Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Shit. There was something outside my door. I sprinted up the stairs. Don’t be a body. Don’t be a body.
It wasn’t a body, full or partial. It was another dripping red message across my front door. A question. WHO’S NEXT?
“What is this?” Porter asked.
“Nothing,” I said, unlocking the door and pushing him inside. “It’s neighborhood punks.”
“Yeah right. Neighborhood punks draw dicks; they don’t write cryptic messages in blood.”
“It’s corn syrup.” I grabbed the sponge from the sink.
He hovered back by the door. “Next for what?”
“How should I know?” I grunted. “Grab the paper towels, will you?”
He huffed but stomped off toward the kitchen when I ignored his protest.
I closed the door once it was clean and took a fistful of dirty paper towels into the kitchen while Porter flopped down on the couch.
“I don’t know why you won’t tell me what’s going on,” he said. “It’s sketchy.”
“You’re the cat killer,” I yelled from the kitchen, eager to deflect.
“I wasn’t trying to kill it,” he moaned. “Is that what they think of me? Does my family think I’m a sociopath? That’s what they say, right? People who kill animals are sociopaths.”
“I thought you weren’t trying to kill it,” I reminded him.
“I know, but what if my sister hadn’t woken up? What if I had held him in there for too long?”
I moved into the doorway so he could see me. “I guess we’ll never know.”
“Ugh,” he grumbled. “You aren’t helping.”
I went to the couch and sat beside him so he could lean his head on my shoulder. I could tell he was craving comfort and for me to tell him he wasn’t the next Jack the Ripper. “How do you feel now?” I asked.
“Like a total monster.”
“See?” I said. “Sociopaths don’t feel bad.” I scratched his freshly buzzed scalp, a comfortable affection, my touchstone to humanity. “I have great news for you.”
He looked up at me—doe-eyed, desperate.
“You’re just a dumbass who needs to cool it on the party drugs.”
Porter shook his head at me, a judgmental smile escaping—a familiar reaction to my nagging tendencies—and it was a moment of relief for both of us. He relaxed his head against the back of the couch before his phone lit up and he lurched forward to grab it.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Eric.”
“Who’s Eric?”
“He’s one of the guys. He’s cool.”
“Don’t answer it,” I said.
He silenced his phone and threw it down on the table, nuzzling back into my shoulder with a heavy sigh.
We were silent for a minute. If only it had stayed that way.
“I have to tell you something,” said Porter. “I wrote a letter to Abel Haggerty.”
I jerked away from him, forcing him to sit up before falling.
“It’s not a big deal,” he insisted. “He hasn’t responded or anything.”
“What did you say?” God dammit, Porter. I should never have brought him on that tour. This was my fault. He was clearly looking for a place to fit in, a group to belong to, and this was not the right one. It was dangerous for him and increasingly inconvenient for me.
“Nothing, really. I said that I was a friend of Elyse’s. Dominic says he always asks about her. I want to see if he’ll write back.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, not feeling any of the weight that I did about the revelation.
“You need a hobby or something,” I jeered. “Not writing to serial killers or drowning cats.”
“Helpful,” he said, picking his phone back up and repositioning himself on the other side of the couch.
- - - - -
He fell asleep an hour later and I went into my bedroom.
I had been too heavy-handed with the heat and now the air was stuffy.
I wanted to open the window, but I knew what would happen.
The breeze would cause noises. The blinds would slap against the window.
The curtain would drift against my dresser.
Worst case, it would force my door open a crack.
Each sound would jolt me awake, stopping my heart, forcing me to accept it was the end for me.
If I opened the door, it would dissipate the suction caused by the breeze, but I could never sleep with my bedroom door open, even with Porter on the couch.
I’d basically be allowing some murderer or rapist to get all the way through my home and to my bedside before I finally woke up because his stomach grumbled or his breath was wheezy or he put his hand over my mouth.
A closed door wouldn’t stop him, but it would give me enough time to try to defend myself.
The silver lining was that I always thought like this. The fact that someone was out there killing people and frequenting my doorstep hadn’t caused any significant escalation. I was trained for this. Something bad was always about to happen. I wanted to tell my brain I told you so.
It was almost easier now. It was tangible.
There was less shame to the anxiety. I stared at the ceiling, running worst-case scenarios, my already-elevated body temperature rising.
This was what all great minds did when trying to solve a problem.
Do you think Albert Einstein or Sherlock Holmes slept easy?
There was a new message, a question that needed an answer: WHO’S NEXT?
Believing the people around me were involved kept me from having to worry they were in danger.
Elyse, Dominic, Jake—they were all suspects.
They had all been at the restaurant with me, but if one of them had hopped in a car the second after I left and drove straight to my apartment while I was on the train back to my car, they might have made it in time to write the message before Porter showed up.
It was a tight window. Maybe the message was written on my door before dinner.
Jake and Elyse had been late. Maybe that was why Dominic had invited me.
Maybe it was all three of them working together and therefore all three were safe from being the proverbial NEXT.
It was Porter I really had to worry about.
I had to keep him away from Abel; I had to keep him away from all of them.
When this whole mess was over, my life would go back to normal.
Porter was my normal and I was grateful I could hear him breathing through the thin wall separating me from the living room.
I would have to keep a tight leash on him going forward.
- - - - -
When I woke up, Porter was gone. So much for the tight leash. I opened the front door to make sure there weren’t any more arms or messages. Mrs. Magnus’s cat sat on the top step, spread eagle and licking itself. At least Porter hadn’t killed it on his way out.