Chapter 6
Joey Carmichael Dies First
“Hey Alyssa. What happened to your arm?” Vaughn questions, eyeing the compression bandage as he sits down next to me on the lichen-crusted park bench.
This park is only two blocks away from my office, so it makes it easy to meet Vaughn on my lunch hour.
We’re both wearing jackets to ward off the damp chill in the air, but he’s gotten some sun since the last time I saw him.
Wherever his work trip took him, it must have been somewhere warmer than Portland.
“I took your advice about making an entrance. Turns out you’re right. Men do love drama.” I explain the circumstances of my first meeting with Mark. Vaughn laughs when I mention Mark spending his afternoon in the ER with me.
“Nice job,” Vaughn says when I tell him about going to get pizza afterward.
“We have a date this Friday,” I finish.
“Sounds like he’s solidly on the hook. Now you’ve just gotta reel him in.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to have to sleep with him,” Vaughn comments softly, as if he’s explaining something I either don’t know or haven’t thought of.
“I’m aware.”
“And you’re okay with it? Because there’s a difference between being aware and being okay with it.”
I shrug and take a bite of my sandwich, chewing and swallowing to give myself time to decide how to answer.
“I’ll do what needs to be done. Whatever it takes to get me close enough to rid the world of every one of those piece-of-shit rapists, Vaughn.
If that means sleeping with Mark Eriksson, I’ll do it a thousand times over.
It’s worth it. Besides, it’s not for forever. ”
“What happens if you develop feelings for him?”
“I won’t. Are you just asking me this because I’m a woman?”
“No. I’m asking you because I’ve been the honey in a honey trap before, kid.
And unlike you, I know how hard it can be to separate who you are from who you are with them.
I know how easy it can be to catch feelings.
Regardless of what you believe, you’re not a sociopath.
You’re not immune. So, what happens when pretending to have feelings for him turns into actually having feelings for him? ”
“Vaughn,” I say flatly. “That won’t happen.”
“Alyssa—”
“No. It won’t happen,” I assert. “Can you get me some cyanide?” I ask, wanting to get away from having to explain to Vaughn that I won’t develop feelings for Mark.
From having to explain that I seem to be incapable of falling in love with anyone, let alone someone like Mark Eriksson.
Because while Vaughn is right, and I’m not a sociopath, I think standing in my pajamas in my front yard at twelve years old, watching my dad disappear from my life and into the prison-industrial complex via the backseat of a cop car broke something in me.
Katie was right about me getting bored in relationships, but getting bored in relationships is simply a defense mechanism.
A way to keep myself from sticking around long enough to ‘catch feelings,’ as Vaughn so eloquently put it.
Half the reason I went into psychiatry was to figure out what the hell is wrong with me.
Unfortunately, knowing the answer to that question does absolutely nothing to fix it, but hey.
I was operating under the ‘knowledge is power’ lie. I’m smarter than that now.
“Cyanide is pretty tightly controlled. Can’t you use something more easily available?”
“I could. But I would strongly prefer cyanide. It’s more dramatic for what I have in mind, Vaughn. And I know your opinion about the drama,” I quip with a grin.
Vaughn sighs. “When do you need it by?”
“Sunday. At the latest.”
“That’s only four days from now, kid. That’s a big ask.”
“But you can do it?”
Vaughn places his hands on his knees and leverages himself off the bench. “I’ll let you know later tonight.”
I nod. “Thanks, Vaughn.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters as he walks away.
The condo is dark when I get home, and Katie is nowhere to be seen.
She had a therapy appointment earlier in the day, so my first thought is that maybe she went somewhere afterward.
I consider calling Jeanette to find out if Katie is with her, but I decide not to.
I don’t want Katie to feel like I’m checking up on her.
She’s lost enough throughout all of this without people constantly reminding her of it by treating her like she’s someone who’s fragile and breakable and can no longer be trusted to take care of herself.
Instead, I go to the fridge, pull out the tub of cookie dough, and pour myself a glass of pinot noir while hoping Vaughn can get me the cyanide I asked for.
I know it’s a big ask. The stuff is almost impossible to obtain legally, so hopefully Vaughn, with his many connections, can do it illegally. I want Garret Fi—
A loud thud comes from Katie’s room. It used to be my spare bedroom, but sometime in the past month I mentally reclassified it, and I now firmly consider it her room.
