Right?
I glance across to where Spencer is driving, tapping his hands on the steering wheel and singing along to whatever’s on the radio. The words are wrong, he’s completely off-key, and if anyone could hear him, they’d think he was murdering something. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to kiss him until we’re both panting and needy.
Except he won’t be, will he? I’ll be hard and aching, and he’ll just be… I don’t know what. Satiated. Happy. That’s a good-enough reason for me to do it.
“You’re looking at me,” Spencer says, his singing cutting off abruptly. “I asked you before if there was jam on my face, and you said no.”
“Because there isn’t any jam on your face.” Not anymore; he’d cleaned it off after he’d eaten five pieces of toast in quick succession.
“Why are you looking at me, then?”
“You’re nice to look at.” It’s the truth. And has the added benefit of him turning to give me a small, shy smile. He looks almost doe-eyed with his big brown eyes and bright blond hair.
“Yeah?”
“Are you fishing for compliments?”
“Are you going to give them to me?”
Always. “Anything you want, but let’s try to get to our destination in one piece. In order to do that, you need to keep your eyes on the road.”
He winks at me. “So what do you think about this neighbour? NDA enough to get her to shut her mouth or…?”
“I haven’t met her. Are you suggesting we murder her?”
“I didn’t say that, but if it happens to be our only option, I’m just saying we shouldn’t discount it.”
“Right.”
He twists his palms around the steering wheel. “She doesn’t seem sus to you? If someone got murdered in the house nextto mine, I’d find somewhere else to stay for a couple nights. Wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t think we’re the right target audience for that question.” If someone comes into either of our apartments with the intent to hurt Spencer, they’ll end up dead or in cuffs. I know which option I’d be going with. I’ll bury them so fucking deep that no one will ever remember they existed in the first place.
“Hypothetically, if we weren’t us, and neither of us knew how to kill a person with tweezers and a block of cheese, what would you do? You’d get the fuck out of the neighbourhood, at least for a few days. It’s only smart.”
“A block of cheese? That was your first thought?”
He turns and gives me a grin that makes my knees a little weak. “I said tweezers first, but it’d be a cool story, right?”
“It would beastory.” I like to eat cheese, not… whatever would involve murder. Make them choke on it, maybe? “What’s your point?”
“I’m just saying that it’s weird she doesn’t seem too concerned about sleeping right next to a haunted house.”
Some people pay to stay in haunted houses, it’s not that weird. “How do you know it’s haunted?”
“Somebody got killed there, Ken. You think it’snot?”
I’m not answering that. “Killers don’t always come back to the scene of their crime. The smart ones don’t.” Not generally. Though if they get a kick out of seeing their work, then they may. It’s a complicated grey area and a conversation I’m not getting into right now.
Veronica’s house looks the same as it did when we visited the night of her murder. Still no mail stuffed in the mailbox, but it may not mean anything. Not a lot of people get physical letters anymore, and there’s a sticker saying “no junk mail.”
“When were the family notified?” I ask, stepping out and closing the car door behind me before leaning against it, arms on the roof.
“Yesterday evening, I think? Riley held off as long as he could without making anyone suspicious. She’s an only child. They had to call her parents since they live in Perth. Bit over a four-hour flight away… they could be here already, potentially.”
If they boarded a flight quickly. If it was my child, I’d have caught the first one possible. “Let’s get this over with, then.” I don’t want our car here if they show up to go through her things. Regardless of the fact we aren’t out front ofherplace, the fewer visuals we give out the better. We should have parked a few blocks away, to be honest. But since we’re here to see Irene Abrams, specifically, doing that would be suspicious as well. Can’t win, either way. So it’s best we don’t linger.”
“It’s gonna be so cliché if the neighbour did it,” Spencer says with a little laugh as he strides with purpose toward the front door. The small hop he does up the three stairs is borderline psychotic.
