Chapter Forty-Two
Unless you’re planning on lots of blood, you don’t need plastic sheeting and masking tape.
In fact, if you know how to contain your kill, a picnic blanket works quite nicely.
You know the sort, probably made of recycled bottles, rolls up, and has a little sling so you can put it over one shoulder.
It was perfect for the pool—and tonight, it will be perfect for killing Brian.
Another mistake the movies make—going somewhere abandoned.
If a police cruiser sees my minivan outside an abandoned warehouse, I assure you the officer will not ignore it.
So the next afternoon, I’m off the highway, in the last of a long row of rooms at a cheap motel.
The sort that didn’t ask for my name, doesn’t require a credit card, and where the seventy-year-old owner behind the desk is already drinking—a whiskey sour, if I’m not mistaken.
But it’s perfect—the sort of place where no one will report a loud bump, and if it smells a little off when the next guest arrives, well, that’s just part of the charm.
Just landed! Brian’s text arrives on my phone as I’m looking down to check the time.
My stomach swims at the thought of the next hour or two.
But I steel myself. Collect the necessary supplies—it will be easier because he knows me, trusts me, thinks I’m just his wife. Just the mother of his children.
As I step out of the motel and into the blazing sun, I can’t help but snort—he’ll probably think I’m bringing him here for sex. For some roleplay bullshit that is so not his style, but that would delight him regardless. Fine. Let him believe that.
In the van, I wipe my sweating palms on my yoga capris. I double-check that I have various methods of immobilizing him at hand just in case—a Taser, chloroform, a syringe loaded with scopolamine, which will make him more willing to do what I ask and answer my questions.
The drive to the airport is short—one of the rare conveniences of San Antonio.
The nice thing about being a psychopath is that I don’t get nervous often.
I don’t care enough to get nervous, about most people, most things.
But today, in the minivan I bought so I could take care of my family, my heart pounds so hard I’m certain I can hear it.
I can certainly feel it, as it races like I’m sprinting up one of the steep hills in Alamo Heights on a hot morning, as though it might burst out of my chest.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I take a right turn, pull into the arrivals line.
The plan is to wait for him to appear. I’ll smile and wave, and he’ll get in the car, and we’ll both act happy to see each other.
When we don’t drive straight, but instead get on the highway, he’ll look surprised—he’ll turn and ask where we are going.
If I’ve forgotten that we are heading home.
I’ll wink at him, then take the exit for the motel.
I’ll pull around back, where my minivan can’t be seen.
I’ll give him a sexy smile and beckon him inside the motel room.
And that’s when things will get interesting.
Brian appears through the glass doors. Three car lengths ahead of me, a white minivan honks—a van, I realize, that is the same make and model as mine. I wave at Brian, unlock the doors. Paste on a smile.
But the dumbass doesn’t even look my way. He walks blindly toward the other minivan, wearing that same grin he usually reserves just for me. I sigh. I’ll just have to wait a second. Let him realize he’s at the wrong vehicle.
One, two, three seconds go by. And then ten.
I peer through the windshield, leaning into the passenger’s seat to try to catch a glimpse of him—and I do.
There he is, at the side of the van, a strange expression on his face—then hands are reaching out, yanking him inside.
There’s a moment of wide-eyed surprise. His bag, heavy in his hands, keeps him from fighting back.
The minivan zooms forward.
I don’t think, I only react. My nerves are shoved out of the way by adrenaline as I yank my vehicle from the line, smash my foot to the gas, and roar forward.
In seconds, I’m side by side with the other van, and I glance to my right just before they take a sharp turn for an access road, one I’ll have to turn around to follow them down.
I smash on the brakes and horns blare behind me.
A giant black pickup truck—à la everything is bigger in Texas—nearly rear-ends me.
There’s nowhere to turn. The only way to follow the van is to circle through the arrivals line again.
Curses flow from my mouth and I pull off to the side, turn on my blinker, and try to process.
And that’s when I realize who I saw in the driver’s seat of the van that nabbed Brian. He might have been wearing a wig. He might have had a sweater pulled over his shoulders, and in a pinch, from a distance, he might have looked ever so slightly like me.
But I know without a doubt who it really was: Ian.