Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
Seeing Esme’s face, I can’t help but wonder if this is the worst day of her life. Sure, Alan’s death might be a close second, but apparently she was under the impression that no one would come sniffing around. Which, to me, feels a bit naive.
Someone was always going to come ask questions.
“Alan’s missing?” I slip into the persona I learned at the hospital so many years ago, when I had to learn to seem like a normal person in order to get privileges like outside time and group therapy, instead of staring at my therapist one on one while she talked me through the worst times of my life.
“Holy shit. I thought he was just on a work binge again.” Easily, I cross the room and sit down on the sofa next to Esme, keeping myself perched on the end of it though not to seem like I’m ill at ease.
I want him to feel like I’m checked in and concerned.
I want him to see that my concern is for Alan.
Not because of him. “I’m Tova Morwen,” I greet, putting my hand out to shake Flanagan’s as he holds it out to me.
Coldness seeps through my fingers at the touch of his calloused fingers, and it’s hard not to sneer a little, but recover quickly.
I hate having to mask, even though I’ve put in a lot of hours to perfect it.
“I’m not actually a detective,” Flanagan informs me with a bit of a grimace-like smile.
“I’m just a private investigator Alan’s mother hired.
” His tone is meant to be disarming, and his smile friendly.
He’s trying to wear down the barrier of us thinking he’s law enforcement, probably so we’ll talk to him in a less guarded way than we would otherwise.
It’s cute.
It’s obvious.
And fuck, it’s going to work on Esme. Her shoulders slump and she glances at me, then back at him.
“Alan and I aren’t doing so well,” she admits, and I could choke her for the comment.
“I haven’t seen him in a few days. I haven’t heard from him at all, actually.
But I just thought he was taking some time for himself.
” I can already tell she’s going to be an over-sharer, and everything about her posture makes it obvious she’s nervous for all the wrong reasons.
God. How is this the partner in crime I got stuck with? I don’t feel bad for what I did to Alan, but I’ll be pissed as fuck if killing him sends me to prison.
“I figured that was why he hadn’t been here too.” I shrug like it’s not that uncommon for this to happen. “So he hasn’t been in touch with his parents?”
Flanagan jots down a few notes, shaking his head as he does. “No ma’am. His mom said he missed family dinner, and no one has been able to get a hold of him for the last four days. It’s weird for him, they say. He never misses his mom’s birthday.”
Naturally I killed him close to some fucking family holiday he was supposed to show up for. God forbid it couldn’t have been at a time when they wouldn’t have noticed his absence. That feels like my luck, and memories try to push into my brain from other times, from other places.
From other murders I committed.
My fingers tap on my knee as Flanagan talks, outlining his last known whereabouts, giving a few platitudes I don’t believe and theories I know aren’t real.
His disarming tactics are getting old, and I watch him blandly, wishing he’d get to the root of the problem to ask us what he really wants to know.
After all, he’s not just here to tell us Alan is missing.
“So I was looking at his phone records…and it seems he called you quite a few times the day he was missing,” Flanagan says carefully.
He watches Esme more than me, and I try not to look like I’m watching her too.
I can’t look suspicious or worried. But I cast her a concerned glance, trying to just play at being the caring, supportive best friend.
“I was ignoring him,” she says, smartly deciding to tell him at least a portion of the truth.
“We really got into it after work, and I couldn’t deal with him.
I told him to leave me alone for a few days.
Like I said—” She gives a nervous sound that could be mistaken for concern.
“I figured that’s what this was. We’ve gone through phases like this before. ”
Flanagan nods as he writes, scrawling his notes and without seeming like he actually gives a damn about what she’s saying. I catch sight of a few words, though most of them aren’t legible from this far away, and the cold in my fingers only gets worse.
Nervous.
Shaky.
Suspicious.
Check coworkers.
He doesn’t believe her, even though he’s pretending to put on a sympathetic face. He talks to her a little longer, barely asking me anything, and I notice quietly that he tries to trip her up more than once.
This is probably something she and I should’ve gone over, I sigh internally with a touch of regret.
But she does better than I expect, and doesn’t let him run her in circles with his questions.
Finally, he gets to his feet, slapping his hands on his thighs.
“Well. That’s all I have for you. But I’m sure I’ll have more questions,” he assures Esme.
We both get up as well, following him to the door, which he opens without a word.
“Oh…” He stops, turning to look thoughtfully between us.
“Maybe next time I stop by, we can talk about last year? I heard about the birthday incident. Seems you haven’t always been so nice to him yourself, have you, Esme? ”
Esme’s face goes pale. I grab her hand and decide that this has gone on long enough.
