wasn’t passive consumption. “It’s dark,” Erik said, but he was already putting his phone down.
“The court lights are on a timer,” Lyle replied, a slow smile spreading. “You sure, Katie? Your backhand’s been shit lately.”
“Screw you,” she said, but a real smile touched her lips. “I’ll play you both. At the same time.”
They drove down in the golf cart, the night air thick with the scent of jasmine and cut grass. The private court was an island of halogen brilliance in the dark estate. She changed into sneakers and a tank top right there, not caring.
“You’re serious?” Erik asked, bouncing on his toes. “Two on one? That’s not even fair.”
“For you,” she shot back, grabbing a racket. “Serves to me.”
They started. It was chaos, a beautiful, exhausting cacophony. The brothers, competitive even in this, tried to coordinate but mostly just got in each other’s way. Kate didn’t play smart. She played like she was on fire. She covered the entire court, a singular, furious will on her side of the net. She ran down impossible angles, her sneakers squeaking violently on the green concrete. She returned Lyle’s powerful slams with slicing dropshots that died at Erik’s feet. She threaded passes between them.
She played without thought, every ounce of the last few months’ choked rage and coiled fear channeled into the sharp thwock of the ball. She was screaming with each shot, a raw, guttural sound. The brothers fell silent, just chasing, sweating, grimacing as she dismantled them point by point.
Match point. She saw Lyle wind up for a cross-court winner. She was out of position, her lungs burning. She dove, arm fully extended. The racket connected, a miracle. The ball sailed past Erik’s ear and kissed the back corner line.
She collapsed onto her back, the breath punched out of her. The lights buzzed overhead. She heard their rackets clatter to the ground.
“Holy shit,” Erik panted, hands on his knees.
Lyle walked over, looking down at her sprawled form. A bead of his sweat fell and hit her cheek. He was staring at her with a new, raw intensity. “Where the hell did that come from?”
She couldn’t speak. She shook her head, chest heaving. Every muscle was liquid. She tried to push herself up and her arms gave out.
“Okay, champ,” Lyle muttered. He bent and slid his arms under her, lifting her easily. She didn’t protest, her head lolling against his sweat-damp shoulder. He carried her past the net, past their abandoned rackets, to the waiting convertible.
Erik drove, the top down. The night wind was cool, whipping her sweat-soaked hair around her face. She tipped her head back against the headrest, eyes closed, the rush of air over her skin feeling like absolution. In the dim light from the dash, Lyle watched her from the passenger seat. The wind molded her thin tank top to her body, her lips parted as she breathed. He didn’t look away.
Back at the house, the high began to fade, replaced by a deep, pleasant exhaustion. “They delivered more stuff today,” Erik said, heading for the pile in the foyer. He returned with a stack of black garment bags. “For you. From that place on Robertson.”
She took them to her room. The first dress was a simple slip of emerald green silk. It fell against her body like water. The second was a short, fitted black lace thing that was both innocent and devastating. She put them on, one after the other, modeling in her bathroom mirror. The girl looking back had color in her cheeks, a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there hours before.
She walked out in the black lace dress. The brothers were on the sofa, a basketball game forgotten on the screen. They both went still.
“Wow,” Erik breathed.
Lyle didn’t say anything for a long moment. His eyes traveled over her, from the delicate straps to the way the lace hugged her waist and thighs. A familiar, possessive heat flickered in his gaze, but it was softer now, edged with something like awe. “Come here, Mommy,” he said, his voice a low rasp.
The old, stupid nickname landed differently tonight. It usually made her roll her eyes and swat him away. This time, a shaky giggle escaped her. It was a sound that surprised her, bubbling up from some deep, untouched well of normalcy. He hadn’t called her that since before.
He patted the space on the sofa between him and Erik. “Seriously. Get over here.”
She padded across the rug, the lace whispering against her thighs. She settled into the cushion, the warmth of their bodies immediate on either side. Lyle’s arm went around her shoulders, his fingers tracing the lace strap. He smelled like night air and tennis sweat.
