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Proponents of “the Wayne Theory,” as it was known, had determined that 0.41 percent of convicted murderers had the middle name of Wayne.
the need for hyperawareness took a toll on guards and prisoners alike.
People wondered what it was about California that produced so many serial killers. It had the inauspicious distinction of having more serial kills than any other state, and also some of the most notorious killers.
Still, as far as Daniel was concerned, Reni was the real victim here. When she was a child, her father had used her as bait to lure young women to their deaths.
Nothing good came in a suit. You had your funeral directors, your FBI, your lawyers, your detectives.
There weren’t any self-help books for the children of serial killers. It would have been an extremely niche market.
And the bond between father and daughter was unique and special. It pulsed and generated love on a cellular level. And the evil deeds, no matter how old she got or how many lives she lived in order to step out from under his shadow, couldn’t drive out the memories of the person she’d known and loved.
It was harder for beautiful people like him to get old because they had so much further to fall and so many adjustments to make, going from a world where things came easy because you were so damn dazzling, to a world where you had to fight to prove you were even average.
She clung to that memory a long minute so she could hate him with one hundred percent of her being and not eighty.
“It’s strange how lives intersect, isn’t it? It seems nothing is linear and we’re really moving in converging circles. Your mother, you getting this job, Ben Fisher requesting you, now Reni.”
Logic should never be ignored, and gut instinct can turn on a person.
Being dead was mysterious. Someone was there and then they weren’t. It seemed like something that shouldn’t happen to anybody, not even bugs. It wasn’t fair. She never hurt bugs and she never hurt trees, because she didn’t want them to go away and never come back.
Ben isn’t like your grandfather, who was a mean son of a bitch.” “He beat you up.” “He did.” “And he broke your arm.” Her grandmother had told her so. “Did that too. More than once. And what do men think with?” “The worm between their legs.”
That was one of the good things about being adopted. When his name changed, he’d shed that outward identity even though he’d remained the same person inside.
Hadn’t there always been an undercurrent of something when the three of them sat at the table together? Her desire to please, her father’s desire to be entertaining, her mother’s boredom with them both.
And when we take our age and mix it with innocent emotions and the superheroes of our lives who happened to be our parents, things get really confusing.”
Abuse came wrapped in different packages, and indifference to a partner’s pain was one of them.
Unless a person’s memory could be erased, there were no fresh starts, only progression. Even if you burned down a house where bad things had happened, the house would still be there in your mind, regardless.
Curiosity and the ability to be amazed were essential for them both right now. When those responses slipped away, a person was in trouble. Awe was part of the human experience that couldn’t and shouldn’t be discounted.
