“He’s going to be mad at you,” I say, my words running together, and I reach for the white suitcases, grasping the tag.
There’s a flash of white before pain flares at the base of my skull, but it doesn’t last.
“Rosa never showed her face, there was no voice of another woman in the background,” I say over the Bluetooth. Jason got to her. I wasn’t fast enough. If he got Kelly, he might have Rosa too, which means I need backup, because my only focus is my wife.
“What else did you see?” Casper asks.
“I don’t remember.” I was so focused on Kelly and how she was doing, how sleepy she looked, that I wasn’t paying attention to any other detail.
“Turning onto Hartford now,” Thor says. They must have piled into the same car the second I said go. “She for sure signed ‘blue bird’?”
“Yes.” Colors and animals are basic beginner shit when it comes to signing; she wouldn’t confuse those for something else.
As soon as the call cut out with Kelly, I called the guys to meet me at the red house on Hartford Avenue, near the cross sectionof Third Street. “Are you there yet?” I ask. I had driven out to Jason’s house, so now I’m even farther away from the address she gave me. My foot presses the accelerator as I run a red light. The sound of a car horn fades when I whiz by.
“Mailbox!” Thor shouts.
“Bluebird is a mailbox,” Casper adds. “House number 509!”
Fuck yes.
I adjust the address on my GPS.What the fuck, this is only two blocks from my house.“I’m a couple minutes away. Watch your fucking back, Kelly signed something about him having a pipe.” The call ends, and I turn onto Hartford, but I’m still too many blocks away.
Technically, the GPS says I’m four minutes out, but I’m not driving the suggested speed limit down this road, so I get that number down to two.
As soon as I pull up, I expect to see Jason’s car, but Casper’s vehicle is the only one here. Thor throws his arm into the door, busting it open, and I jump out of my truck. I follow them in. They rush through the house, checking bedrooms, but I’m locked in place when I see the blood in the kitchen.Please don’t be Kelly’s.
“They moved,” Thor pants.
Casper confirms. “There’s nobody here.”
I run both hands through my hair, gripping it at my scalp as I try to figure out what to do. I pull out my phone to check the tracker just in case, then see Kelly’s phone on the floor near the pool of blood . . . which means it’s probably hers.
There’s a palm print of smeared blood on a cream-colored suitcase under the counter. The blood is on the address tag too. I flip it over and fear prickles the back of my neck when I see the name.
It can’t be.
No.
“There’s a phone over here,” Casper says, picking it up. He hits a button on the side, and the screen lights up. “Oh fuck.”
“What?” I bark. I don’t need to hearOh fuckright now.
He shows me the screen. Sure enough. It’s an old selfie of Piper and me.
“You and Rosa?” Thor’s brow furrows.
“That’s not Rosa, it’s Piper,” Casper says.
It’s always been Piper.
You’ll never replace me.It wasn’t Kelly’s ex. It wasmine.
My chest feels like it’s in a fucking vise; the rooms are getting smaller. I need to find her, because every second I lose has another sick memory flooding my thoughts.
Piper poisoned Kelly. She poisonedmy fucking wife.
“Where would Piper go?” I tear into the suitcases, but they’re empty.Fuck, where would she go?
