Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Hugo
Maybe I should move.
I mean yes, at some point, I’ll have to get out of this bed. But maybe I should sell the duplex, too.
This morning, I let the movers in. I locked myself in my office and did four back-to-back counseling sessions.
I stood at the front window and watched the truck drive away with every last trace of her.
I walked through what used to be her side.
I listened to my footsteps echo through every empty room. I left and locked the door behind me.
Then I walked into my office, deleted my never-finished apology file, pulled out my pen, and started to write.
Not an apology this time. A confession.
I wrote through sunset. I wrote through dinner. I wrote through the time she usually gets home from work. I moved to my back patio with Cosmo so he could run out his fidgets while I kept writing.
Now I’m in my bed, which is still pressed longways against the wall. My dog’s asleep next to me, and nineteen handwritten pages are in a sealed envelope on my lap.
Even though her name’s written on the front, I’m not going to give it to her. She already said goodbye. I just needed to put it all in writing—the things I should’ve said and should’ve done spelled out in black ink from a pen I’ve used to kill half a dozen people.
I toss the envelope into a drawer in my nightstand, too heartsick to hold it any longer, and pet my dog instead.
“You and me, boy,” I say as I scratch under his chin. “We’ll be fine, just the two of us.”
He peels open one skeptical eye, snorts, and falls back asleep. I’m wondering what I did to deserve that level of canine judgment when my phone lights up with an unknown number. Since it’s 1:36 a.m., I pick it up.
“Hugo, she’s in trouble!”
I’m out of bed. “Felicity?”
“She’s going after Overton.” Her twin is crying, frantic, her words jumbled over the sound of a moving car. “She won’t answer her phone.”
I’m dressed and headed for the stairs. “I’ll go there now.”
“He killed his wife and she wouldn’t listen to me and I just found t-the power strip and I can’t get there in time and I don’t know if she’ll be okay.”
I’m in my car with my keys, murder kit, and Dr. Mohr glasses. “I have the address. I’m leaving now.”