“Want to stop and get a bite to eat somewhere? My treat?” she asks me, and I sniffle and wipe my tears away.
“No. Just take me back so I can get my car, will you?”
“You could stay with me tonight if you want. We could go get Bear and binge something on TV and eat ice cream.”
Her offer is kind, and I know she’s just trying to be a good friend to me, but the idea of sleeping anywhere but my bed, in my space, feels overwhelming.
“No, thank you. I want to be home.”
The ride to my car is filled with Allison’s chatter about what the next steps will look like in the case. Then she drops me at my car and follows me all the way home, where Detective Shaw and one of his lackeys sit on the fenceline of my property, looming like a beacon of safety right outside my door.
I move through the motions of my after-work routine robotically, letting Bear out, feeding him, showering, and then plopping down in front of the TV with a barely warm microwaveable dinner and a glass of wine.
I should have tea, like I always do, but I’m too impatient to soothe my nerves, and I’m anxious to have the buzz of alcohol gracing my veins.
It’s technically the second glass, since I chugged the first while watching the microwave cook my dinner.
I scarf down my food, have one more glass of wine, and then fall into bed, deliriously buzzed and relaxed as the world fades away and the worries of today weigh down beneath the haze of red wine.
Gasping awake, I look around. It’s still dark, and the room’s spinning. Glancing at the clock, the numbers glare back at me.
Three a.m.; I’ve only been asleep for an hour.
Fuck, I can tell, too.
Alcohol still weighs my body down, causing me to wobble on my feet when I head for the bathroom. I don’t know what had awoken me, but Bear is asleep on the foot of the bed, unalarmed by whatever it was.
Probably another bad dream.
I relieve myself, wash my hands, all while leaving the lights out and my eyes closed, hoping that’ll help me to fall back into a stupor easier.
However, before I crash back toward the bed, an arm snakes around my middle.
Fear spikes through me as I open my mouth to scream as loud as I can so the officers outside can hear me, but a hand slaps over my mouth.
Leather-scented gloves cover my scream, and the arm holding me tightens.
He’s here.
My time is up.
He’s finally decided that I’m not worth the hassle of toying with anymore, and he’s come to finish me off.
Part of me is thankful.
I’ve been waiting for karma to come and end me for ten years, and it’s come in the form of a large man, with massive hands, that smells like… Fuck is that sandalwood?
I can’t reconcile that my killer smells good before his lips dust over my ear. “You’ve been a very bad girl, pretty poison.”
His nickname for me tightens the fear twisting my stomach into knots, and I whimper as my tears fall over his leather gloves.
“Bad girls get punished.”
8
Koen
One Year Ago
