Chapter 4 Rowan
ROWAN
Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
It’s fucking working.
The door to my little beach bungalow slams shut behind me, and for a moment, all I can do is stare at my sparse living room. It’s a far cry from Uncle Nash’s mansion, but at least it’s mine. I don’t have to do anyone’s bidding to earn my right to live here.
I throw myself down on my sofa and stare down at Abilene’s phone number for what feels like the millionth time. And I know it’s hers, too. Because she called me from her phone right in front of me. She gave her number to me. Willingly.
I’ve no doubt I could have scrounged up her number at some point since she came back to Rosado, but I didn’t see the point.
Who answers an unknown caller? I had a much easier time becoming familiar with the Hatch Street Funeral Parlor, where she lived the first time I saw her and where she still lives now.
There’s the big oak tree that lets me look into her living room, plus all the loose windows and wriggly little side doors that make it easy for me to find my way inside whenever I have the urge to get a closer look.
Plus, it’s such a big house, always creaking and groaning, that it’s easy for me to lurk around in the shadows, watching her drift from room to room, memorizing the way she moves, the way she sweeps her hair up into a bun when she’s heading down to her examination room, the way she tucks her feet up underneath herself while she’s watching TV in the evenings.
I’ve seen all of those things. But today she saw me, her big blue eyes meeting mine in my office as she told me that she had found my messages for her.
I drop back on the couch, still staring at her number on my phone, and her name beside it.
I click the option to add a photo, and I scroll through the dozens I’ve taken over the last two years, almost all of them while she’s sleeping.
She tends to doze off while she’s watching television, and more than once I’ve stolen in and snapped her soft, peaceful face before ducking back into the hallway, my breath fast and panting.
A few times, of course, I’ve watched her sleep while she’s in her bed, when her sleep is much deeper and therefore safer.
I’m not sure how I can tell the difference, but it’s always obvious to me when she’s under enough that I can sit beside her bed and watch the soft rise and fall of her breasts and the moonlit glint of her hair on the pillow.
It’s one of those pictures that I go with. Abi on her side, her long eyelashes resting against her cheekbone, her expression peaceful. Then I stare at that for a while, her name in my phone, a picture beside the name.
I should see her tonight.
The excitement brims up in my chest. I haven’t actually visited her house in a few weeks, mostly because I was planning for my most recent kill.
It took more care than usual since I had to do it in the hotel.
There’s a pattern I’m leaving for her, a trail of breadcrumbs in the shape of a signature.
I know she’s found the letters I’ve left her, carved neatly into the skin of my victims. But I wonder if she’s seen how carefully I’ve arranged them for her.
I wonder if she realizes yet that they’re words.
Words introducing my true self to her. The first volley in a conversation that I want to continue forever.
I sit up, excitement thrumming through my body.
Yes, I’m definitely going to visit her tonight.
Maybe I’ll even leave another clue for her, something subtle—I’ve never gone down into the actual room where she does her autopsies before, so that might be a good place.
Just something to let her know she’s on the right track.
That she should keep digging and not give up.
Because that’s the last thing I want. And she did seem disappointed this afternoon that she didn’t find any leads. I know it means that I did a good job of covering my tracks, exactly the way Uncle Nash taught me. And obviously, I can’t have her going to the police.
But I still want to let her know how good she’s doing.
I creep through the small, tidy cemetery that surrounds the funeral parlor Abi calls home, dressed all in black and wearing my killing face, a dark mask I had custom-made shortly before Abi came back to Rosado.
Even though there’s no one out, I still stick to the shadows offered by the row of pecan trees that run along one side of the cemetery, their branches all twisted sideways from the constant, beating wind blowing in off the Gulf.
All the lights are off in Abi’s house save for the front porch light, which she always turns on around ten o’clock, the same time that she double-checks all the locks.
Usually, if I’m going to visit her inside, I’ve already gone in by then.
But I’m not planning on going in through the doors tonight anyway.
