Read The Border Part Five for Free Online Page A

children, the house, the nice respectable job. Most people don’t get that, but you did, and you deserved it.”
    “You got out too. You left town.”
    “And I still couldn’t get the stink of that place off my skin. Hell, I was only on the edge of it all and I still feel dirty, it’s still the first goddamn thing I think about every time I wake up in the morning and every time I get drunk at night. I can’t imagine what it must be like for someone like you who was in the middle of it all. Dancing, rubbing, teasing, laughing, and that’s just on the first level. Don’t bother lying to me, Jane. Don’t try claiming that you didn’t go a lot further with some of the customers down on the other levels.”
    “What happened down on the -”
    “Stays there, I know.” He paused. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
    “Are you going to tell Jack?”
    He shook his head.
    “Thank you.”
    “Every time I come back to town,” he continued, making his way back over to the broken fireplace for a moment and looking down at the rubble, “I think maybe it won’t get to me. Hell, sometimes I’m even deluded enough to think that the Border might finally have been shut down, but no, every time it’s the same. And every time, people die. Doesn’t that seem like quite a coincidence to you? Death seems to notice when I come to town.”
    Feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket, Jane slipped it out and looked at the screen.
    “I have to get back,” she said with a sigh, turning to him. “Alex is wondering where I am.”
    “Are you going to tell him the truth?”
    “As if.”
    They stood in silence, waiting until the phone stopped ringing.
    “Do you really not think that the Border is somehow linked to all of this?” he asked finally. “Are you really sure?”
    “I’m sure,” she replied, turning to head back to the door. “The killer isn’t someone from the Border. It can’t be, I’d -”
    Before she could finish, Ben grabbed her from behind, wrapping an arm around her neck and then slamming her hard into the broken old kitchen cabinets. Without giving her a chance to get her breath back, he swung her around and pushed her face down onto the dusty counter, then he pulled her back and pressed the blade of a knife against her neck.
    “Okay, then,” he sneered, his lips just millimeters from her right ear, “then who do you think the killer is?”

I V
     
    “So I ask myself, what makes us who we are?” the priest asked, as the mourners stood around Hayley’s open grave. “What part of a life is set in stone from the moment of birth, and what part is shaped by our experiences and our environment? Where are the lines drawn?”
    Staring at the coffin, Katie felt as if her eyes were so dry, they might shrivel up entirely. She’d been so focused on not crying, on not letting anyone see her pain, that she felt as if all the moisture was gone from her face. All she could do was stare at the coffin and think about Hayley’s body inside, and about the damage that had been done to the girl’s body. In truth, she wanted to leave the funeral, but again she was worried about what people might say, so finally she just lowered her head and waited as the priest’s meaningless words continued to tumble from his fetid mouth.
    A few minutes later, once the coffin had been lowered into the grave, the mourners began to disperse. She waited, not wanting to be the first to leave, before turning and heading toward the cemetery’s rear entrance, which she figured wouldn’t be as crowded. As she got closer, however, she saw that there was another figure up ahead, some guy who’d apparently come to the same conclusion, and after a moment she realized that she recognized him, even from behind.
    “Hey!” she hissed, hurrying to catch up. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    Turning to her with a cigarette in his mouth, Simon didn’t seem particularly surprised to see her.
    “I didn’t…” She paused, before checking