The room is almost dark. The last of the day’s sunlight has disappeared, running to hide behind the tall pines. Standing, Eric walks to a light switch and flips it. The floor lamp in the corner sends out a soft glow, and he hurries back to the window and pulls the curtains closed.
He’s not doing a good job keeping the gun pointed at me as he moves around the room. A shred of hope lodges itself in my chest. He sits back down. Gets up. Sits down again. He seems at a loss.
“Eric,” I whisper. Hate-filled eyes meet mine. “It wasn’t a lie. They have footage from the traffic camera. You can see it for yourself. I know it’s terrible, but—”
“Shut up,” he shrieks, launching himself over the coffee table.
I shrink back and close my eyes. Cool metal grazes my forehead, slips down my temple, traces my jaw.
Dampness spreads between my legs. It’s warm.Is that…?If I wasn’t so terrified, I might feel embarrassed.
His lips are at my ear. My stomach twists at the feeling of his flesh on mine. “Don’t say one more word.”
He backs up, looks at me. A sick pleasure ripples over his features. He goes back to the couch and sits.
“I know you’re wondering. Your mind is racing, thinkingHow did he know,” he barks a dry laugh. “You make a habit of getting yourself into the paper, don’t you?”
I shake my head.No.I declined the photo requested by the journalist.
“Oh, yes. You stupid girl. That’s the thing about girls like you. You love your image so much you can’t help but share it. I was buying cigarettes yesterday when the guy at the register was reading the paper. There you were, in the background of a photo, standing near some trailer. I bought the paper, almost forgot my cigarettes, and ran home.”
He turns his head slowly from side to side, exhaling a short breath of disbelieving laughter.
“I watched you for so long. Almost every day. You liked brown sugar latte’s from Lappert’s and sushi from that place on the corner. You never went far, especially since you were usually on foot. Always alone, too.”
He clucks his tongue, as though my solitude was a travesty.
“And then one day you stopped leaving. I realized it was because you weren’tthere. I looked for you, but that was one thing you did well. You left zero breadcrumbs.” He pauses. Sighs. Continues. “I lost my temper a bit last weekend. I knew you hadn’t sold your place. That was easy enough to check. I paid a homeless woman twenty dollars to write a note for me.” He grins maniacally, proud of his subterfuge. “I didn’t mean to kick a hole in your door. My anger got the best of me.”
I want to scream, to run, to hurl myself at him and take away his gun. I want to save myself, but there’s no way I can. I’ve been in danger since the day Amy Prince used me to take two lives, but this is the first time my death feels imminent.
“Your passport is on your bed. You don’t have plans, do you? I wouldn’t be surprised. Running away is your thing.” He sits casually on the couch, crossing and uncrossing his ankles. Menacing words should be accompanied by a sneer and a growl, not spoken indifferently like we’re discussing dinner options. “In case you’re wondering how I got in, I punched a hole in your kitchen window and unlocked it. Your door alarms are cute though.”
He sighs deeply and looks at his watch. His lips twist as he watches me.
“Detective Wilkes will know it was you.” I blink twice, the sound of my own voice taking me by surprise. “I called him after you kicked in my door,” I tell him.
“Detective Wilkes and I settled that. He knows it wasn’t me. It was a female’s handwriting, right?”
“He’ll know and—”
“That’s enough,” Eric barks, pushing the gun into the air, closer to my head. “You sit there, shut up, and we’ll wait for one of your friends to come by. Will it be the girl from the parade? Or the asshole you cried to on the street today? Connor Vale, is it?”
He watches my face twist in horror and looks pleased. “That’s right. I was there, and your boyfriend had all his info plastered on his truck for the whole world to see.”
Please, Connor, don’t come for your goodbye. Please hate me. Go home and plan to never see me again.
Eric removes a tablet from a black bag on the floor and sets it up on the coffee table. His hold on the gun is sloppy and I’m terrified he’ll misfire.
“This is something I’ve been wanting to show you since you hit and killed my wife and child.”
Bending over, he presses the little arrow at the bottom of the screen. Amy’s image springs to life. She’s in a hospital bed, lying on white sheets. She wears a light blue nightgown printed with tiny flowers. Her eyes are tired but radiant. In her arms is a tiny baby, barely visible in the wrapped blankets.
“My lovely wife.” Eric’s loving and devoted voice charges from the screen and into the room, bouncing around me. “Tell us what just happened.”
Amy beams. Perhaps the sun was living somewhere in her chest at the moment. She looks blissful. “This is Samuel Bennett Prince,” she says, her sweet voice floating from the screen, wrapping around me, making her more real than ever before.
“Oh,” I cry involuntarily. I don’t look up at Eric. The screen has captured me.
