Chapter Sixteen Sage
Chapter Sixteen
Sage
Travis is too busy working to spend a lot of time with me after our brief hot tub rendezvous. It was such a turn-on, and I’m a little bit disappointed we’re not doing anything else because he’s busy. But the more time I spend away from him, the more time I have to think.
We don’t have dinner together because he locks himself in his office doing God only knows what in there. I don’t know what he’s working on. He’s a genius, so there’s a chance he has something more up his sleeve. But I have a sinking suspicion it’s something else.
I open one of the kitchen cabinets, trying to hunt down some snacks, but instead I stare at an entire shelf of notebooks labeled “Knife Maintenance Log.” Slightly freaked out, I walk back upstairs to rest for a little bit.
I lie awake in the guest room, staring at the ceiling as I run through recent events in my head. His comments at breakfast have stuck with me all day, and I can’t shake them, no matter how hard I’ve tried. On top of those comments, there’s undoubtedly something off about him.
I can’t take it anymore, so I grab my phone, searching for any information I can about Travis’s sister. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I need some kind of clarity that he had nothing to do with her death.
Even though Travis is a public figure, I don’t find much about his family. I have to scroll for a while until I find an obituary for Leah Blacksburg. My heart stills as I click on the link and skim through the article, searching for the cause of death.
A car accident. Travis was in the car with her when it happened, and he survived. Leah didn’t.
I feel a tear come to the corner of my eye, and I’m not sure if it’s sympathy for Travis or relief that he didn’t have anything to do with her accident.
Even though I know he’s innocent of that, I can’t stop thinking about everything else.
Once the thought takes hold of my mind, it’s like an infection I can’t shake off.
Every interaction we’ve ever had replays in my head as I carefully analyze each moment to figure out what it is. I sit up, wrapping the covers around my shoulders to stave off the evening chill while I think.
The first time we met, our meet-cute, he told me about Ryan as if he knew him, and Ryan had no idea who Travis was.
Okay, that’s a little strange, but in Travis’s defense, he is a very wealthy public figure.
It’s beneficial for him to know who he surrounds himself with—personally and geographically.
After we got off on the wrong foot, I brought him cookies, and I saw an awful lot of bleach in his house. Now, his house is immaculate, but it was already squeaky clean when I saw it for the first time.
Then there was the night he almost killed me with his car. He was wearing leather gloves, dressed in all black. He looked like a sexy cat burglar.
A chill runs down my spine as I think about the footage I have of him standing behind me and watching while I filmed. I grab my phone and look for it, zooming in on his face once again as he watches me closely.
“I was there to strangle you,” I whisper, remembering what he said to me when he found me on his fence after I asked why he was sneaking around Ryan’s house. I jump to my feet and shake my head.
This can’t be true. What are the odds I meet a possible serial killer in person, really? They can’t be that big.
I think about all the cases I’ve listened to on the true crime podcasts I love. My blood runs cold when I remember the Pretty Grim podcast about Lake Lure and all the missing people.
“What the fuck?” I say to myself as I pace back and forth in the room. “Missing people in a small town, large quantities of bleach, breaking into Ryan’s house, and a perfect kill outfit. Oh my god.”
I run my fingers through my hair as I tiptoe out of the room. The evidence is already astounding, but it’s human nature to try to make connections where there may not be any. There could be perfectly logical explanations for all these things that I just don’t see. I need more evidence.
The Travis I know wouldn’t do anything like this. He’s helped me many times already. Hell, he could have killed me at any moment since I’ve been here, and he hasn’t.
All the lights are off throughout the house, and Travis’s bedroom door is closed. I assume he’s in there sleeping, and I’m careful to be as quiet as possible. The last thing I need is to wake up the person I suspect of being a serial killer while I’m snooping for evidence. That’s bound to go well.
I start in the kitchen, not finding anything of use aside from the extremely sharp knife set. For someone who’s not a big fan of cooking, that is a little strange. The living room is a wash. It barely looks like Travis even uses it, so I don’t find anything there.
Eventually I tiptoe my way into the garage and start looking around. Of course, it’s a big garage. Travis has two cars here, one small and environmentally friendly electric car and an oversize SUV—notably the one he was driving when he almost ran over me.
Along the side of the wall is a stack of something covered with a gray tarp.
Everything in here is as clean as the rest of the house, which would strike me as odd if it were anyone but Travis I was snooping on.
