Page 119 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“Okay.” I nod jerkily. “Okay. You’re going to be fine, neighbor girl.”

She brushes a knuckle under her eye, catching the moisture there.

“I know.” She hauls in a deep breath. “I always am.”

I turn and stare into the darkness at the back of my yard so I don’t have to watch her leave.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Hugo

Rue’s moving out tomorrow, and I’m going to kill somebody about it.

Not her new landlord, although that was tempting. I’d say I need to work through my feelings in a more constructive manner than that, but Rue and I haven’t exchanged more than a few words since Thanksgiving, and I don’t seem capable of feeling much at all these days.

At least I’m getting to a man who’s been on my list for far too long.

December’s earlier sunsets mean I’m able to cross the well-manicured lawn and slip into the house well before Augustine Horne—retired educator, upstanding member of the community, soon-to-be dead man—returns home from his Thursday night symphony rehearsal.

No need to look for proof that he’s guilty of what I’m here to kill him for. Three of the families I worked with at the women’s shelter reported that he’d used his private music lessons with their children to ply them with alcohol and maneuver them into watching him masturbate. The only thing that’s kept him alive for this long is his retirement. He’s not around kids anymore and limits his musical activities to the adults-only community orchestra. If not for that and my preoccupation with Rue-related murders, he’d have become one of my intakes far sooner.

Once I’m inside, I walk straight to the bar cart in the music room where he used to hold his two-hour lessons with the most gifted students in his junior high orchestra. Like an experienced predator, he picked kids from unstable homes who’d be less likely to report abuse and less likely to be believed if they did. He lowered their inhibitions by offering them a screwdriver, joking that the vitamin C in the orange juice was good for them.

Horne still relaxes with a screwdriver when he gets home. It’s an odd choice for a man with a reputation as a supporter of the arts, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Unfortunately for Augustine, my heart is broken and wants him dead, and I’ve got a mad scientist best friend to help me do that.

The vodka bottle’s nearly full; I unscrew the cap and grab the first of the two vials Quinn gave me, then follow her max dosage instructions. After dispensing seven drops into the clear liquid, I recap it and give it a good shake. It’ll remain inert and undetectable in the alcohol, but when it mixes with the reagent in the second vial, Augustine’s stomach acid will get to work and he’ll expire of a nice, tidy heart attack. Tidier than he deserves, frankly, but it’ll get the job done.

Now, for that second compound.

I move into the kitchen, open the fridge to grab the orange juice, and bite out a curse as I stare at the eight-ounce six-pack.

“Problem?” Quinn says in place of a greeting when she answers her burner.

“It’s half pints, not a gallon,” I say tersely. “How many drops?”

I hear clinking on her end, either test tubes and pipettes for a paralytic or a candy thermometer and double boiler for yet another attempt at her grandma’s torte.

“See, this is why we do research before we do crimes,” she says.

I press my gloved fingers to my masked forehead, but it doesn’t hold back my frustrated growl. To be fair to Quinn, everything frustrates me right now.

“I did. A few months ago. How was I supposed to know he’d switch to individual containers?”

“And did we forget how to do math?”

“Eight pints to the gallon, for fuck’s sake,” I snap. “But I was supposed to put three drops into a full gallon, two if it was half empty, and one if it was almost out. How the hell much do I do for half a pint? And how the hell am I doing that without breaking the safety seals? And how the hell do I know which one he’ll take?”

There’s more clinking before she answers. “Two options. One, add a quarter of a drop into each one and hope both he and the investigators don’t notice that all the seals are broken. Or two, call this off and try again when you’ve done your actual research.”

“Quarter of a drop?”

“Ah, I see you’re choosing option three,” she says. “Charge forward and get caught.”

I ignore her and try to think. “If I can figure out what glass he’ll use, can I put a quarter of a drop in there?”

She exhales hard. I hear it loud and clear over the phone. “Okay, option four. If you think he’ll pour the whole bottle of OJ in, yes. But if it’ll be less than that, you’ll need to do an eighth of a drop, which I don’t trust you to eyeball. And if you get it wrong, you can’t count on⁠—”

Her voice cuts off abruptly, but I know what she was about to say.