“Now, Elizabeth told me who Kirsten’s father was when I asked her to marry me, when Kirsten was nineteen. Elizabeth didn’t ever want me to question that she’d kept the truth from me on purpose if, somehow, I found out about Kirsten’s parentage. I tell you, I couldn’t believe it at first. I mean, Ted Bundy, that horrific monster—no, I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe the woman I loved had actually slept with that psychopath. I didn’t want to know any of the particulars, and that was fortunate, since she didn’t want to talk about what had happened between the two of them.

“As I said, Kirsten was nineteen at the time. I’ll tell you, even before I knew who Kirsten’s father was, I didn’t want to be around her. Like I told you, she was always sullen around me, obviously didn’t want me near her mother, although she was just as sullen, just as unpleasant, to her mother. She obeyed her mother only when she felt like it. Then she’d turn on a dime—she’d become the nicest girl you can imagine, all smiles and hugs and charm, like at her birthday party. And yes, this was always connected to something her mother or I did for her. You can be sure I gave marrying Elizabeth a lot of thought after she told me about Kirsten.

“But you see, I loved Elizabeth, loved her to my bones, and she loved me. However, she put me off for another two years until Kirsten was twenty-one, out of the house, and on her own, and I wouldn’t have to be around her. Then we finally married.

“I will be honest. I knew that if Kirsten’s parentage ever came out, my businesses would suffer and we would be hounded by the media, but I didn’t see how it ever would come out. Elizabeth told me Bundy never knew about the child, so who would tell?”

Lucy said, “Sentra told us you didn’t know about Kirsten’s parentage.”

He snorted, a curiously charming sound. “I repeat, Sentra’s nuts. She’s a liar. She likes to cause problems, to give her sister grief. What if Elizabeth hadn’t come in before you left? You’d still believe you’d spoken to Elizabeth, wouldn’t you?”

“Very likely,” Coop said.

Lucy asked, “Do you know who told Kirsten her father’s identity?”

Lansford sighed. “It had to be Sentra. But why?” He snorted, waved a hand. “Am I an idiot, or what? It’s Sentra we’re talking about here, and that crazy witch would do anything, and for no good reason. I think it’s only because they’re twins that Elizabeth can’t seem to distance herself from Sentra, once and for all.

“I know Elizabeth certainly never told Kirsten who her father was, though she told me Kirsten asked her often enough when she was a little girl. Elizabeth simply told her that her father was dead, and that came true, soon enough, in that Florida electric chair.

“Elizabeth said when Kirsten was twenty-five she became even more secretive from one day to the next, even more unpleasant to her—in fact, she simply cut her out of her life. Elizabeth wanted desperately to believe it was simply another phase, but she said she knew in her heart Kirsten had found out about Bundy.

“And then Elizabeth found the book on Ted Bundy, right on top of Kirsten’s dresser, where she’d left it so her mother would know. As I said, we didn’t see her again, until her birthday party, which was fine with me, but I know Elizabeth worried.

“Do you know, in that book on Bundy, Kirsten had drawn circles around her father’s photos, yellow circles? And little hearts. I’m wondering now if she recognized herself.”

CHAPTER 21

Little hearts. Savich could only imagine what Mrs. Lansford had thought when she’d seen that.

Mr. Lansford said, “When Elizabeth told me about Bundy being Kirsten’s father, she admitted she hadn’t had a clue what or who Kirsten was from the time Kirsten reached puberty. She didn’t know what she would do or say or think about any particular subject from one minute to the next. She also admitted to me that Kirsten’s strangeness had always frightened her, given who her father was. Elizabeth read every book she could find on whether psychopathic behavior could be inherited, but she simply couldn’t be certain about Kirsten. She said she was afraid to even think about it; it was simply too upsetting.

“Because Kirsten hadn’t been arrested by the age of twenty-one, Elizabeth told me she began to breathe more easily, finally admitted that was why she’d waited another two years to marry me. She hadn’t wanted me near someone who could possibly harm me. I remember before she was twenty-five, Kirsten occasionally slept over, but let me tell you, I’d forget her for months at a time.