I leave the cookie dough and the bottle of wine on the island, which divides the kitchen from the living room, and walk to Katie’s closed door.
For a moment there’s silence, and then I hear faint snuffles coming from inside the room.
I tap on the door. There’s no response, and the snuffling stops.
“Katie? Are you okay?” I ask, but as with the tap on her door, there’s no response. “I’m coming in,” I state a second before opening the door. The room is dark, and I use the flashlight on my phone to navigate to the bed. “I’m going to turn on the lamp,” I warn.
She’s facing away from me, shrouded by blankets, but I can still see the shudders racking her body. I climb onto the bed to sit next to her, not touching her, and the mattress sinks slightly.
“What happened?” I ask. She’s been doing pretty well lately.
She’s actually been leaving the condo to go to her therapy appointments instead of doing them on Zoom.
She went grocery shopping alone the day Mark took me to the ER.
And I know setbacks can happen any time, for any reason, but this isn’t what I expected to come home to today. I’m almost positive something happened.
She says something garbled and unintelligible.
“Come again? I couldn’t quite make that out over the sound of you choking on your own snot,” I say lightly.
She wipes her nose with the back of her hand as she turns to face me, and I pass her the Kleenex box. She blows her nose loudly and then, so softly I almost miss it, she whispers, “I saw him today.”
My stomach plummets. Through the bed, through the floor, through the condos below mine until it feels like it’s bottomed out on the asphalt of the street beneath me. “Him who?” I know the name she says is going to be one of the hockey-douchebags. I just don’t know which one.
“Joey Carmichael,” she whispers.
“Where?”
“Outside of the pharmacy. When I was picking up my prescription.”
“Shit, Kay. I’m so sorry.”
“He waved at me, Alyssa,” she says before breaking down sobbing again.
I wrap my arms around her, making a split-second decision and changing my original plan.
I had planned to cut the head off the snake and kill Garret Fischer first. He was the one who convinced Katie to leave the bar with him.
He was the one who drugged her. If I had to put money on it, based on what I saw during the trial and the way he interacted with the other four, I’d wager Garret was the driving force behind it all.
Rhys Steichen would’ve been next on my list. He seems to have a vested interest—maybe by virtue of his position as a defenseman—in protecting himself and the others.
It’s why he forced Katie to make that video.
The two of them dying would’ve likely introduced a fissure among the remaining three. But this changes everything.
Joey Carmichael is going to die first.
“How do I look?” I ask Katie when I come out of my bedroom. I haven’t been this nervous for a date… well, ever. Half of my closet is currently covering my bed, and if I don’t go home with Mark, I’m going to be sleeping on the couch because there’s no way I’m putting all of that away tonight.
Katie lifts a hand and makes a spinning motion with her finger, so I oblige. I’m wearing a low-cut red bodysuit with a black tulle skirt. My hair is curled in loose waves, and there are five diamond studs in each ear, turning my head into an approximation of a disco ball.
“You look like you tried!” Katie says, and I immediately turn to go back to my bedroom as she launches herself off the couch, coming to stand between me and my door, stopping me from ripping off everything I’m wearing and futilely searching for another outfit.
“No. I meant ‘you look like you tried’ in a good way! I don’t think I’ve seen you do more than throw on a pair of jeans and maybe some red lipstick before a date in…
what? At least a year? You look good, Alyssa! ”
“It’s not too much?” I ask, having second thoughts now for a totally different reason.
“No, it’s not too much! Dyeing your hair for this guy was too much—even though it looks great,” she hurries to add. “This is just a normal ‘I like a guy’ level of trying.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure! What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. I’m just nervous, I guess. Usually, I don’t really care if guys like me. I just… kind of expect that they will,” I say, knowing it sounds horrible. “This guy is different though. He expects that women will like him, and he’s not… interested in that.”
“Well, clearly he’s interested in you. He’s been texting you all week. Don’t think I haven’t noticed!”
“I didn’t realize you were paying attention.”
“Of course I’ve been paying attention. How could I not? Plus, I don’t exactly have my own love life at the moment. Or even my own life. I sort of have to live vicariously through yours. So, do I get to meet him yet?”