Instead, I’m doing something different. Something risky. Talking to Abi this afternoon, getting her number, has made me feel emboldened.
When I come to the edge of the cemetery, I double-check Hatch Street both ways to make sure no one’s coming. It’s a quiet road, especially this late at night, but you can never be too careful.
All that’s out here is me and the wind.
I dart across the street, taking off in a sprint so that I can minimize how long I’m out in the open.
I wind through the wild patch of flowers that Abi grows in the front yard.
In the mornings, she puts the flowers on the graves in the cemetery, something I’ll watch her do on days when I don’t want to take the risk of breaking into her house.
Right now, they’re mostly sunflowers, their yellow faces already facing east to greet the sun.
Normally, I’d go in through the side door, which has the flimsiest lock.
But tonight, I keep going around the side of the house until I get to the long, narrow driveway that runs up to the part of the house where Abi receives bodies for her coroner work.
There’s a big metal garage here as well as a regular entrance, both guarded by an electronic lock.
I’ve never bothered coming in this way before because I want to spend time with Abi when she’s off work and relaxing in her living room. Tonight, though, I have other plans.
The lock on the entrance is easy enough to bypass. I pry the cover off easily—I’ve always been strong—and then it’s just a matter of crossing the wires in a specific way. Uncle Nash taught me how to do this ages ago, before I ever even killed for him. I was his thief before I was his murderer.
The lock beeps and springs free, and I ease open the door, letting in a wash of overly cool air.
It smells like a hospital, bright and sterile, although there’s a faint, comforting layer of rot underneath it.
I do like the smell of death. It’s one of the things I like about Abi, the way that sweetness follows her around like a perfume.
I doubt anyone notices it but me, which just makes it all the more special.
I slip inside, dragging the door shut behind me. All the lights are off, but I have good night vision. My shoes whisper against the tile floors. Normally, that’d give me pause, but I know Abi is tucked away upstairs. I doubt she can hear me down here.
I follow the scent of death to the autopsy room, which is also locked, although not electronically. I pick the lock easily and step inside.
My movements make the lights flicker to life.
For a moment, I freeze, breathing hard behind my killing face.
I don’t want to take it off, even though I’m not here to kill tonight.
It reflects my true self more than my human face, so I always wear it when I visit Abi.
After all, what’s love if you can’t be your true self around the object of your desire?
I creep forward through the overly bright light, peering out at Abi’s workplace.
She keeps it clean and tidy—all her instruments put away, all the surfaces gleaming.
I stop in front of the weapons she has laid out, ready to be used.
Well, not weapons, I suppose. Tools. She only uses them on people who are already dead.
I run my gloved hands over them, picking them up one by one to feel their weight. A thin, delicate scalpel, which is a type of blade I’ve never used before. A bone saw, which is one I have.
That was for Uncle Nash, though. My own kills, I prefer to be more creative. I never use knives anymore.
I turn away from the autopsy tools and take in the rest of the space. I don’t see any bodies, but I do see a wall of gleaming metal drawers. I walk over, my footsteps soft and clicking.
They’re labeled. Names, a date (death or delivery, I don’t know) a string of identification numbers. Marcus Nielson is on the far left, and I pull him out and look down at him, his face much more peaceful than the last time I saw him.
“You served your purpose well,” I say, my voice echoing strangely in this cold, sterile room.
I consider, briefly, leaving my message on him.
But no. Neither the police nor the sheriff’s department currently suspects foul play, even if my clever Abi does, and I want to keep it like that.
I’ve no doubt she’ll take this to them, and I fear marring Mr. Nielson’s corpse might be a bit too obvious.
I don’t want the cops swarming my hotel in earnest.
So I slide him back in with a distressingly loud clang.
Then I turn away from the cabinet, looking out at the room.
For a moment, my eyes settle again on her tools.
That could be a possibility, but something about it doesn’t chime right.
