Chapter 12
ABI
“Truth or dare,” Chloe announces. “Penelope.”
“I’m not fucking doing this.” Penelope leans back, shaking her head. “We are grown women.”
“Fine. Abi. Truth or dare.”
I take a sip of my wine before answering.
My two best friends aren’t here with me, technically, but at last I can see both of their faces blinking up from their computer screens.
Chloe’s out on her apartment balcony, so all I can see is her face lit up by the sallow overhead light.
Not that it’s going to be her apartment for long, since she’s apparently going to move into that Appalachian lake house her grandparents left her.
It’s dark where she is, too, in North Carolina.
All I can see of Penelope’s background is a plain white wall.
She’s staying with her sister right now, she said when we first hopped on the call. In Chicago.
“Come onnnnn,” Chloe whines. “Truth or dare. I want to play.”
“Why?” Penelope asks. “We fucking know all of each other’s secrets.”
Chloe groans, and I laugh.
“She’s right,” I say. “She’s got you.”
“You two suck,” she says. “Okay, how about a drinking game? I’ve got a bottle of gin here, and I want to drink it.” She leans forward, tapping on her keyboard. “I bet I can find something online.”
“So drink your gin,” Penelope says. “No one’s stopping you.”
“You are so boring, Penny.” The light from Chloe’s laptop changes, illuminating her face as she squints at her screen. “It’d be like when we played D and D in the dorms, remember? Take a drink anytime someone rolls a crit.”
“We’re not playing D and D,” I point out. “Although I guess we could.”
“Do not give her any ideas.” Penelope sucks on her vape pen, pale mist filling up her screen. “What do you want to do, Abs?”
“I don’t need to play a drinking game, that’s for damn sure.” I’ve already had nearly half a bottle of this sweet red grocery store wine, plus the joint I smoked earlier. The world feels heady and bright and a much better place than it was before Chloe and Penelope and I got on this call together.
I know why Penelope’s asking me, though. This call is for me. A distraction from everything.
“What if we watch a movie?” Chloe’s still tapping on her laptop. “I can start a watch party or something.”
“Let me guess,” Penelope says. “We watch Friday the 13th and drink every time there’s a kill on screen?”
“No.” Chloe grins. “We watch my giallo marathon and drink every time there’s a boob on screen.”
Given the overly potent combo of weed and wine, this is legitimately the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while, and I dissolve into hysterical laughter, which sets Chloe off, too.
Penelope’s too cool for it, and she just sucks on her vape pen and stares at her screen with an amused sparkle in her eye.
I wish they were here, for real, the three of us sprawled out in my living room like we used to do our final year at college, when we shared a duplex a few blocks from campus.
I should move, I think blearily, although I don’t know where.
To middle-of-nowhere North Carolina, with Chloe?
It’s not like Penelope stays put, really.
She’s always moving around, chasing causes. Living in hostels or couch-surfing.
North Carolina would be nice enough. I’m sure I could find a job. But leaving Rosado means selling the Hatch Street Funeral Parlor. And I promised Uncle Vic I wouldn’t do that.
“Okay, but seriously,” Chloe says. “There’s the new A24 movie—”
“Abi doesn’t want to watch that pretentious garbage,” Penelope laughs.
“Oh, shut up. It’s free on HBO right now. I can share my password and—”
Something thumps downstairs.
Immediately, the woozy, feel-good feeling from the weed calcifies into a sharp, paranoid anxiety. I take a deep breath, trying to calm down my suddenly racing heart as Chloe and Penelope argue good-naturedly on the computer screen.
Another thump, louder than the first, and I jump against my couch.
He’s back.
“Abs? You okay?” Penelope’s voice sounds far away. I blink at the computer. They’re both staring at their screens. Looking at me.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just—I thought I heard something.” I shake my head, force out a grin. “It’s just this house. Makes a lot of noise at night. What movie were you thinking of—”
My cell phone lights up, buzzing against the coffee table. I grab it.
Unknown Number
“You need to take that?” Chloe says, and I can tell from the worry in her voice what she’s thinking—more bad news, another death.
“No, it’s a spam call.” I silence my phone and throw it on the sofa beside me. “What are we thinking? Movie?”
My phone lights up, this time with a text.
“Can you even still do watch parties anymore?” Penelope says. “I figured they nixed all that shit after—”
I check my phone as surreptitiously as possible, hoping Chloe and Penelope can’t see me on screen. The same unknown number—
And the text is a photograph of my front door.
Real fear lances through my chest, and I suck in deep breaths of air as Chloe and Penelope’s bickering voices spill out of my computer speaker, tinny and far away. I should call the police.
