Page 127 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

His eyes rake down my body again, but this time it’s not sexual. It’s speculative.

My heart lodges itself in my throat. “I have no idea what you mean,” I say with calm politeness I do not feel.

He tugs down the buttoned cuffs of his light-blue uniform shirt, showing me the letters STAY HARD tattooed on his knuckles.

“The detective looking into Greg’s case is back in the office after the new year,” he says with a phony casualness. “Maybe he and I should have a little chat.” He smooths down his unkempt mustache and flashes me a nicotine-stained smile. “But I could be persuaded to put that off with the right incentive. You sure that ‘no’ isn’t actually ‘yes, please, tonight’?”

He drops his eyes to my mouth as he runs his tongue over his teeth.

Inside I recoil. My face stays still.

“‘No’ means ‘no until the heat death of the universe,’” I say. “And stop harassing me about my ex-boyfriend.”

I push past him, not bothering to hide my shudder when he refuses to budge and my entire backside brushes against his front.

My heart’s still pounding too hard when I rejoin Bart.

Lester Timms just threatened me.

I don’t care.

I have the name of the man who hurt Hugo.

When my shift finally ends, I drive to my shiny new townhome and let myself in with my shiny new key. Based on what I see on the main floor, the movers did a beautiful job getting my furniture set up, and the boxes are neatly laid out in each room, ready for me to unpack.

I sink onto my couch—which feels out of place in this high-ceilinged parlor instead of my cozy duplex living room—and I think.

I think and I think and I think.

Five minutes later, I’m back out the door and on my way to Felicity’s.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Hugo

Maybe I should move.

I mean yes, at some point, I’ll have to get out of this bed. But maybe I should sell the duplex, too.

This morning, I let the movers in. I locked myself in my office and did four back-to-back counseling sessions. I stood at the front window and watched the truck drive away with every last trace of her. I walked through what used to be her side. I listened to my footsteps echo through every empty room. I left and locked the door behind me.

Then I walked into my office, deleted my never-finished apology file, pulled out my pen, and started to write.

Not an apology this time. A confession.

I wrote through sunset. I wrote through dinner. I wrote through the time she usually gets home from work. I moved to my back patio with Cosmo so he could run out his fidgets while I kept writing.

Now I’m in my bed, which is still pressed longways against the wall. My dog’s asleep next to me, and nineteen handwritten pages are in a sealed envelope on my lap.

Even though her name’s written on the front, I’m not going to give it to her. She already said goodbye. I just needed to put it all in writing—the things I should’ve said and should’ve done spelled out in black ink from a pen I’ve used to kill half a dozen people.

I toss the envelope into a drawer in my nightstand, too heartsick to hold it any longer, and pet my dog instead.

“You and me, boy,” I say as I scratch under his chin. “We’ll be fine, just the two of us.”

He peels open one skeptical eye, snorts, and falls back asleep. I’m wondering what I did to deserve that level of canine judgment when my phone lights up with an unknown number. Since it’s 1:36 a.m., I pick it up.

“Hugo, she’s in trouble!”