Chapter 65
Kitty and Antoinette’s Airbnb, West Hollywood, Los Angeles
Charlie wakes me up several hours later with breakfast in bed, including avocado on toast, coffee and – the best thing – my iPad with the Flightscanner app open.
‘You,’ I say to him, ‘are the best man that has ever existed.’
He laughs. ‘Thank you. Although I suspect the bar is low.’
I kiss him on the cheek. ‘It’s on the floor of the basement in hell. But I think you single-handedly raise it up a few notches.’
‘I know you’re keen to get home,’ he says.
And I am.
I so am.
I want to get back to London.
I want to get back to my apartment.
I miss everything about it.
I want to get back to Tor and help her on her healing journey.
I want to see Maisie and put my hands on her swollen belly, feel those tiny babies kicking her from the inside.
I want to get back to my life. My life with Charlie.
‘What happens when we get back?’ I ask him as I take a big bite of my breakfast. ‘With us? Where are you going to go?’
Before we went to Cannes earlier this year, Charlie was living with me in my Chelsea apartment.
I loved everything about co-habiting. Eventually.
It took me a little while to get used to sharing every aspect of my life with someone else.
Well, almost every aspect. Keeping my nocturnal activities hidden from my live-in boyfriend had proven quite challenging.
I look at Charlie now and I honestly don’t think he’s ever looked more handsome.
The morning sun is peeping through the blinds and making the golden bits in his hair shine.
He smiles and I reach out and touch his face.
I loved waking up to his face every single day and I want to go back to that.
I want to live with him again, this time with no secrets.
But Charlie moved back into his flat in Clapham Junction when we split up.
Maybe he’s going to want to take things slowly.
I really hope he doesn’t.
‘Let’s see,’ he says, but not in the kind of way that a parent says it to a child when they really mean ‘absolutely not’. He smiles at me and I put my finger in the dimple in his cheek. ‘I mean, you want to go back, right? There’s no one else here you want to go after?’
I laugh and bury my face into his chest. ‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m done.’
And, the thing is, I really feel like I mean it this time.
I’ve always enjoyed my work.
The kills usually leave me feeling alive, like I’m absorbing some sort of life force and power from the men.
And, of course, the feeling that I’ve done something good is unbeatable. The knowledge that I’ve pre-emptively stopped something terrible from happening to a woman who doesn’t even know I exist is intoxicating.
I get why Charlie enjoys charity work so much.
But I just haven’t had the same sort of highs out here. Even though the men we’ve killed have been some of the worst I’ve ever met. It’s all just felt a bit … flat. I mean, it still feels good. I’m just so tired. I think I like having killed much more than I like killing.
Maybe I’m just getting too old for it.
‘Kits,’ Charlie is saying, ‘did you hear me?’
I look at him again and realise I’d totally zoned out.
‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘what were you saying?’
‘There’s a flight home the day after tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Shall I book it? Will that give you enough time to tie up the loose ends?’
‘Loose ends?’
He cocks his head, his brow slightly creased. ‘Yes, the loose ends.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘Well, I might be mistaken but don’t you have a man in your wine cellar? One you were particularly keen on killing? And a couple of suitcases you need to get rid of?’
Oh, that’s right.
I still need to kill Aidan Ward.
How did that slip my mind?