worry about much.
Work is going great, of course. I swooped back into
town just in time to catch a few of Rob’s biggest dropped
balls, and I became a feel-good story around the office!
The partners are impressed. I haven’t even had to cut
back my hours, because the new addition to my family
is basically self-sufficient. This is the kind of parenting that management can believe in.
As of Friday, Kayla hasn’t started any fights at school
or stolen anything that I know of, but her phone is already buzzing with texts from boys. I understand the excitement. It’s only smart for her to take advantage of being
the new girl in town.
“I’m going over to Omar’s later,” she says. “We’re
going to study.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Kayla. It’s Saturday night. Cut
the bull.”
She stares for one full second before she breaks into
a cold grin that makes me laugh. “Fine, we’re going to
Netflix and chill.”
“Good Lord.” I roll my eyes. “You got your Depo shot.
Just make sure not to catch anything that will kill you.”
“That’s an excellent plan, Aunt Jane,” she trills.
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Problem Child
I drop onto her bed, setting her bouncing just a little.
These foam mattresses aren’t as fun as the old springy ones.
“I’ve told you that you don’t have to lie to me. Don’t you
believe me yet?”
Shrugging, she keeps scrolling through something on
her phone. “You’ve been cool so far.”
“I understand you,” I try again. It’s been over a month
and we’ve only made a little progress. I need her to trust
me or this won’t be exciting at all. It will just be a normal
“My teenager is an asshole” relationship, and who the
hell wants that?
I nudge her bare foot, the nails now painted purple.
“We don’t have to keep things from each other that other
people wouldn’t get. I know how you feel inside. I’ve been
keeping those thoughts secret my whole life because no
one else thought like I did.”
“Oh yeah?” She finally sets down her phone and meets
my gaze. “Secrets like what?”
I should have anticipated this. Even normal humans
expect tit for tat in trusting relationships, and Kayla and I are much more transactional than others. Now she’s
presented me with a problem, and she knows exactly
what she’s doing.
If I’m honest with her, she’ll have leverage. If I don’t
make myself vulnerable, she won’t give me anything at
all. It makes perfect sense, of course, and that makes me
want her trust even more, the little monster. I decide to
give a little.
“I got a man fired from my office recently.”
“Who?”
“A fellow lawyer.”
“You got him fired on purpose?”
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Victoria Helen Stone
“Yes. He kept taking credit for my hard work. And
then he lied about me to a client because he’d dropped
the ball on something.”
“How did you get him fired?”
“I logged into his work email and sent a sensitive
document to the wrong person. They blamed him, of
course, so he’s gone now. And I’m in charge of his cases.”
Her eyes crinkle into a real smile. “That’s cool.”
“It is cool, and he deserved it.”
“Fuck him,” she agrees.
“Thanks.”
“So…” She pulls her knees to her chest and points
her purple toes. “You believe in revenge.”
“Absolutely.”
“Have you ever killed someone?”
I pause and think. She’s obviously still concerned
that I’m grooming her for a Dexter-type situation, and luckily I can reassure her that I’m not. “No. I’ve never
killed anyone.”
“Because you think it’s wrong.”
“Not really. I’ve explained that I’m not good at mo-
rality, right?”
“Sure.” She nods, but her mouth has gone flat again,
closing up tight.
“Listen. I like my life the way it is, and I don’t want
to risk going to prison for fifty years. I don’t think that killing is always wrong, but I am sure it will usually get
you into trouble. Are you worried I’m going to kill you
or something?”
“No.”
“Do you think I brought you here to train you to be-
come the perfect assassin and unleash you on the world?”
“No, but cool job.”
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Problem Child
“All right. Then if we’re talking about morality and
honesty … sure, I’ve wanted to kill someone before. I
came close to it, actually. There was a man who really
deserved to die, and I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t.
Because it didn’t make sense for me. It wasn’t smart.”
“How were you going to kill him?”
“Knife, gun, whatever. I didn’t care about the method.
I had a couple of different opportunities, but I let them
pass.”
She cocks her head. “If you didn’t kill him, what did
you do to him instead?”
Aha. She does understand. I smile with pride at her
perceptiveness. “What makes you think I didn’t let him
go unmolested?”
