“What is it?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but there was something about the way she was looking at me, serious, intently, that made me brace for whatever came next.
“We need to know more about each other," she said, glancing at me for a second before turning back to the coffee brewing in the machine. "You were lucky stumbling over the name thing, but we won’t be next time. So, tell me about you.”
I blinked, not sure what to make of that. “Okay . . . like what?”
She gave me an exasperated look. “You are so bad at this,” she said with a soft laugh.
I shrugged, but she wasn’t letting me off the hook that easily. Logan launched into a series of rapid-fire questions, and I did my best to answer them. She seemed to be keeping a scorecard in her head, moving from one thing to the next, so I kept it simple.
"Alright, dogs or cats?" she asked.
“Neither,” I replied without missing a beat. “I have enough responsibilities, but if I had to choose, dogs, I guess.”
She raised an eyebrow, glancing from Tony and back to me. "Favorite drink?"
“At this moment? Anything stronger than coffee.” I didn’t look at her, but I felt the weight of her eyes on me anyway. I could tell that line had caught her off guard because she let out another soft laugh, rolling her eyes at me. I tried again.
"A lager after a long day while sitting on the porch," I added, hoping to make up for the sassy response.
“Ooo, nice, loving the details with that one,” she teased. “Look at you, you’re growing.”
I rolled my eyes at her this time. “Yeah, yeah.”
She grinned, clearly enjoying this. “What about family? Parents? How many siblings?”
I hesitated for a moment, the mood shifting like a cloud rolling in. “Parents are gone,” I admitted, voice a little quieter now. “No siblings. My grandad raised me. When he passed, he left this place to me.”
I glanced at her, the flicker of sadness in her eyes making my chest tighten. It felt wrong seeing her look that way. I preferred when her eyes were sharp, bright—full of life. “It’s alright,” I added quickly, trying to smooth things over. “He had it coming.”
Logan gaped with a laugh. Then she paused, waving her hand as if to brush away the heaviness. “Was he into . . . you know?” She trailed off, clearly not knowing how to finish that sentence.
“Murder?” I hedged, leaning back, trying to keep the smile from tugging at my lips. “No, that's amething.”
I saw her throat tighten as she swallowed, and my mind couldn’t help but shift gears. I watched the movement, suddenly aware of her in a way I hadn’t been a moment ago. The heat in my stomach flared, but I shoved the thought aside, forcing myself to focus. This woman distracted me anytime I let my eyes linger on her a moment too long.
“What about you?” I asked, deliberately shifting the focus back to her.
“I’m an event planner,” she started, her voice smooth. "But you already know that. Umm . . . my parents are . . .overbearinglysupportive. And I love a good hot chocolate in the colder months, but coffee is definitely my favorite.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Have you always been a serial killer?”
She shot her hands up in surrender, laughing. “Whoa, I’m not a serial killer. I killed one man. One.” She emphasized the number with a mock-serious face, but there was something about the way she’d said it that sent a cold shiver down myspine. “I have no intentions of doing it again. . . yet,” she added, glancing me up and down like she was weighing me.
The idea of hunting her through the woods, of playing that game, lit something dark and hot in my chest. Not the thought of killing her, but the thing’s I’d do once I caught her . . .. But I shoved it down, trying to focus. It was so easy to get carried away in her presence.
“And why did you?” I asked, the mood shifting once again as her eyes went from playful to distant.
She hesitated, her gaze dropping for a moment as if she were weighing something heavy in her mind.
And I knew I’d pushed too far. But I also knew we needed to know these things about each other now. There was no room for privacy anymore if she was going to be staying in my home, and if we were going to be playing this charade, we needed to be open with each other and I’d already spilled my secrets. It was time for hers.
“A little over a year ago, I got sick, like really sick. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. But I had an idea. Months before, Douglas talked me into trying to work things out and go to counseling, which I thought was a little weird since we had already both decided things were over between us and we had gotten our own places. But he insisted we try, so I did. Over the next few months, we were spending a lot more time together, and I started feeling weaker and weaker until I ended up in the hospital. Douglas insisted on being there with me any spare chance he got. He brought me food and drinks and doted over me, which at first I enjoyed. I thought he cared. I . . . wanted him to care. But then, when I was only getting worse, I secretly told my nurse to start bringing me food. Turns out, he was slowly poisoning me because even though we were going through a divorce, he was the beneficiary of my life insurance policy and he wanted the money. He didn’t want to fix our marriage. Hewanted me dead. So when I got better and was discharged from the hospital, I ran, but I stayed wary because I knew it wasn’t over. It didn’t take long for him to find my new house. I offered to let him stay for dinner—he didn’t know that I knew what he did. While we were eating, I got him to admit it, and when he lunged for me, he stumbled and started grasping at his throat. I had put peanut oil in the Thai food I’d made for dinner. He was deathly allergic. But he came for me anyways. We scuffled, and I hit him upside the head with the cast iron on the stove. Once I knew he was dead, I hid the body in my backyard. I knew it was stupid, but I was just reacting on adrenaline. Next thing I knew, Tony was digging him up and I needed to move him somewhere, and I think you know the rest of the story.”
I could see the glassy sheen in her eyes and I moved on instinct. My chair scraped the floor, and then I offered her my hand. She hesitated for just a heartbeat, then slipped her smaller fingers into mine. I pulled her to me, and when she didn’t resist, I wrapped my arms around her.
She fit against me like she’d been made to be there. Her body was tense at first, a coiled spring of fear and exhaustion, but then she let out this long, broken sigh and I felt her start to melt. Her head rested against my chest, and for a second, the whole goddamn world went quiet. Just the sound of her breathing and the faint tremor in her shoulders as she tried to hold herself together.
I knew that kind of weight—the one that killed you slowly when you carried it alone. I’d lived under it for years. Killing changed you. And now I knew why she’d looked so terrified at dinner last night when I’d served her. The poor woman had been poisoned for months—slowly, deliberately. Fuck. He deserved a worse death than what he’d gotten.