Even if it makes him question me more than I’d like him to, I’d rather that than for her to blurt out something she shouldn’t.
“I’m sorry, but that’s an inappropriate thing to bring up right now.
” Stepping up in front of Esme, I wrench the door further open.
“You really think that’ll help? To talk about some incident they’ve both moved on from? ”
Not that I’ve moved on from Alan cheating on my roommate, then going to the police when she threw him out and accidentally hit him with the door hard enough to bruise.
Frankly, I think he never should’ve been able to come back here.
“I hope you find him,” Esme whispers from behind me. “J-just let me know if I can help you with anything else.” She sounds so small and so wounded, I expect a look of regret to cross Flanagan’s face when he looks at her.
But instead, all I see is calculated interest. Without another word, he leaves our apartment, letting me close the door hard behind him, but I’m too busy with a rush of coolness curling down my spine to even hear what Esme is saying.
“Tova?” Esme reaches out to grab my hand, and with a jolt, I realize I’m gripping the knob like I’m about to follow him.
“I need to go for a walk,” I mumble, ignoring that I just took one to clear my head and figure out how to help my roommate.
But maybe, I decide, as I close the door behind me and head down the hallway as the elevator doors close behind him, what I really need to do to help her is make sure that some private investigator stops sniffing around, instead of getting her ice cream and having a movie marathon.
I take the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, though I don’t head to the ground floor right away.
The elevator doors ding while I’m still halfway between it and the second-floor landing, and yet again I’m glad that we apparently live in the least populated apartment building in Seattle.
Really, I assure myself. I honestly don’t mind.
Even in different circumstances, I can’t say that I’d mind.
“Yeah.” I hear Flanagan’s voice echo in the entryway, and when I peek around the wall, I find him on his phone. It means he pays even less attention to me as he walks, so it’s easy for me to follow him out of the building without being seen in the light of street lamps and buildings.
Making him regret coming here, making him regret being such a jerk to my roommate, is suddenly looking more and more like an option. I swear my jaw clenches, my mouth nearly watering at the idea.
I could stab him.
No, that’s too easy. But I ponder the possibilities as he laughs with the person on the phone, heading for a parking garage at the end of the street. Street parking here is awful, and I hope he parked in one of the old, dark garages that leave a lot to be desired.
The box cutter in my pocket is heavy and comforting in my hand. I don’t know when I grabbed it, but I don’t really mind at the moment. No, not right now. Not when I could use it.
Sure enough, Flanagan turns into the furthest parking garage, still on his phone, and the darkness inside swallows him almost immediately. I have to quicken my pace just a little, just to make sure I can keep up enough to follow him to where he’s going.
I could cut his mouth wide, slash him from ear to ear like I’ve done before. He’s nothing like the man in the cabin, but I think I’d get a lot of satisfaction from chopping and sawing at his mouth with the dull box cutter after how he talked to us in our apartment.
He’s just a fucking man, and I’ll make sure he knows that he bleeds like one.
He walks up to the second floor, his voice echoing in the mostly empty space.
I follow him there, then to the third, and when he breaks away from the ramp to head for a lone car in the corner of the garage, I can’t believe my luck.
Don’t go down the well, Sierra.
Cass’s voice rings in my ears, but the words are muffled and distant.
I’m so cold that my fingers are numb, but that coldness urges me forward, whispering in my ears that I can do this.
That I have to do this. I need to prove a point, and I need the warmth of his blood on my hands to fight back the cold.
Don’t lose yourself again.
His voice gets quieter in my head, my vision tunneling until it’s a point on Mike Flanagan.
God, it’ll just be so easy. Even if he were to turn now, what would he do?
Ask me what I’m doing? I can just keep walking.
I can just…take the life from him. The thought causes my heart to race, and my thumb slides on the catch of the box cutter, sliding the blade just a little outward. I’ll have to be quick.
But that won’t be a problem. I’ll have to disorient him, or incapacitate him.
I’ll have to make him bleed.
“Yeah, yeah, Nancy, I know.” He chuckles, then gives a full-on laugh as he fumbles with his keys. “I’ll be home in a bit. Sorry, I didn’t mean to stay out so late.”
When I’m done with him, he won’t be coming home at all.
I pass by a pillar, then another, and I’m slowly pulling the box cutter out of my pocket when suddenly, I’m grabbed by the nape of my hoodie and the hand holding the box cutter.
I gasp softly as I’m whirled around, and my back slams against a wide pillar that blocks Mike Flanagan from my view.
“My, my, my…” Larkin leans close, keeping his hand around the box cutter and shifting his other hand to my throat to cut off my air so I can’t scream.
As if I would scream anyway.
“Aren’t you a little fucking monster?”