“Why would you?”
This is exactly the certainty I’ve always felt in life and
no one else seems able to comprehend. He was bad to me,
so he had to pay. What else could I have done?
I wiggle my eyebrows. “I used some recordings to ruin
I. I can help you. Before you get yourself into trouble,
or even after, just come to me and I won’t judge you.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. So have fun with Omar and don’t get into
trouble. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I pat her leg awkwardly and get up to leave, but her
suddenly small voice stops me in my tracks.
“Did the police ever interview you about Little Dog?”
“No. I guess Nate didn’t rat me out after all. I never
got an inquiry about my contact with him. Why?”
She shrugs.
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Victoria Helen Stone
“Have they been in touch with you?” I ask.
“No. I just wanted to be sure.”
Now I am frozen. The hairs on the back of my neck rise
up. “Kayla? Why are you asking about Little Dog now?”
She shrugs, her fingers picking at some random thread
on her new comforter. But I watch the corners of her
mouth tighten, then turn up irresistibly. “Unlike you,”
she says softly, “I have killed someone, Aunt Jane.”
“Oh?” I respond very carefully.
She can’t resist meeting my eyes. She’s too proud. “I
heard him take that call with you. He thought I wasn’t
listening, but I was.”
“Who?”
“Little Dog.”
My heart pauses for the briefest moment, startling
me with a sensation I’ve nev
er felt before. “Little Dog?”
“Yeah. Then he made another call. He was planning
to drop me off somewhere. Meet with that bald guy and
turn me over. A few minutes later he tiptoes into my
room to wake me up. ‘Kayla, come on. We’re supposed
to meet your aunt in Enid.’ You weren’t going to meet
me in Enid, were you, Aunt Jane?”
I shake my head. “No. No, I wasn’t.”
“So I got in the car with him, asked him to pull over
so I could pee…”
“In Jenks.”
“Yeah. We stopped in Jenks. I surprised him behind
the car. You know what happened then. But he deserved
it. You get it, right? He should never have tried to screw
me over.”
“That’s true,” I agree, keeping my voice low and even.
She smiles. Flips her hair back. “You’re really not
freaking out.”
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Problem Child
“No,” I lie. “I’m glad you told me.”
“Oh my God, I’ve been dying to tell someone.”
“I bet.”
caught. I even told him why I was doing it while he was
curled up there crying like a baby. He couldn’t just screw
me over that way. An eye for an eye. That’s even in the
Bible. Fuck him.”
I nod as she preens. She’s flushed with the excitement
of finally getting to boast.
“Thanks for being chill about it, Aunt Jane. I’ll let
you know when I’m going out.”
“Okay. Thank you, Kayla.”
As I stand up, she beams at me. “You were right. I
like it here.”
“Good. I’m glad.” I walk out, checking to make sure my
cat has followed me before I close the door to Kayla’s room.
The living room is only a few steps away. I join Luke
on the couch, dropping down next to him to press my
thigh against his. He set up the Wi-Fi first thing, and he’s already watching something on Netflix while he takes a
break from unpacking.
“Everything good?” he asks.
I take his hand and squeeze it. Then I hold on tight.
“Everything’s great. She seems fine.”
“I think she’s happy here,” Luke says so softly, I think
he’s just saying it to himself.
My heart is calm now. My pulse steady. But my mind
is churning with sharp spikes, turning over the past few
weeks. I’m a sociopath. I don’t have regrets and I don’t
have fear.
But there’s now a killer in my pretty new house. And
I invited her here.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Helen Stone, for-
merly writing as USA
Today bestselling novelist
Victoria Dahl, is originally
from the Midwest but now
writes from an upstairs of-
fice high in the Wasatch
Mountains of Utah. After
a career in romance that in-
cluded the American Library
Association’s prestigious
Reading List Award, she turned toward the darker side
of fiction and has written the critically acclaimed nov-
els Evelyn, After and Half Past and the Amazon Chart bestsellers Jane Doe and False Step. Jane Doe has recently been optioned by Sony Television, and Victoria is hard
at work on her next thriller! For more on the author and
her work, visit www.VictoriaHelenStone.com.
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