“You played like a demon,” Erik said, his voice full of genuine admiration. He leaned his head against her other shoulder. “I think you broke my ego. And maybe my ankle.”
“Good,” she said, and she meant it. The ferocity of the game still hummed in her veins, a clean, honest energy that had momentarily burnt away the fog.
Lyle’s hand moved from her shoulder, his fingers sliding beneath the strap to brush her collarbone. His touch was proprietary, absent. He was watching the game again, but his focus was on the skin under his thumb. “We should go somewhere,” he said, not looking at her. “This weekend. Just get in the car and drive.”
“Where?” Erik asked.
“North. Big Sur. Rent a cliff house. One of those glass ones.” His fingers trailed down, over the lace covering her breast, his palm resting there possessively. It wasn’t a groping gesture, just a claim. He finally turned his head, nuzzling into her neck, his stubble rough against her pulse point. “We’ll let you wear all your new little dresses. You can be our vacation mommy.”
She giggled again, the vibration of it tickling where his lips touched her skin. It was a reflexive, light sound. He always did this when she looked a certain way—in a bikini by the pool, or dressed for a dinner she knew they’d cancel. He’d swoop in, playfully grab her chest, bury his face in her neck with exaggerated growls, making her laugh until she shoved him off. It was a bit they had, a relic. Hearing it now, in this context, twisted the memory into something stranger.
Erik watched them, a quiet, complicated look on his face. He placed his own hand on her knee, his touch softer, seeking. “We could do that. I saw a place online. All windows. You’d like it.”
Kate closed her eyes. She let herself exist in the tactile overload—Lyle’s firm hand, Erik’s gentle one, the expensive lace, the solid weight of them both. For a suspended moment, it was just warmth and pressure and the faint, clean scent of their soap. The locked door down the hall, the permanent stain on the Persian rug, the way Jose’s head had lolled—it all receded, muffled by the simple geography of their bodies.
Then Lyle’s hand squeezed, just once, a silent punctuation. He pulled back, looking at her face. “You’re ours, you know that?” he said, his voice quiet, devoid of its usual teasing edge. “However this goes. Whatever happens next. You’re in this with us.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a fact, laid bare in the lamplight. The vacation fantasy evaporated, leaving the real architecture of their lives exposed. The threesome, the gifts, the tennis, the whispered ‘mommy’—it was all binding. A beautiful, terrible knot.
She looked from Lyle’s determined eyes to Erik’s hopeful, guilty ones. The giggle was gone, a phantom in her throat. She nodded, once, because any other answer was unimaginable. “I know,” she whispered.
The game on TV ended. A commercial for beer blared, too loud and cheerful. The spell broke. Erik stretched, his arm leaving her knee. “I’m gonna shower. That court dirt is in my pores.”
He left the room. The silence he left behind was heavier. Lyle kept his arm around her, but he’d gone still, looking at the blank screen now reflecting their tangled image.
“We’ll need a story for the trip,” he said, thinking aloud. “If anyone asks. A grieving family retreat. Something like that.”
Kate just stared at their reflection—the girl in the black lace, held by the boy with bloodless hands. She saw his fingers, the ones that had cleaned a shotgun and wiped her tears, drumming a slow rhythm on her arm. She reached up and stilled them, threading her fingers through his. He looked down at their joined hands, then brought hers to his mouth, kissing her knuckles with a startling tenderness.
“It’s gonna be okay, Katie,” he murmured against her skin. “I’ll make it okay.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted the glass house on the cliff, the car ride north, the fiction of a normal tragedy. She wanted to go back to the moment on the court, pure and screaming and free. But the watch on her wrist, a cold circle of diamonds and steel, felt heavier than any shackle. It was a clock ticking in a soundproof room. She squeezed his hand back, holding on as the anchor line to the only world she had left.