Page 95 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” She lifts her chin, but I’ve been watching her for a long time. Her eyes cut downward, and the fingers of her left hand twitch against her leg. She’s lying.

“Is there more?” I lurch to my feet in alarm. “More shit about me you’ve got hidden away?”

Not just me, but Quinn. My friend said it herself; there’s a straight line from my kills to her. I could ruin both our lives by trusting the wrong person.

Rue’s mouth opens, then snaps shut, which is all the answer I need.

“Where is it?” I demand.

“Where’s what?” she asks sweetly.

I walk to the center of the kitchen, my mind spinning. She’s not going to voluntarily hand over whatever it is she doesn’t want me to find. I’d have to hurt her, and I’m not going to fucking do that. So I focus every bit of my training on everything I know about Rue. About Morticia.

Bad mom. Orphaned young. Foster care. No stability. Distrust of authority figures. A need for autonomy. She’d find someplace outside the home, where an intrusive mother couldn’t look, but she’d want direct access to it.

I spin on my heel and stalk toward the garage.

“What are you doing?” Rue’s voice lifts in panic as she runs after me, grabbing my arm.

When I shake her off, she and her knife step in front of me to block the door. I change trajectories and wrap my fingers high on her wrist, holding her arm out in front of her. With just enough pressure on the back of her hand, I force her grip open and drop the knife into my waiting palm. She immediately sidesteps, aiming the heel of her hand at my solar plexus and positioning herself to topple me with a leg hook, but I sweep aside the blow, dodge her foot, and crouch to push my shoulder into her stomach so I can carry her into the garage draped over my chest, her head hanging down my back.

“Put me the fuck down,” she fumes.

I wrap an arm around her calves to control her kicks.

“Want to tell me what you’re hiding?”

“Fuck you.”

“Then I’m not putting you down.”

I’m slipping into survival mode, retreating behind my emotionless mask to assess the threat to me. To Quinn. It’s what lets me ignore the punches she tries to land on my kidneys.

“Let’s see how well I know you after all.” I set her down when we reach her car, trapping her back against my front, aware that a few short hours ago, I killed the man who held her just like this. “You’ve convinced yourself that planning and rules keep you from being her, but I’ve seen you embrace your mother’s chaos, Morticia.”

She jolts as if I slapped her, and I know my hurt is making me cruel, but I can’t stop myself.

Of course, Rue’s perfectly capable of hitting back.

“And what about you, Dr. Mohr?” she spits out. “I bet you therapize your victims to death. What’s lurking in your past that has their hearts giving out in self-protection while you just drone on and on and fucking on?”

She wants my childhood trauma? Fine.

“My parents were cold and absent and rich, and then they died.” I open the driver’s side door and lean around her to find the trunk release. “I went to the funeral. I met with the lawyers. I took the inheritance.”

It requires nothing for me to share this. There’s no emotion attached to my history. The words slip free as I lift her a few inches off the ground, walking us to the back of the silver Honda I’ve watched come and go down our driveway countless times.

“I used some of the money for this duplex and some to set up a few fake identities and a few safe houses. I could disappear tonight if I need to.”

“Great. Start packing, motherfucker.”

I look over her head at the mountain of garbage in her trunk: jumper cables, broken ice scrapers, running shoes caked with dried mud, old shopping bags and takeout menus.

“Here’s the thing, neighbor girl,” I say as I lean us both forward so I can dig through her pile of defense mechanisms. “I’m not your chaotic, narcissistic mom, and I’m not one of your bad foster dads, either.”

Unlike them, I have the patience to look. And a moment later, my fingers land on the thing that shouldn’t be here.