Chapter 53
EDDIE
Iwoke up the next morning, less than twelve hours after killing David Devers.
Lucy was lying next to me, and there had been no late-night knocks on the door. Things had been normal. That was a good sign.
Occasionally, I’d turn on the TV early in the morning to watch the news.
No chance I’d be doing that this morning.
I couldn’t take the chance they’d be reporting on a murder in Santa Monica, and Lucy would commit that to memory, and know I’d been out for a spell that night.
If she heard about the murder in a day or two, she’d be less likely to remember that was the night I’d stepped out.
I had to act as normally as possible. I kissed Lucy and then took a ten-minute shower.
My mind was all over the place, which I guess was to be expected. I had a lot of feelings running through me, but regret or repentance weren’t either of them. I didn’t feel guilt, either.
And yet, I had taken a human life. You’d have to be completely dead inside to not at least consider what you’d done.
But I wasn’t completely dead inside, was I?
Despite not wanting to, I set off for work. As I said, everything had to remain as normal as possible.
At around eleven, while I was talking to a potential client about renting out a famous Hollywood bar for a fortieth birthday, I received a text from Lucy.
“You free for lunch today? I could do noon or one p.m.”
I was immediately suspicious. My wife hadn’t invited me out for lunch in at least a month. We hadn’t exactly been lovey-dovey since her father’s sixty-fifth birthday. And the fact that she was inviting me out the night after I’d murdered a man made it all the more worrisome.
I was certain Lucy didn’t know anything about the murder of David Devers—how could she?—but maybe she was suspicious about where I’d gone last night. I was supposedly seeing a friend and then returned an hour later. Not impossible, but pretty rushed.
Maybe that’s why she wanted to have lunch. It’s the last thing I wanted to do, but I reminded myself for the third time that I had to keep everything as normal as possible. If the police ever ended up at my doorstep, normality was key.
“Sure. Let’s make it one p.m. Where?”
She chose a restaurant down near the beach. We’d had one of our early dates there.
Was she trying to tell me something? Probably not.
But I’d just shot and killed a man the previous night and was a little paranoid.