“Here’s fine,” I said, motioning to the alleyway. I leaned back against the wall by a dumpster as she dropped to her knees infront of me, disappearing into shadow. She unfastened my belt, unzipping my pants, and I looked both ways again, this time to really be sure no one was there.
I reached down to grasp the back of her head as she reached into my boxers. I withdrew the handgun with the suppressor and fired it into the top of her skull. She fell forward against my crotch and I used her hair to pull her back, laying her down on the damp ground. I tucked the gun back into my jacket, refastened my belt and pants, and squatted down to make sure she was dead. Her chest fluttered, but her eyes were fixed. I waited until she was completely still.
I smoothed her hair out of her face and then grasped the front of her blouse, and I punched her. It only took a couple of hits, hard ones, before her face was swollen and discolored.
I took pictures of her: full body, close ups of her face, and then of the gunshot wound in the top of her head. I propped her against the dumpster and walked back to my car as I texted the photos and a message to Matteo.
It is done.
Chapter twenty-five
Eden
“Pretending”
Hewasn’tgoneallnight, and I was thankful for that. The moment he had left, the room felt suddenly too large, too unsecured. His paranoia was rubbing off on me. I sat and watched a movie on the television, but couldn’t handle watching a second. By the time I had decided I would read some of the book I’d brought with me, I heard him unlock the door.
The smell hit me before the door even shut behind him: metallic, warm, sharp in the back of my throat. Blood. He was soaking wet, so I assumed it had rained while he was in Sunning. His hands were bloody: knuckles red and scrubbed raw like he’d tried to clean them off after it had dried. His black t-shirt clung to him, and he was dripping on the floor.
He didn’t say anything. Not even a glance in my direction. I stayed sitting on the bed, a book open on my lap, unread. I closed it slowly, the sound of the pages slapping together louder than I expected in the silence.
“You’re hurt?” I asked.
“No,” he said, already heading for the bathroom.
“There’s blood...”
He paused only a second before answering. “It’s not mine.”
I waited for him to tell me more. He had never been shy about making sure I knew what he did and would continue to do. This time, nothing.
“Who was he?”
Halo shook his head without turning around. “Don’t.”
The bathroom door clicked shut, and the shower came on almost immediately. I sat listening to it hit the tile for a while, unsure what to do with the weight settling in my chest.
I couldn’t stay in that room. The diner across the road was half lit, the neon “All-Night Breakfast” sign buzzing weakly. I pulled on my jacket, scribbled a note on the back of a motel receipt, and slipped out.
It wasn’t a long walk, just across the lot and two lanes of mostly empty road, but it felt like I was walking straight into enemy territory. Nothing happened, though. I didn’t see any suspicious characters. No one gave me a second glance. I found a booth near the window, ordered coffee from a waitress with tired eyes, and waited.
Fifteen minutes passed. I kept looking out the window, half expecting to see his outline behind the glass. Another five, and I thought he wouldn’t come. But then the bell over the door chimed, and there he was.
He looked clean now. Face shaved, hair still wet and curling around his temple. He was in a different shirt, and his jeans were dry. His tattoos looked even starker in the fluorescent lights, black against his skin, his neck tense as he scanned the room and locked eyes with me.
He slid into the booth across from me. His mouth was tight. “You left without me again.”
“I didn’t go far.”
“That’s not the point.”
I sipped the coffee. It had gone lukewarm. “I left you a note.”
“You think a note’s going to stop someone from putting a bullet in your head if they see you alone?” The words weren’t cruel, just blunt. Fear disguised as frustration.
“I didn’t feel like sitting there while you acted all broody and secretive.”
He didn’t respond but signaled the waitress and ordered black coffee and eggs, barely above a murmur. We sat in silence for a while. It wasn't quite hostile, but it wasn’t comfortable either. It was wary, like we were both standing on a frozen lake, hearing the cracks beneath us and not knowing which one would break through first.
