Page 87 of East

“Yeah.” Aus frowns. “And I might have punched his fucking daylights out. Maybe I feel like doing it again after learning he drugged my girlfriend.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Your girlfriend?”

He drops his mouth open, darts his gaze around. “Sorry. I mean… I don’t want to presume anything. I just… I guess that’s how I’ve started thinking about you. It’s weird, but I care about you.”

I smile, which feels nice. I haven’t done much of it lately. “Maybe I’ve been thinking of you the same way.”

He grins.

We cross the street. Aus pounds on Wick’s door, calling out for him.

No answer, of course.

Can’t blame the guy. Last time he answered the door, Aus probably broke his nose.

I start laughing.

Not a good laugh.

The kind that says I’m fucked. So fucked. And nothing can help me.

“Thea, what’s wrong?”

“What isn’t wrong?” I sit on Wick’s stoop. “Everything’s pointed against me.”

“Again, the evidence is⁠—”

“Circumstantial, I know. Put it on a T-shirt, sew it into a pillow. Big fucking deal. You said yourself that it doesn’t matter.”

Most mysteries go cold.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the cops aren’t looking for the truth, for justice.

They’re looking for someone to blame.

When a crime occurs, someone has to go down for it. The public needs to be fed the illusion or else they’ll lose their faith in law enforcement.

You don’t need to commit the perfect crime to avoid getting caught for murder. You just need to lay a trail of breadcrumbs that lead to the person you want to pin it on.

And right now, I have a big neon arrow pointing at me with the words “she did it.”

How do I know this?

Because I’ve lived it.

Emmy and Bill are already married on paper, but Emmy still wants a big wedding.

I don’t know why. It’s not like she has any friends.

And guess who gets to put up all the decorations and make all the arrangements, despite the injury to her leg?

Thea Storm, come on down!

I sigh. I suppose it was good of Bill to marry Emmy. We’d be up to our eyeballs in medical debt if he hadn’t. I still can’t believe Emmy completely neglected to get us insured.

He helped us out, but I still can’t shake the feeling of insects crawling all over me every time Bill looks my way. Every so often, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of my door creaking. Could be the house settling, I suppose. But it never happened before Bill lived here.

Emmy has given me a list of requirements for her dream wedding. It’s a much bigger affair than the one she had with my father. She must want to put Bill’s money to good use.