4. Colin #2
The sound of a car driving by forces me out of the pit and toward the front of the house, peeking out the white shutters.
Her driveway remains empty, and her neighbor’s garage door lowering across the cul-de-sac puts me at ease.
Slightly. I still need to quit fucking around and get out of here.
I pull out the tracking app and confirm Chloe’s Bug is still stationary in the parking lot at Mickey’s.
No more losing time thinking about Chloe’s lips. Or the way her tongue might feel in my mouth. Or around my dick.
Fuck.
I retreat from the window and swoop my bag off the ground, climbing her wide, sweeping staircase two at a time to the second level.
There’s another area of the house I’m very interested in having eyes on, but I want to make sure my original bases are covered.
I push into the bedroom I only assume is hers, based on the number of times I’ve seen her staring out her window from the front of her house.
I’m assaulted by the scent of her immediately. The scent that haunts me. The scent that drove me away a year ago. I couldn’t get away from it, and I needed to, or I was going to lose myself entirely.
I make a half-ass attempt at pulling my undershirt over my nose, but it barely helps.
The faint scent of vanilla with a hint of berries seeps through the tiny holes of my t-shirt.
I try to remind myself that the berries are probably poisonous, and I let that thought drive me across the room to where her large white dresser sits across from her bed.
My gaze sticks on the four-post bed frame, the luxurious, cushy looking duvet and plush white pillows and—oh my God, is that a vibrator?
I ignore the twitch in my dick and force my feet to remain glued in place instead of crossing to that purple dildo and running my tongue against her dried come that’s likely on it.
Instead, I refocus on everything else about the room; the sheer curtains framing the windows, the string of twinkling lights littering her headboard, the fact that there’s an actual tiara on top of her lampshade on the nightstand by her bed.
God, she’s like a princess. An evil princess with a murder-complex.
I don’t let my thoughts wander any further than that, and trust me, they try to.
I turn away from the bed before I imagine what she looks like when she’s sleeping in it.
Or being fucked on all fours, knees sinking into the mattress and head turned back slightly to watch the cock enter her over and over again.
Not my cock, of course. Someone else’s. And I don’t let that thought piss me off as much as it tries to.
I pull my phone out of my pocket for a distraction, bringing up the tracking app again. The Bug is moving in this direction, but still maybe ten minutes out. I need to get out before she pulls up outside and sees my truck parked at the curb.
Pushing my phone back into my pocket, I set my bag down on the ground and pull a tiny camera out, eyeing the dresser and the framed photographs lining the surface with strings of pearls wound around them. I lean over to inspect the pictures closer.
The Black Widow herself is in the first one, her long, blonde hair hiked up into a ponytail with the type of colorful scrunchy you don’t see anymore. She’s holding a tiny child in her arms, which I’m assuming to be Black Widow Jr.
Fluffy, blonde curls frame her face, her little pink lips opened up into a toothy smile. Before she was tainted by her mother’s skewed ideals.
A few inches away is a framed photo of Chloe standing next to her mother, their blonde waves matching now.
Their lips the same crimson red color. Chloe’s holding a high school diploma in her hands with her arm draped lazily around her mom’s shoulders, the two of them standing tall with their sleek legs poking out from similar springtime dresses.
They’re standing in the exact spot their pool would eventually be.
The pool Caroline’s second husband would come to die in.
My head tilts as my eyes carry over the two of them.
They look like any innocent mom and daughter duo.
In this picture, they could pass as sisters. Twins, even.
The thought itches at something distant in my brain, and I try to form a rational path of logic out of it, but it’s gone before I can fully grasp it.
In the next picture, they both appear slightly older, but not by much. They still look eerily similar, which I never noticed until now. Maybe because I never really saw Caroline much growing up.
Back in the day, she was just a pretty enigma to me.
An enigma with a shitload of money, a beautiful daughter who went to my high school, and a mansion at the top of the hill.
Now I know that money came from the investigative journalism work she participated in when Chloe was a child.
Work that cracked open a nationwide sex trafficking ring that saved thousands of women’s and children’s lives, and earned her a seat at the table on crime podcasts, interviews, and even a few guest appearances in true crime documentaries.
Still, I’d pretty much only ever seen Caroline Stark in a prison jumpsuit with no makeup on. And while Chloe showed up to her mother’s court hearings dressed and made up modestly, there was a vivid difference between the two.
This picture was taken in the winter based on how bundled up the both of them are, holding each other close with steaming mugs in their hands under a row of Christmas lights.
They look so normal.
But they’d have been dangerous at that point—at least Caroline would have been.
Chloe was nineteen when her first stepdad was murdered.
I wonder briefly if he’s the one behind the camera.
I glance out the bedroom door, out the foyer into the backyard where this picture was also likely taken, in the same spot her stepdad would die not long after.
I force myself back to the present. I’ll have plenty of time to walk down Chloe’s sordid memory lane another time.
I quickly press another adhesive onto the back of the little black square pinched between my fingers, and stick it into the intricate design of one of the picture frames set a little further back from the rest. The cameras are flat and sleek enough that it blends in.
As long as Chloe doesn’t get tired of looking at this photo and turn it face down, I’ll have the perfect shot of her bed and any suitor she brings up here and attempts to harm.
Not that any of this will do me any good in court, but at least it will give me my own proof that she’s dangerous, and I’ll have a starting point on my journey to evidence I can use in a courtroom.
On my way out of the room, I bypass the marble floors of the attached bathroom, because there’s no need for a camera in there.
I’m not a fucking pervert, and reminder to self: I do not want to see Chloe Stark naked.
I check her location on my way back down the stairs, and she’s too close for me to have time to see the part of the house I really want to see.
The garage. More specifically, the door in the garage that leads to who knows where, and who knows what is hiding down there.
I’ve seen it through the windows of the garage door on my many drop-ins and attempts at lurking in the past. I curse myself for not starting there tonight, but I can always prioritize it during my next breaking and entering adventure.
Creeping out through the back door, I lock the handle before pulling it shut and double checking that the deadbolt doesn’t have any damage.
I hightail it around the side of the house and down the driveway before tossing my bag into the bed of my truck and closing myself into the driver’s seat, trying hard not to squeal out and draw attention to myself.
Pulling up the GPS tracker again, I watch the little blue dot get closer and closer to Chloe’s house as I navigate further and further away.
I should be home just in time to have my first, true look into who Chloe Stark is behind closed doors.