Page 9 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“Fuck off,” I snap. “I’m not showing you my work.”

Now he’s openly laughing. “Fair enough. Then do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” I shoot back in my lowest register, annoyed.

He presses the tiniest bit harder, squeezing the air from my lungs. “I asked you first.”

Oh, goody. He wants to play games.

I twist as much as I can in his hold, craning my neck to see what I’m up against. My flashlight fell facing the far corner of the closet when he grabbed me, so all I can make out is a hulking figure behind me in this dark, mostly empty closet. When I whip back around, I use the motion to shift my backpack lower on my arm. If I can just get it close enough to⁠—

“I don’t think so.” He chuckles as he yanks my bag all the way off my shoulder, anchoring me with his other arm so I can’t squirm away. “Are you here to rob the place?”

The suggestion that I’d want to steal a goddamn thing from this shithole is so absurd that it pushes more of my fear away.

“What? No!” Wriggling madly, I focus on freeing a leg so I can stomp on his instep or scrape his shin. But I can’t move him an inch, so I focus on keeping him verbally off balance. “And you? Hoping to make off with Howard’s spank-bank Kleenex?”

His chest quakes with another soft laugh.

“If you’re not a robber,” he says, turning his attention to my backpack, “then what could you possibly have in here?”

“Not your business.”

“And yet.” He sounds unconcerned as he slides open the zipper with one hand.

“Careful,” I snarl. “It’s full of razor blades and uncapped needles. How do you feel about Hep C, motherfucker?”

“The mouth on you, Morticia.” His voice is suddenly right next to my ear again before he pulls away to rummage through my bag.

Goddammit. I hate it when people touch my stuff.

“Duct tape, zip ties, tarp…” He tsks. “You didn’t come to play, did you?”

Think, Rue. The person chuckling at my curses isn’t supposed to be in this closet any more than I am. And if he’s not a thief, his intentions might be as dark as mine are. That, I can work with.

He tosses my backpack behind him and out of my reach, and frustrated tears prick my eyes. Now even if I can get free, I can’t run, not without stopping for my bag. Guess I have to deal with this head-on and hope I can make him see reason.

“Okay, it’s clear that both of us broke in,” I start.

“Appears so,” the man trapping me against the wall of the closet agrees.

“I came to confirm this is the guy who burned down a house two Saturdays ago.” I cross every metaphorical finger I have that this is the right play.

“Funny, me too.” The asshole sounds amused as he crowds me. “Question is, what do you plan to do after that?”

“What’s your plan?” My words come out a little garbled, what with my cheek being squished against the wall and the mask still covering my mouth. “Are you planting evidence so he actually gets charged this time?”

The man scoffs. “Like I trust the police to do a goddamn thing.”

I couldn’t agree more, but in the interest of moving this along, I stick with a simple “Same.”

“Any chance you’re planning to make it so Mr. Marshall isn’t able to set any more fires?” he asks.

There’s caution in his voice for the first time, and I hesitate before answering. I shouldn’t be able to smell anything over the wool of my mask, but in the short silence that follows his question, I catch a trace of something sweet and a little smoky that lingers on him, like a warm, cozy room.

God. Warm, cozy room? Focus, bitch.

Okay, am I better off telling this guy that I’m not here to hurt anybody, or that I’m here to hurt the fuck out of somebody? For all I know, he’s a cop on some kind of sting operation. He’s got the build for it. Then again, if he’s a cop, I’m going down for criminal trespass at a minimum, so fuck it.