I keep scanning, looking over the sterile countertops, the pristine walls, until I land on a door.
It leads, I think, into an office; there’s a window beside it, although whatever’s inside is too dark to see. I stride over, my heart fluttering. An office would be intimate, wouldn’t it? And subtle, if I play it right. I need something meaningful to her, but not to the cops.
I try the door, and find it unlocked. Unlike the autopsy room, the lights don’t come on automatically, and I feel around until I find the light switch.
What that soft overhead light reveals makes my heart flop over in my chest.
A map of Rosado County. It’s impossible to miss; the office is tiny, and Abi has pinned the map to the wall exactly opposite the door. But it’s not just a map.
It’s a model of all my work over the last two years.
I drift forward, my breath caught in my lungs. I have a similar map at home, neatly folded in a locked box I keep in the back of my closet. Every letter of my message is planned out there, every location of all seven kills marked with a blue felt-tip pen the same color as Abi’s lovely eyes.
She doesn’t have all of them, of course, because I haven’t finished my work. But she has pressed a red pin in the location of every single kill to date, each letter of my message printed on a little flag.
But what really makes my heart skip—and, if I’m being honest, what sends blood shooting into my cock—is the fact that there are a smattering of white pins, too, and a handful of them, enough to be impressive, are also my kills. Murders from before she came back to town.
Not all of them. She’s being overly optimistic, I imagine. But she’s clearly seen enough of my work to understand it.
I stumble up to the map, breathing heavily behind my killing face, and read what the flagged pins spell out.
YOUR DAR
My mind fills in the rest: Your Dark Whisperer.
My signature, just for her. My way of introducing myself.
I chose it because my true self doesn’t really have a name, and this felt appropriate, given all the times I’ve knelt beside her bed and whispered truths into her ear while she was sleeping, hoping that she would hear them in her dreams.
Truths like, You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.
Or, You’re the reason I finally freed myself.
Or, sometimes, I love you.
I feel dizzy—with happiness. With excitement. Of course I knew she had found the most recent R and enough of the letters to see a pattern, but I didn’t know, not until this moment, that she had all of them.
Plus some of the others. Before Abi came back to Rosado, I used to choose my victims purely by instinct, an instinct even I barely understand.
I’d watch them at the hotel or on the beach.
I’d wait until they were far away from anywhere tied to me.
And then I’d find a way to trap them in their deaths.
And yet Abi still sifted through that chaos until she found me.
I suck in my breath and palm my cock over my pants, shuddering at the touch.
I never masturbate in her home, mostly because I don’t want to risk leaving evidence, but also because it feels uncouth somehow.
I usually do it out in the cemetery, holding onto the memory of her lovely face while I spill my seed on some hundred-year-old grave.
But this is special. In fact, this might be how I send my message.
I choke back a groan as the idea takes form in my head. I imagine it: Abi coming into her office, a tidy bowl of my cum waiting for her on her desk. It’s definitely uncouth, but I bet she doesn’t go to the police with it. And it’ll let her know she’s onto something.
There has to be a bowl somewhere down here. Or a jar.
I don’t go looking for one just yet, though, just unzip my pants and grab hold of my cock, giving it a few slow strokes. My grunts are dangerously loud in the quiet of her office. But they sound right, too.
God, what I wouldn’t give to fuck her down here for real.
I might whisper in her ear during our nights together, but I’ve never touched her, not even when she’s sleeping.
I don’t want her like that. I want her awake and willing.
I want her to lean back on her neat little desk and slide her skirt up her thighs and show me she’s naked underneath.
I want her to gaze up at my killing face with lust in her eyes and beg the real me to make her come.
Heat surges up into my cock, and I drop it, my heart racing. I need a receptacle. I’m not a fucking asshole who’s going to shoot his load all over Abi’s work documents.
But when I go over to the doorway, I hear something, faint but definite.
Footsteps. Soft, clicking footsteps.
And they’re coming this way.