Page 156 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

Hugo’s expression is still troubled, so I take his face in my hands and say, “It’ll help, knowing your words are waiting for me afterward.”

The tension leaves him, and he pulls us under the covers once more so my back is tight against his front. He kisses the nape of my neck as he reaches for the mask I dropped on the mattress. The last thing I see before he settles it over my eyes is my name in his handwriting. The last thing I feel before I fall asleep is his strong body curling around me in the dark.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Hugo

“This beats what we did last Christmas Eve,” Quinn says directly into my brain.

I fiddle with the lentil-size receiver tucked deep in my ear canal. It’s odd having voices essentially reverberating through my skull.

Actually, back up a step. It’s odd having other voices involved on a kill night at all, let alone Quinn and Felicity and, for some reason, Pell.

“You didn’t like Thai takeout and a complete chemical and psychological workup of every intake we did that year?” I ask. “I made charts!”

Her scoff comes through loud and clear, which means the zipper-pull mic Pell attached to my fleece is transmitting just fine as I approach the alley behind Lester Timms’s house. Every bungalow in this working-class South Side neighborhood looks the same, which is a great way to end up in the wrong backyard. I’m counting garages carefully as I move through the shadows.

“Those were the good parts. It was you moaning about the pretty princess next door that tended to grate.”

“I want to hear everything,” Felicity says.

“No,” I say as Quinn replies, “I’ll fill you in over lunch next week.”

“Y’all are havin’ lunch without me?” Pell asks. “Lemme guess, the Sunny Day Diner?”

“How did you…” Quinn stops herself and mutters. “Creep.”

“I’m starting to regret letting you use the other half of the duplex as your field office,” I tell them all.

“Guys.” Felicity’s voice cuts us off. “Rue just texted.”

“Is she okay?” I melt into the side of a small shed that smells like motor oil. “If she’s not, we call this off right now.” Rue’s role tonight means she isn’t wired with a mic, only an earpiece identical to mine.

“She’s fine,” Felicity says. “But she wants these two to shut the fuck up.”

“Gladly,” Quinn mutters.

I’m at the edge of Timms’s property sixty seconds later. “Approaching the back door now.”

This summons serious Pell. “Essential chatter only,” he reminds us. “And keep it low.”

If a voice gets too loud, Timms might be able to hear it through our receivers. Just another variable that’s stripping away my stomach lining.

“I love you, neighbor girl. Just in case,” I murmur as I let myself in through Timms’s fence gate. I’ve raised my fist to knock on his back door when Felicity’s whisper tickles my ear.

“She loves you too, and she’ll see you soon.”

I exhale. I knock. I wait.

The man who answers the door three minutes later is exactly who I was expecting to rouse from sleep just before midnight on Christmas Eve. Lester Timms is in a camo-print compression shirt that’s too baggy to succeed at its job, along with shiny silver athletic shorts and black Nike slides. I’m also unsurprised by the pistol that he’s not bothering to hide in his right hand. What I wasn’t expecting is the trace of fear in his eyes.

Scared. Sleeping with a gun, or maybe not sleeping at all.

Timms doesn’t need persuasion. He just needs a push.

“Who the fuck are you?” he barks, running his free hand over the small bit of stubble clinging to his scalp as he eyes me up and down. I’m not Gomez tonight—a man like Timms would see me as competition and start a pissing contest—and I’m sure as fuck not soft-therapy-boy Dr. Mohr. I keep my shoulders round and down, my hands visible.

“A philosopher, a king, and a disciple,” I reply in a hushed, almost conspiratorial tone. “Here because the unexamined life…”