Page 128 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

I’m out of bed. “Felicity?”

“She’s going after Overton.” Her twin is crying, frantic, her words jumbled over the sound of a moving car. “She won’t answer her phone.”

I’m dressed and headed for the stairs. “I’ll go there now.”

“He killed his wife and she wouldn’t listen to me and I just found t-the power strip and I can’t get there in time and I don’t know if she’ll be okay.”

I’m in my car with my keys, murder kit, and Dr. Mohr glasses. “I have the address. I’m leaving now.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Rue

“Don’t do this. I’m begging you. We can take the time to come up with a safe plan, but this is crazy. We don’t do crazy. I swear to god, Ruby Lynn, you’d better call me back.”

Fi’s voicemail isn’t quite the pep talk a girl hopes to hear as she’s about to sneak across a massive backyard that may or may not be equipped with motion-sensor floodlights.

Does she have a point that I’m rushing into this? Maybe. But if I wait, Lindsay Overton’s husband will end up in a justice system stacked in favor of wealthy, powerful men like him, and I can’t leave that to chance.

Ray Overton dies tonight, with or without Felicity’s approval.

“Here goes nothing,” I whisper, pulling out the jammer I grabbed from the barn’s supply closet before storming out. I flip it on and scramble all the RF signals in the vicinity, including—I hope—Overton’s Wi-Fi-only security system.

My breath fogs in the December air as I skulk around the perimeter of the property in my ski mask, and when I hit the open stretch of lawn I need to cross, I pause to toss a small branch toward the house. The three motion sensors stay blessedly dark.

How’s that for taking a fucking second to think before I act? I ask the phantom Fi in my head as I make my way to the back of the three-car garage without triggering any brighter-than-the-sun lights. If the snow can just hold off until I’m done, I’ll consider myself one lucky little killer.

Once I’ve picked the lock, slipped inside, and locked it behind me, I flatten myself against the garage wall. No lights outside means no signal inside as well, so I’m free to move about the cabin. And I’m doing it all without an alibi, because Felicity refused to help me. Always having each other’s back was more conditional than I realized.

Sliding past the row of rakes and snow shovels hanging from the pegboard, I ease open the door to the house and step inside. Lindsay’s absence as the decorator-in-chief means that, unlike every other house on this block, the Overtons have no Christmas tree, no holiday wreaths or bows, so I don’t need to watch for motion-activated singing Santas as I creep up the stairs.

My tread’s no more than a whisper on the carpeted steps, and when I reach the dark landing, I wait until I hear a steady humming from the door at the end of the hall.

Overton’s bedroom overlooks the backyard. Perfect. I’ll hit him with my NCU breath spray while he’s asleep and wait the handful of minutes it’ll take for him to die of apparent natural causes. Then I’m gone.

As always, my pockets are full of contingency plans: Pell’s fast-acting compliance spray, the big-daddy dial-a-dose, and, of course, my knife. But I won’t need them. This’ll be an easy in and out.

Using that same barely there footfall, I enter the bedroom and see a lump under the covers. I didn’t take the time to deep-dive into his work habits and sleep schedule, but as expected, he’s alone and sleeping far too well for someone who recently strangled his wife.

I move deeper into the room to stand over him. The faint light coming from the en suite bathroom shows him asleep on his back, mouth hanging open, a Top Gun-looking CPAP mask clamped over his nose. One arm’s draped over his eyes, and the other’s flung across the empty half of the mattress.

Jesus, he’s big. Clearly tall, beefy, with fists the size of canned hams. He’s the one who punched Hugo? And not only did Hugo let him do it, he never circled back to finish the job as Gomez. I hate that he’s going to blame himself when he hears about Lindsay.

I’m positioning the lethal breath spray over Overton’s wide-open mouth when an electronic female voice shatters the quiet.

“Reminder: Zoom call in thirty minutes between Ray Overton and the International Development Team in Berlin.”

I’m so startled I nearly drop the bottle, and phantom Fi makes an I told you so face.

Guess I should’ve researched his goddamn schedule.

It’s okay. The spray can still⁠—

“Hey Farrah, bedroom on,” Ray Overton’s muffled voice says.

The room lights blaze to life, and I’m bent over a no-longer-sleeping man. For the longest three seconds in history, we squint at each other under the five-thousand lumens bearing down on us from overhead. Then Overton bolts upright.

“What the hell?” His eyes bulge over the edge of his mask.