Dead of Winter

by Darcy Coates

“Denny wasn’t the butcher, was he?” His eyebrows rise a fraction as his smile widens. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

“Denny thought you were the killer,” Kiernan finishes. “He thought you’d murdered his son. He was trying to stop you.”

“I told you that my younger brother died in a hit-and-run.” He’s still smiling, but there’s real sadness around his eyes now. Real grief. As raw and as painful as the endless ache I felt when I thought I’d lost him. “That was close to the truth. But not its entirety. I changed the details so that you wouldn’t realise just how connected you and I were. But, yes, my brother did die in a car accident.” “The boy on the bridge,” I manage. “Liam.”

“I’d spent months researching my brother’s accident. Learning what had led to it. All of the names involved. And I found it wasn’t just one person’s fault: it was a collective crime. A group of strangers who, with utterly minimal consequences in their own lives, had torn my family to shreds.” He takes a long, slow breath. “And so I made my mother a promise.” “Kiernan…” He smiles at me. “I promised her that I would make them all suffer.”

Janet used to date my brother. He visited her the night he died. They had an argument. I never found out what about…but he was hurt enough to drive too fast, too recklessly, trying to get home.”

“Steve and Miri” is all I can manage. “The Peltzes, yes. The truck that cornered Liam and gave him nowhere else to go. Then Denny Olstead, the mechanic who serviced the truck and failed to notice the issues with the emergency brakes. Hutch Huang, who was at the scene but gave up before reaching the water. Blake Shorey, the 911 dispatcher who hung up on my brother. Simone Wall, the emergency responder who took her time pulling his car out of the river. And Alexis Barras, the sister whose investigations had been a thorn in my side for months.” “Brian,” I say. “Grayson.” “Unavoidable collateral damage.”

Did you find the teeth on the windowsill? Did you think they were mine?” I don’t even have the strength to lie. I nod. He seems pleased with that. “Those were from the Kennedys.

Kiernan had guessed that I might try to remove the gloves and discover that the hands didn’t belong to the man I loved. I knew them intimately. The shape of the knuckles. The placement of the freckles. And so Kiernan had shredded the corpse’s hands so that I wouldn’t have that final clue.

“Don’t look so sad, Chrissy. If it’s any comfort, our relationship wasn’t a complete lie. I did actually grow fond of you, especially in the latter months.”

Gee thanks. this is giving me Harper's Island and Scream vibes when the bf/fiancee are the killers

There was not a single person inside that cabin who I could call truly good or blameless. Every one of them was speckled with flaws: glimpses of spitefulness, of selfishness, of anger. Some worse than others. But never enough to justify what was done to them.

“That was a mistake,” he says.

He's Not wrong. All she did was piss him off

I loved this man. I fought for him. Searched the mountains for him when no one else wanted to. I grieved for him. Now, the only person I have left to fight for is myself.