“How are you feeling?”
I finally look up with a glare. “Like someone I trusted just pointed a gun at me.”
His face tightens, the faintest flicker of regret crossing his features. He drags a chair next to mine and sits so close our knees almost touch, and I instinctively roll my chair back an inch, the scrape of the wooden legs loud in the suffocating silence.
“Scarlett, the police have protocols,” he pleads. “A suspect holding a weapon is a threat. If I hadn’t kept my gun on you, they would’ve stormed in, and I needed time to get you to admit you had nothing to do with these murders.”
I still can’t wrap my head around the fact thatIwas their main suspect. “Why didn’t they question me? Why didn’t Vanessa tell me anything?”
He exhales. “The chief kept her out of the loop, since you two are close. He was investigating you, but didn’t want to question you until they had further proof—look, don’t get me started on this. Dealing with thesecopsmakes me miss the city.”
“How long have you been working on this case?”
His mouth opens, then closes. It’s as good as a confession.
Everything since the Single Mingle has been a lie.
Knuckles turning white around the mug, I say, “Just tell me why you brought me here.”
“Okay.” He wipes away beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, then pulls a paper from the pile in front of him. My stomach twists when he slides it across the table. It’s a receipt for an online flower purchase made in my name.
“What’s this about? I didn’t buy flowers.”
“You also signed for the delivery.” He hands me another paper,this one showing a scrawled signature that looks remarkably like mine. “These flowers were used in the first murder.”
He holds up a picture but hesitates as he studies me.
“Let me see.”
“You don’t have to, if you—”
“Yes, I do,” I insist.
He hesitates again before laying the photo on the table. I glance at it. Catherine’s naked body is rigid over the chair, her wrists tied together behind her back. Her skin is unnaturally yellow, and the red petals contrast even more against it. I turn my face away, my stomach churning.
Rafael quickly snatches the photo back, but I raise a trembling hand. “It’s fine. I can do it.”
He sets it down again, watching me closely. It’s horrifying, enraging. Someone did this to her—and is doing this to me, twisting my life into their macabre little masterpiece.
“There’s more,” Rafael says, scrolling through a tablet, then showing me a screenshot of the post on Reddit. “Look at this.”
Reading-fictional-murders?“That’s not my account,” I say.
“It was posted from your laptop.”
“That’s impossible,” I say, shaking my head. “I always have my laptop with me.”
Rafael’s nod is stiff. “I know. Look, I’m working on it, okay? I don’t want you to worry. I promise I’ll find out who’s behind it.”
A bitter laugh bubbles in my throat. Again with that word—promise. Does he seriously think it means anything now?
“I don’t get it,” I say. “You showed up exactly when these murders began. And your dad justhappensto—” My lips seal shut. His dadhad a stroke—I read the obituary on theWhistle. Could it have been foul play?
“Poison.” He brushes an imaginary speck of dust from the soft-looking turtleneck. “The police had no reason to suspect foul play. An old man dying of stroke alone in his home? Pretty normal. But they found a letter of apology addressed to me.”
“The Lonely Man,” I whisper, reminded of the book I discussed on the podcast just before Mr. Gray’s death. “Wait, but the press didn’t say anything. The police didn’t—”
“Chief Donovan didn’t believe me at first. After Catherine Blake’s murder, when you visited the chief, they went back to look at the case.”
