CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Having learned from the best, Lissa has dubbed this one the Sweetheart Slayer. He’s a dejected loner who targets crazy-in-love couples, because of course he is. Then he strangles them, rips open their chest cavities, and takes out their hearts.
Which sounds increasingly like an appealing way to spend my weekend.
“Tomorrow night is crime time,” Lissa says, “so Lesley will come straight from his conference and we’ll meet you then. You’ll drive up today to kick things off—check in, identify the target, you know the drill. I snagged you the last available room, lucky ducks!”
Lucky feels not quite right. Lucky would be if an anvil landed on me so I conveniently couldn’t go.
“Now,” says Lissa, trying to look serious but still mostly beaming. “It’s Lovers’ Weekend at the inn.” Kill me now. “So there will be lots of other potential victims. It is literally vital that you be the loviest-doviest ones there to catch the Slayer’s attention, understand?”
Grant glances my way in my periphery and I stare straight ahead, trying to ignore how I can feel every inch of space between the two of us.
Lissa goes on. “You cannot be outdone. Do all the cute activities, hold hands, just be nauseatingly happy together when you’re among the other guests.” She leans forward, dropping her voice low. “Once you’re in private, well, that’s really up to you.” She winks. She actually winks.
“Ew,” I say, glaring at her.
“Ew?” Grant gives me an insulted look before turning back to Lissa. “We’ve got it. Lovey-dovey by day, separate beds by night.”
Lissa is silent.
“What,” I say.
With her eyes roaming the ceiling, Lissa opens her mouth to speak but hesitates. She seems in no rush to choose her words.
A dawning horror has begun to flood my veins with ice water.
“There are two beds in that room,” I say slowly. “Aren’t there?”
A sly little whoopsie-doopsie! smile creeps over her face. “It’s quite a popular place, you know. And it really is marketed toward—”
“How many beds, Lissa.”
“One,” she finally says. She smiles with a bullshit apologetic tilt to her mouth, but she’s not sorry at all. If I listened closely I could probably hear “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” playing in her head.
But I can’t seem to focus beyond the loud buzzing filling my ears.
“It’ll be fine,” Grant says, standing. “We’re adults. We can share a bed without bringing on the apocalypse.” He offers me a hand up from the couch, which I pretend not to notice as I stand up by myself.
“If you say so,” Lissa trills, popping to her feet. “Just remember: be cute, be annoying, make that jealous loser want you dead. Good? Good.”
She flits out of the room before I can protest.
“Well, this should be fun,” says Grant. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or genuine, and I don’t know which I’d prefer. My head is spinning. I can’t meet his eyes.
“Mm,” I grunt, before excusing myself to go pack.
I’m lightheaded all the way to my room. By the time I finally make it there, closing my door and falling against it, I can barely catch my breath.
You’d think a plot twist would feel like being on a train that suddenly switches tracks, but it doesn’t.
Not this one. This is more like missing a stair and plunging into the abyss.
Read enough romance novels, and you’ll eventually learn that there are some things that just don’t happen anywhere else. Things like falling for your anonymous pen pal or getting trapped in an elevator with your hot nemesis.
Or being forced to pose as a couple and share a bed.
Which means Anna Matthews hasn’t abandoned her usual genre; she’s just giving it a new twist. This isn’t a crime thriller, or even a crime-thriller-comedy. Somewhere in this Frankenstein mishmash of genres, she’s writing a love story.
And at its heart, a character she has designed for this singular purpose:
Grant.
He isn’t here by accident. He was never an unfortunate bystander, roped into this nightmare by chance. He’s been part of Anna’s plan all along: built to win me over with his reluctant smiles and his sharp mind and his unwavering camaraderie.
This isn’t a crush; it’s a trap. And I walked right in.