I hold my breath as I approach the tarp, carefully pulling it off the pile to reveal countless bottles of bleach stacked up near each other.
“Why would anyone need this much bleach?” I ask. The question is rhetorical because I already have a good idea. Next to the bleach are bundles of rope and packs of zip ties he’s purchased in bulk.
I turn my attention to the SUV, which I’m almost positive he was planning something nefarious with the night he almost hit me with it.
In the back, lining the trunk, is plastic sheeting that I have no doubt is specifically there to make his life a little easier.
At least, it’ll be easier for him to dispose of evidence.
I got what I came here for, but I still don’t understand. A stone forms in my chest before it plummets into my stomach, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
How could I have been so wrong? I’ve put so much trust in Travis, and he’s not who I thought he was.
My eyes widen at the idea of him coming in and spotting me, knowing he needs to get rid of me before I cause a problem for him.
I cover the bleach as quickly as I can and turn off the light to hurry back to my bed.
I don’t exactly feel safe right now, but I need to play along with the status quo until I can get away.
He can’t know that I know anything about this.
As soon as I close the garage door, the lights in the hallway turn on, and I freeze. I turn around to see Travis staring at me with his arms folded in front of him. By the panicked look that is no doubt on my face, he has to know exactly what I just saw.
I take a deep breath and prepare for the worst. No use sugarcoating this now. “Are you a serial killer?”
The words are out, and there’s no way to take them back. I’m suddenly acutely aware of how much larger he is than me and how I’m standing in the middle of his house, which he knows like the back of his hand. How could I be so stupid?
“And what if I am?” Travis says as he slowly steps toward me. His face is completely calm and stoic, unbothered by my discovery.
“Are you going to kill my stalker?” My heart is pounding in my throat, and I flex the muscles in my arms to keep them from trembling.
“Yes. I’m planning on it.” Once again, his voice is emotionless. He just confessed that he’s planning a murder, and there isn’t a flicker of regret or even excitement on his face.
The next question I need to ask is difficult. I feel the words bubbling in my chest, and I struggle, pulling them free. Travis watches me, waiting for me to say what he knows is coming, but I can’t bear to ask.
“I’m not planning on killing you anymore.”
“Anymore?” I’m shaking now, and he can see that, which makes me angry. The man just told me he was planning on killing me, and now I’m cowering in fear. I have no doubt that feeds into whatever fantasy he’s had.
For the first time, I see emotion on his face. Annoyance.
Travis sighs and shakes his head, walking toward me as my body tenses. “You’re cutting into my sleep schedule now. We can talk about this in the morning.”
He opens the garage door and walks over to the tarp. He dismisses me as casually as someone calling to check in about a spreadsheet.
Travis walks back out with zip ties in his hands and puts his hand on my back to push me into the hallway.
My head is spinning, and I can’t make sense of any of this.
Not only did I just find out Travis, the man I have been obsessed with—and sleeping with—is a serial killer.
But now he’s leading me to his bedrooms again.
With zip ties.
I stop when we approach the guest room, and he shakes his head, leading me toward his room. “You’re sleeping with me tonight.”
We approach his bed, and he wraps a zip tie around my wrist, the other around his, and links them together.
Both of us lie down on his mattress, and I stare up at the ceiling, trying to think of the most rational thing for me to do right now.
Attempting to escape without a solid plan would be plain stupid, and knowing Travis, he would track me down before I could make it across state lines.
I scratch the idea of a getaway off my what-to-do-next list while trying not to think about Travis being so close to me.
I wanted to spend the night with him, but this isn’t exactly how I imagined it.
Travis rolls over and closes his eyes, his entire body relaxing almost instantly as he falls asleep. I look at the zip tie on my wrist, realizing I’ll have to get comfortable with it. I’m resigned to just staring at the ceiling all night, but my mind is working like unpaid overtime.
Travis’s admission of previously wanting to kill me remains in the forefront of my thoughts.
Maybe he was joking or simply misspoke? No, that doesn’t seem like Travis.
My brain is probably just trying to make me feel better, but I’d like to believe Travis kills only bad people. Like a sexy vigilante.
Holding on to that idea for comfort, I try to come up with new scenarios of the future.
I have to figure out a way to survive this. Hours have passed when an idea forms in my head. It’s a bad idea, a really bad one—but it might be the only one I’ve got.