12. Kennedy #2
And as twisted as that mind game was, it also seemed likely that he wanted last night’s encounter to remain our dirty little secret once I finally realized it had really happened.
Because he’d know that if I decided to come clean to the police about our twisted tryst, they’d check the footage to confirm it.
And when they saw a video of me sleeping alone on the night in question… I’d look totally unhinged. Delusional.
So of course, I wouldn’t try to come clean in the end, because I didn’t want to seem crazy. Instead, I’d stay silent and ashamed.
That meant the Carver had me exactly where he wanted me right now. Emotionally isolated and unable to share this dark secret with anyone. The perfect victim.
To confirm the footage was edited, I scrolled through the archive until I found a video from seventeen days ago that showed me wearing the same T-shirt and purple satin shorts to bed.
I played it right next to the footage from last night, and within seconds it was obvious that the two clips matched frame-for-frame.
“I knew it,” I muttered.
The real footage from last night had definitely been overwritten. But I doubted it was gone for good. I was willing to bet the Carver had it stored somewhere on his own device. Probably replaying it on a loop, getting off on it. Or worse, waiting for the perfect moment to use it against me.
I had a feeling he’d hold it over me for as long as it served him, dangling the threat of exposure any time I stepped out of line. Like if I told people what happened between us last night, for instance, when he clearly wanted it to remain buried. At least for now.
Shame seared through me like acid, and I swallowed hard, hands trembling like mad. If the Carver ever decided to release that footage… God, my life would be over.
And it wouldn’t just ruin me . It would hit Freya hard, too, because she was counting on our podcast making it big, and I couldn’t even imagine the scandal that would arise if the public discovered one of the show hosts had screwed the same serial killer she was covering every week.
If it was actually the Carver who’d sneaked into my bed last night, that is.
I knew I had no real proof that it was him… but I was sure it was. It had to be.
With a groan, I collapsed back into bed and pulled the covers over my head like they could shield me from everything unraveling. I still couldn’t believe what I’d done. I’d messed up so badly. No, catastrophically.
I’d let my twisted, fucked-up desires blind me. Handed myself over on a silver platter, chasing a handful of orgasms and a fantasy I never should’ve indulged. And now, I was going to pay dearly for that.
I couldn’t even blame the Carver, really.
Couldn’t blame anyone but myself. If I’d been brave enough to voice my dark fantasies to a therapist before now, then maybe I would’ve learned how to cope.
How to resist. Maybe I would’ve screamed my head off to alert the police when I awoke to see the Carver above me last night, and maybe he’d be in custody right now. Then this would all be over.
I curled tighter beneath the blanket and scrunched my eyes shut, wishing I could rewind time. Wishing I could wake up again to discover that it was all a horrible dream after all.
Oh, god.
That was the worst part about all of this; the fact that it wasn’t actually horrible. I’d loved it last night. Every dark, painful, tantalizing second.
I lay in bed feeling sorry for myself until my phone buzzed again. Then I finally crawled out with a heavy sigh and checked my notifications, assuming Jacob had replied to my rejection.
But it wasn’t him. It was an email from Malachi.
Hi Kennedy, just wanted to keep you in the loop regarding last night.
Despite our initial plan to hold Declan overnight, he was released shortly after a brief phone call to his father. Their attorney arrived quickly, and since no formal charges were filed, we had no legal grounds to detain him further.
Unfortunately, that also means I haven’t yet had the chance to speak with him about the Carver investigation.
I know you trust him, and I respect that, but I thought you should be aware of the situation, especially given that he’s currently the only other person with your door code (unless I’m misremembering our conversation last night?).
I’m not making any assumptions here, but until we’ve had the chance to verify Declan’s innocence, I’d recommend caution. Just in case. I’ll let you know the moment I’m able to speak with him.
Stay safe,
Malachi
I stared at the email, heart pounding as its implication sank in.
