Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HIM
Ididn’t believe in ghosts. Was pretty certain if they existed, there would be hordes of them following me around. The restless spirits of all the women I’d put into the dirt. Instead of just one. This one.
I glanced across the table at my mother.
That smug smirk on her face as she stared at me over a cup of vodka that didn’t exist even though I could smell it.
My stomach twisted as I took another sip of black coffee, hoping it would help.
Phantom odors were the worst. You could close your eyes but you couldn’t do shit to plug up your nostrils.
“Knew you were useless but never took you for stupid.” She looked me dead-on when she said it. Another reason I knew she wasn’t real. My mother never looked at me. “Letting that girl leave. She’s probably talking to the cops right now, leading ?em all right back here to you.”
It was just my brain’s way of fucking with me. Telling me what I was already thinking because why the fuck not trauma dump while I was at it?
“Probably.” I shrugged a shoulder, returning my attention to the little screen in my hand and scrolling through Jules’s socials on her phone—I was smart enough to keep that.
She didn’t have anything interesting on here.
No family photos. No dirty laundry out in the open.
Just a few bullshit affirmations and a handful of selfies of her smiling.
Not her real smile. The kind you made in those corny-ass school pictures that had you looking more constipated than happy.
She didn’t even have any interesting messages in her inbox. I’d snooped through all those too.
Chick had less of a social life than I did, and I’d been locked up in a nuthouse since I was ten.
“So you want the electric chair? That it?”
“We both know there ain’t no death penalty in Illinois.” I laughed, and yeah, I realized I was laughing at myself. Couldn’t help it if I was fucking funny.
A loud banging on the front door had that laughter dying in my throat as quick as it had started.
“Told ya.” My mother hummed to herself, clinking her spoon around her mug. Pretending it was tea when I could smell that it wasn’t. “No reason for the girl to knock on her own door.”
I rolled my eyes, pushing up from my seat before heading to the entryway.
“You ain’t gonna answer it, are you?” She called out after me.
“Why? Afraid your ghost won’t look good in orange?” I called back over a shoulder.
Then I reached out an arm and yanked the door open. It was cold as shit outside but you wouldn’t have guessed it from the way I was leaning against the frame in nothing but a pair of low-slung sweats.
“Can I help you?” I grinned at the little prick taking up half the front step.
Didn’t look like a cop, but what the fuck did I know about how cops were supposed to look?
Everyone was always more interested in picking my brain than arresting me.
At least they were when there was only one body tied to my name. Could be a different story now.
“Where is she?” The guy tried to look past me, into the house. I moved myself over another inch to keep him from seeing anything other than a wall of tattoos.
“Who the fuck are you?” I quirked a brow at him, crossing my arms over my chest as I watched the fucker watch me. I was a big fucking dude. He wasn’t.
He swallowed once before trying to puff himself up like some sort of over-inflated peacock. “Pretty sure I should be asking you that. Now where’s my Jelly Bean?” I stared at him like he was stupid and he clarified, “Juliet.”
“Not here.” I lifted a shoulder, while the fucker tried to step past me. There was nowhere for him to go.
“Mind if I check?” he asked.
“Actually I do. But I’ll be sure to let ?er know you stopped by.” I stepped back as I grabbed hold of the door, preparing to slam it shut. Guy definitely wasn’t a cop or he would have been flashing his badge already.
He kicked out a shoe, resting it on the threshold.
I glanced down at it. I should have broken his foot.
But I wasn’t looking to cause a scene where the neighbors could witness it.
I tugged the door all the way open again and waved at some prick walking his dog.
He stared at me for a moment and finally waved back.
He didn’t know me. It was just something people did when they were afraid of coming off rude.
Then I returned my glare to the shoe that was dripping wet snow onto Jules’s clean floor.
Didn’t know why it annoyed me but it did.
So I leaned forward until I was eye to eye with the guy.
“You might wanna move that before I move it for ya.” I didn’t raise my voice.
I didn’t need to. There was nothing more terrifying than the calm before the storm.
“Not until you tell me where she is,” he grunted.
I threw my head back on a laugh. “I don’t answer to little pricks like you. Neither does Jules.”
He frowned at me for a moment. Taking me in from head to toe. Usually that was the first thing people did when they looked at me. But this time, I think it was the nickname that did it. “Who the fuck are you?” he tried again.
“Jelly Bean’s boyfriend,” I said, and the fucker stepped back like I’d slapped him across the face.
“My sister doesn’t have boyfriends,” he mumbled more to himself than to me.
“You’re right. I was being polite. We just fuck a lot.” I grinned, only to immediately drop it. “Wait? What the fuck did you just say?”
“My sister—”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I didn’t let the fucker finish speaking before I was tugging him inside and slamming the door closed behind us.