"What happened?" she prompted.
"I don't want to remember. I've blocked it out. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
"You're facing some serious charges. You know that."
Silence.
"I suggest you tell us everything you know."
He muttered something like, "Oh, God." But once he started talking, he seemed wil ing to spil it all. "She liked making me do stuff to Sarah. She said I had to prove my love, that I had to obey if I ever wanted to touch her again."
"Stuff like..." Ava prompted.
Once again, Luke sensed Mark's reluctance. "You don't want to know."
"I need to know."
He groaned. "I knew it was going to come to this someday."
"What did you do to her, Mark?"
"We raped her with objects, sodomized her, you name it."
When Ava shuddered, Luke curled his fingers through hers. This was so depraved he couldn't believe it was real.
"How'd she die?" Ava asked.
"Kalyna got bored with her. I wanted to let her go, but Kalyna said that would be stupid, that she'd tell the first person she saw about us and we'd go to prison for the rest of our lives. So she told me to electrocute her."
Ava's grip tightened on Luke's hand. "In the shed?"
"Kalyna told me to make her stand in a bucket of water, then run the extension cord I used for the edger out there."
This seemed too detailed to be a lie. Luke wondered what Ava was thinking.
"Did you do it?" she asked.
"No. Thank God I drew the line somewhere." His voice dropped again. "But what I did was almost as bad."
"What's that?"
"Nothing. I did nothing to help her."
"What did Kalyna do?"
"When I told her I wouldn't kil for her, she got so angry she started kicking Sarah--in the head, the face. She was handcuffed to the riding lawn mower, and her feet were tied. She couldn't escape. I tried to stop Kalyna, but..."
"But what?"
"I couldn't calm her down. She was so full of rage. I'd never seen anything like it. I was afraid someone would hear and come to investigate, so I left."
When Ava rested her head on Luke's shoulder, he knew the details were getting to her. They were making him sick, too. But she kept talking.
"Then how do you know she died?"
His sigh was long and loud. "Kalyna came and got me later. She said she'd forgive me for being a 'pussy' if I'd carry Sarah inside so we could put her in the crematory. She said it would all be over soon and everything could go back to the way it was before."
"And you did it."
There was a pause, but ultimately he confirmed it. "Yes."
"Then what?" Ava asked.
"Then nothing," he said. "Kalyna took Sarah's necklace before we burned her body. Every time we had sex after that, she insisted on wearing it like some...some trophy. I think she enjoyed making me see it, enjoyed lording her power over me. I actually have a picture of her sitting on my bed--"
"Tatiana already sent it to me," Ava interrupted.
"Then you've seen it."
"Yes."
Silence again. "I'm sorry," he said a moment later. "I wish I'd never met Kalyna."
"Why'd he keep quiet for so long?" Luke murmured in Ava's ear.
"Why didn't he come forward?"
When she repeated those questions, Mark laughed bitterly. "You don't know how vindictive Kalyna can be. And she's such a good liar. I was older, a man. And her parents thought I was a necrophiliac. I was scared of what might happen if I ever opened that can of worms."
"Are you a necrophiliac, Mark?"
"No. Absolutely not."
"Norma told your girlfriend that she caught you...sexually molesting one of the corpses."
"Kalyna was behind that, too! She set me up, man."
"What do you mean?"
"She liked making me do all kinds of shit that would turn a normal person's stomach. She told me I had to prove my love, but...now that I look back, I realize she just...got off on it. It was an adrenaline rush for her, you know? She'd pick worse and worse things for me to do...I'm not g*y or even bi. And I'm not interested in dead people. But...I was so caught up in her. I couldn't bear the thought of losing her. I would've done anything.
Well, almost anything. I didn't kil Sarah, like I said."
It was all Luke could do to remain sitting with the anger and adrenaline flowing through him. But if he got up, he wouldn't be able to hear the conversation.
"You were ten years older than she was," Ava said. "How could you be at such a disadvantage?"
Luke could hear the incredulity in Ava's voice--and shared it.
"It's hard to explain. I don't have a good answer. She was everything I'd ever wanted. The prettiest girl who'd ever looked at me. And she wasn't so demanding at first. She seemed sweet, even innocent. It was only after I fell for her and she realized I was in love with her that everything changed."
"You said she set you up."
"She did. That's how she got rid of me. I think she was done with me, wanted to get me out of her life. But she'd been telling me I was everything to her, so she couldn't just break it off. I knew about Sarah, for one thing.
And Kalyna was getting a lot of attention from some of the football players at the high school. She didn't want to put up with my jealousy, didn't want me in the way anymore. So she convinced me to...you know...do an old lady who'd died earlier that day. She told me I could have sex with her after if I'd do it--she'd started putting stipulations on our time together by then--
but she must've told her mother I was up to something, or got her to come to the back some other way, because her mother never went near the preparation area. And yet, suddenly, there she was."
"Where was Kalyna when her mother walked in?" Ava asked.
"I don't know. She ducked out of the room somehow. That's another reason I think she knew it was coming."
"And then you were fired."
"And then I was fired."
Ava turned Luke's hand over and spread his fingers wide. "Did you ever see Kalyna after that?"
"I wanted to. Lord knows I wanted to. I thought I'd die those first few months without her. But she didn't seem to mind the separation one bit.
She could've sneaked out to see me, but she didn't. And I couldn't even call. Her parents were determined to keep us apart because of what Mrs.
Harter had seen. The few times I called and actually managed to speak to Kalyna, she gave me the excuse that her parents were watching her too closely."