Vanished off the face of the earth indeed. Will was watching himself be talked about on an interview that had been broadcasted to who knew how many people. Unbelievable.
Abramson continued. "I managed to talk to one of the social workers who took Thornton's son away that night. He fought back so hard that it took multiple adults to restrain him. He ended up in a long-term mental care facility that burned down four years later. That was where the trail on Billy Thornton went cold.
"At this point in time, it is highly likely that he is dead. If he were still alive, I wish he would make an appearance so he could be interviewed for the new documentary series. The last known picture of him came from his elementary school's yearbook when he was in first grade. If anyone knows what happened to this boy, please contact me or the network hosting the show."
The picture showed on screen and Will was shocked by the image of his much younger self. He had almost no pictures of himself before Hazel came back into his life.
A bunch of yearbook pictures existed somewhere, but he had never had the money to buy a yearbook. Or cared to remember the people he went to school with. There hadn't been a point in getting one.
Jean and Charlie didn't exactly take pictures of him when he lived with them either. If any existed, they were long gone.
Will had looked so tiny and innocent back then, even though his life had already been touched by the darkness of his parents' terrible relationship. His hair was messy and he was missing his first tooth.
He had been a late bloomer when it came to losing baby teeth. The last of them hadn't fallen out until he was nearly fourteen. It was why his smile was so full of holes when he met Hazel.
"I won't say anymore—people will have to read the book. But I will say that there are some particularly nasty secrets inside that will be making it into the docuseries. I got a lot of footage of Thornton talking about his kills, particularly the last one where he left the couple's child alive. That little tidbit can be something for people to look forward to," Abramson finished.
The reporter did a cute little sign off bit, but Will was too enraged by what he had seen to care that the video had ended. He could kill that author! How dare he try to bring him into this, when he had spent his entire life trying to forget he was related to that monster?
It was a small comfort that no one would ever recognize that picture. He had looked completely different by the time he got out of the mental hospital.
A sinking feeling filled the pit of his stomach as he thought about what Charlie might have said about his last kill. He left Hazel alive under the pretense that his son would kill her later. Will needed to get his hands on that book.
His e-reader was in his home office so he ordered a copy online and began to read furiously, all hope of getting any work done forgotten. He purposely skipped ahead to the chapter on prison interviews and managed to find the one that mentioned him right at the very end.
'When I asked Thornton why his pattern changed on his last kill, he actually laughed. "My boy called dibs on that girl. I had to respect his guts—it was the only time he ever tried to go against me on something. We were birds of a feather so if he wanted to kill someone specific I wasn't about to stop him."
'Thornton's son was only seven years old at the time. I expressed disbelief that such a young child could already be a killer, but it only made Thornton laugh harder. He said his son had nearly strangled a child to death during an altercation at school one day and when asked why, he said it was nothing.
'Based on his account and my later interviews with the boy he assaulted and teachers and social workers who had known him, it became quite apparent that Billy Thornton was dangerous, even if he wasn't a killer yet. I sincerely hope that he never found the Dixons' daughter.'
Will's blood boiled. He had half a mind to storm the supermax prison and beat the living daylights out of his pathetic excuse of a father. But that would be a one-way trip. They would never let him out.
Visiting a prison required background checks and he was the paranoid type who didn't like leaving evidence of his existence. Especially in a place like that. Even if he wore a disguise and didn't do anything violent, they would still have his name on record.
No, he couldn't visit Charlie and tell him how abominably stupid he was. How everything he had ever thought about his son was wrong. But oh, it was tempting!
He wasn't anything like his father. Charlie was a sadistic psycho who enjoyed killing. Will found it a distasteful, but unfortunately necessary, part of running a smuggling ring before he got out. He hadn't killed anyone since.
The other major difference between them was that he knew how to love. Charlie did not. Whatever he had felt for Jean at one point was not love. If anything, he only killed her out of a sense of wounded pride for running off with someone else.
Losing his head slightly, Will angrily scrawled a short and simple message to that psychopath. 'I read the book and you should know that I married her. –Billy'
Will's rationality came back to him by the time he had stuffed the note in an envelope with a fake name and return address. Charlie wouldn't let this lie.
If he knew he hadn't gotten to complete his final kill the way he wanted because of the love of a seven-year-old boy, he would be furious. Perhaps furious enough to tell people that his son was alive and had married the daughter of his final victims.
That sort of thing was what those serial killer obsessed nuts ate up with a spoon. Hazel would know the truth and Will would never have another moment of peace.