“No,” I said aloud, shaking my head as if that could somehow shake away the dark thoughts.
Yes, I’d given Dec my code, but that didn’t mean he was the one who’d broken in here last night and fulfilled my dirtiest, wildest dreams while roughly tossing me around like a rag doll. And it definitely didn’t mean he was the Carver.
But even as I thought it, I realized Malachi was right to be suspicious of him, because so many things just happened to line up.
Dec was twenty-one when the Carver killings started ten years ago, which put him in the right age range according to the BAU’s profile. He lived in Corwin Bay at the time, and he’d grown up here too, which meant he knew the area like the back of his hand.
The Carver also started up again right after Dec moved back last week, and that seemed like an awfully-big coincidence.
On top of that, he had just gone through a terrible betrayal and subsequent divorce.
That kind of emotional trauma could probably trigger a dormant serial killer’s urge to commit violence again.
He was smart, too. Super smart. A software developer with all the coding and hacking knowledge in the world. He could’ve hacked into my security system even if I’d never given him the PIN.
Also, it would explain his weird behavior as of late.
Like when I caught him off guard at his house and found him going through my phone.
Or even last night. He could’ve disabled my alarm system so he could get inside my room while I was out, and then simply faked being drunk in a calculated act to cover his tracks when the police spotted him trying to sneak through my window.
There was something else, too. A conversation from last week had just floated back to me, replaying in my mind with disturbing clarity.
We’d been bemoaning our lackluster love lives, and he’d said something like, ‘ It just shouldn’t be this hard to find someone loyal.
Someone who doesn’t lie or leave when it gets inconvenient.
Life would be so much easier if the perfect person just showed up one day and said: ‘I’m yours and I always will be’, right? ’
Those could be the words of an overly possessive guy with deep-seated stalker tendencies. A guy who was obsessed with the idea of a woman being his and his alone. Forever.
Or… they could just be the words of a totally normal person who was disillusioned with relationships. At least half the people on Tinder probably shared Dec’s sentiments, and that didn’t mean they were depraved serial killers. They were just lonely and sick of waiting for Mr. or Mrs. Right.
I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, clutching my phone. I had to stop these intrusive thoughts. They weren’t fair, and they weren’t true. Dec wasn’t a killer. He just couldn’t be.
When he talked about Kaylee, there wasn’t rage in his voice. Just sadness and a hint of bitterness, which he was entitled to feel given the circumstances of their breakup.
Also, I’d seen him laugh until he cried at silly internet videos, and I’d watched him lavish care on a sick stray dog he found behind our house one freezing Christmas Eve. Serial killers didn’t do that sort of stuff… did they?
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to silence the voice in the back of my head that was now whispering, ‘ Actually, that’s exactly how the Carver would act. Unassuming. Kind. Funny. Sweet enough to get close right before he slices you open like a piece of meat.’
“No,” I muttered to myself again, shaking my head. It had to be a coincidence. All of it.
But… coincidences didn’t usually stack up this neatly. This perfectly.
My throat tightened, and I stared down at my phone, thumb hovering over Dec’s name in my contacts. My heart was hammering so hard I thought I might black out.
“Fuck it,” I finally whispered. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I hit call on video chat mode.
I was going to confront him right now. No dancing around it.
He wouldn’t be expecting that kind of bluntness from me, so if he was actually guilty, the shock might catch him off guard. Might make his mask slip.
Just for a second.
Just long enough to see the darkness underneath.
He answered the video chat on the third ring. “Hey, Kenny,” he said, voice rough with sleep. His hair was ruffled, and dark circles ringed his heavy-lidded eyes.
I didn’t hesitate. “Hi, Dec,” I said stonily. “Tell me something. Did you come back here in the middle of the night and break into my house? Into my bedroom ?”
I was met with silence and a blank expression. Not even a breath or a tiny facial twitch. And then…
“Yeah,” Dec replied, rubbing his jaw. “I did.”