What if it’s him? My killer?
What if it is? He’s a fucking murderer, even if he’s apparently not the only one in Rosado. I shake my head, trying to clear out my thoughts. Trying to convince myself not to be stupid.
“Abi? Are you even paying attention?” Chloe says, sounding put out.
Something explodes downstairs. A loud, echoing bang, then the crash of splintering wood. I shriek and jump to my feet, dropping my laptop on the sofa.
My phone lights up with another text. Chloe and Penelope are shouting at me, asking if I’m okay, wanting to know what’s going on.
I don’t know how to answer them. I told them about Rowan and our coffee date, but the whole time I was thinking about the masked killer who broke in the night before, who brushed his mouth against mine and asked if he could touch me.
I grab my computer and hold it up to my face. “I’ll be right back,” I tell them, hoping I can keep the panic down in my voice. “Someone’s at the door, okay?”
“Ignore it,” Penelope says flatly. “It’s almost midnight.”
More thumps from downstairs. My heart is going to erupt out of my chest. I have no idea why I’m not being truthful with them—
Because you think it’s him, you absolute fucking idiot.
“I’ll call you guys back, okay?” I exit out of the Zoom room and snap my laptop shut and grab my phone. A single text waits for me.
Where are you hiding?
Terror squeezes my throat shut, and I know, regardless of whether it’s my nameless killer or someone much, much worse, I need to figure out a way to get out of this house.
I stand still, holding my breath. I can hear someone moving downstairs, slow and purposeful. Fuck.
I immediately shut off the living room lamp, plunging me into darkness. Then I skitter across the floor, moving as lightly as I can, and stick my head out into the hallway.
No one’s here.
I know damn well I should call the cops, and I know damn well why I’m not, even if I can barely admit it to myself. I want it to be him. The killer I’ve tracked for two years. I don’t want the cops showing up and shooting him dead. I want—
Footsteps thump on the stairs. I stumble backward, staring at the stairwell at the end of the hall. I fumble with the phone, typing 911 into the dial pad but not pressing the call button.
And then I wait, my breath shaky and ragged.
A light dances across the stair landing. I slip backward toward my room, clutching my phone, fear and excitement wrapping tight around my thoughts. Please be him. Please be him.
A dark figure steps onto the top of the stairs. And for a second, I feel a burst of relief. Because it looks like him—dressed all in black, his face disguised.
But he turns toward me and stops, and I realize how wrong I am.
He’s shorter and thinner than the man who visited me last night. And he’s not wearing a mask, like I thought. He has a stocking pulled over his face that distorts his features.
“There you are, you ugly cunt,” he snarls.
I scream and, in a moment of panicked stupidity, I hurl my phone at him instead of pressing the call button. He ducks, and the phone sails past him and hits the wall with a crack.
Then he laughs. “Was that supposed to do something?” he chuckles, stepping toward me. He has something in his hand. Rope, I think.
“Get out of my house.” My voice comes out thin and tremulous. I take a cautious step backward. One step closer to my bedroom. I have a lock on the door. I can barricade myself in. Find a way to call the police.
Because this definitely isn’t my killer.
“No,” the intruder says. “I’ve got big plans for you. Come on. You might even like it, little slut that you are.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Another step backward. My bedroom feels like it’s a million miles away.
“You haven’t guessed yet?” he laughs, holding up the rope. “Come on, bitch. I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
Tears brim in my eyes. I can see my phone sitting dark on the floor, but a murderer is standing in front of it. And not a murderer who’s going to ask to touch me, either.
“You killed Olivia, didn’t you?”
The intruder laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I made her suck my cock right before I split her face in half.”
Revulsion and terror spike through me. For a moment, the room seems to spin. I press my hand up against the wall, trying to steady myself. The second-floor landing is wide, wide enough that I might be able to run past him and grab my phone and get out of the house.
“I fucked her real good before she died,” the intruder says. “And I’m going to do the same thing to you. Now kneel.”
He lunges at me. I scream and dart sideways, managing to shove him in the process so he slams up against the far wall. He lands with a thump, and I forget my phone. All I can focus on is tearing down the stairs in a stumbling panic.
“Get back here, you stupid fucking whore!” he bellows, his footsteps shaking the landing. I leap off the steps and whip around the hallway. Glass glitters on the floor, and the front door hangs crooked on its hinges, letting in curls of warm summer air.
That’s all I focus on, getting to that door, even as I can hear the intruder thundering down the stairs behind me. If I can get outside, I can get away from him.
I fling the door open and leap out onto the porch—
And slam into a broad, masculine chest.