Why do I feel so strange?
On the screen, a swirling torrent of water crashed into the side of a building, obliterating the foundation and washing it out to sea. The scene shifted to a woman in a newsroom saying something about requests for aid.
There are plenty of people far worse off than you.
Yeah, because nothing is wrong with your life.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
One little coincidence and I almost lost my shit.
“In breaking news,” the woman said, “New information has been released on the man responsible for seven deaths in or near the Metro Detroit area. His violent killing spree began on October first with the murder of a prostitute in Ash Park and culminated on November twenty-sixth when another woman and her young child were found brutally murdered in an abandoned school.”
November twenty-sixth …
“Channel Eight is here on the scene where sources say that Robert Fredricks died earlier this afternoon—”
I put my hands over my ears, but the thoughts kept coming. I grabbed my phone off the coffee table and pulled up my web browser.
Don’t do this again.
October first, November twenty-sixth …
I punched in keywords until I found what I was looking for. Dread bloomed in my abdomen. I ran to my purse and yanked out my journal, flipping through scribbled sleeping notes. Here, I slept. There, I didn’t.
A coincidence, just a coincidence.
My sleep hadn’t changed until I had moved in here. I ran a shaking finger down the pages.
I slept better when other people were dying, and in the days leading up to those times.
Gotta have time to case a victim.
Stop it, Hannah. You’re just a little tired today.
Does that mean someone else is dead?
It didn’t even make sense. How do you get someone to sleep on demand?
You hold their hand and bring them orange juice. Or make them dinner.
But that would mean he … what? Drugged me?
No. No way. I dropped the journal and put away my phone.
You’re crazy, Hannah.
But I couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t stop moving. What if I was wrong? I had been wrong about Jake. Maybe I was wrong about … everything.
My feet flew through the living room and up the stairs, independent of coherent thought. In the bathroom, I tore through the medicine cabinet like a possessed raccoon, tossing bottles and scattering toothpicks, cotton balls, gauze.
Nothing.
I snatched at the drawers underneath the sink and rummaged through the linen closet. In the bedroom, I searched under the mattress, behind the bed posts, around the night tables.
My heart slowed.
This is crazy. You’re crazy. It has to be a coincidence.
But it wasn’t. I knew it in my core, somewhere unmentionable and primitive, just as I had known my love for my father was wrong. A nest of weasels in my chest scampered into my brain, into my lungs, until their clawing feet were all I could hear, feel, sense.
Then his voice. Just don’t clean my man cave.
I ran. The bright light of the workout room assaulted my eyes. I wrenched open the closet door. Bleach, towels, rags, buckets. The buckets were empty. Towels flew over my shoulder, cleaning rags ripped from their resting place. Dull thuds, empty swishes of cloth, and then, the telltale clatter of plastic on rubber. I fell to my knees next to a small, unlabeled, orange bottle and poured a few of the pills into my shaking palm. Small and blue. No telltale markings that made any sense to me.
It’s probably just a painkiller for if he overdoes his workout.
Unlabeled in the back of the closet?
I pulled out my phone, fumbled it against my thigh, and called up photos for medicine identification. There were thousands, but you could narrow it by shape and color and type. Blue. Oval. What helped you calm down? Tammy had recommended them once and I’d refused. Shit. Narcotics? No. Benzodiazepines. I stopped scrolling.
Xanax. Five milligrams.
It was identical.
Maybe he was suffering from anxiety and I had accidentally ingested the pills.
Then why were they in the closet, the one place I had been told not to go?
The bottle went into my pocket. I watched my numb fingers fold the towels and put them back on the shelf.
Run, Hannah! Run!
I folded the rags and put away the buckets.
What the fuck are you doing? Get out now!
When everything was in place, I walked downstairs to the living room, my legs not quite connected to me, but moving, still moving. I opened the flue and started the gas fireplace. Then I retrieved my journal and flung it into the hole.
Oily flames licked the cover and the cardboard crinkled and disintegrated. The urge to reach in and salvage the burning pages tugged at my arm, as if by keeping the journal I could save what was left of my dreams. When the inner pages curled in the heat, I let the tears fall. Fear thrummed through my veins, thick, liquid, and scorching.
No one can ever know.
My lungs cracked and shriveled, wrenched in an iron fist of hopelessness. As much as I tried to wish it away, his secret was mine now, locked forever in the ashes on the fireplace floor. I wiped my tears with the back of my hand. If he was a monster, then I was just as much a monster for loving him so much.
I have failed every man I ever loved.
I cannot fail again.
I sat on the couch to wait for him.
Petrosky sucked smoke deep into his lungs and blew it at the no-smoking sign on the wall next to his desk. He needed a stiff drink—several, actually. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave.
Since discovering Fredricks’s body, he’d gone over the case again and again. Fredricks had to have been their killer. It was the simplest explanation, the obvious explanation. They had a mountain of evidence.
Just not a confession.
Fredricks’s eyes blazed in his memory—and the way he’d turned hostile when Petrosky had mentioned Hannah Montgomery. Hostile but almost … protective. Their guy was supposed to be a sadistic psychopath, removed from all human emotion. But Fredricks had cared.
Maybe he was a good faker. Petrosky had seen that before.
Or maybe you’re wrong.
He flicked ashes onto the floor. If he was wrong, then the real killer must have followed Fredricks, preying on the women he abused after he was done with them. That left Jacob Campbell—the biggest question mark in this whole ordeal. Fredricks had a motive to kill Campbell, if only to free Montgomery for himself. If he was lonely enough, desperate enough, crazy enough to think no one else would do … Petrosky could see it. And who else had that motive? Certainly not her new guy. That high-horse-riding motherfucker only had to look at her and she would have followed him home, just like most of the women in America.
Petrosky sighed. Something wasn’t making sense.
You’re losing your shit, Petrosky.
Hannah isn’t Julie. Hannah’s fine.
Trying to ignore the gnawing in his gut, he shoved the folders into the drawer, slammed it closed, and marched out of the precinct. He would not waste any more time driving himself fucking crazy. He was already close enough.
Saturday, December 5th
I stood by the wall of windows, veiled in moonlight.
Dominic stepped into the middle of the room, ten feet away, though it felt like a chasm separated us. Even in the dark, the moonlight reflecting off the white marble illuminated him like a figure in a shadow box and I could see nothing else. The howl of the night wind faded. I could sense his very breath sucking the air from the room.
“Hannah?”
His voice was almost enough to undo everything I had been thinking.
He has been so good to me.
He stepped forward, and terror buzzed frantic through my body.
“Hannah, are you—”
“Why?” It came out a choked whisper, like my brain
was trying to tell me to just shut the fuck up before I gave away what I knew. But my heart needed to hear his confession, needed to know for sure, so I didn’t spend my whole life wondering whether this was nothing but the wild imagination of another fucked-up girl with a fucked-up daddy.
“Why what?”
I tossed him the bottle. He snatched it out of the air.
“You drugged me.”
He pocketed the bottle. “I thought you needed more sleep.”
He’s lying. They all lie.
“Did you ever love me?”
If he loves me, maybe everything is going to be okay.
Hannah, that’s crazy.
He’s never hurt me.
Just drugged you senseless.
“I needed you,” he said.
He needs me. Maybe I can help him. If he knows it was wrong, we can make this better together. No one else has to know. I can fix this.
“I need you too,” I whispered, taking a step forward. We had each other. It wasn’t too late.
“You may be misunderstanding the situation,” he said.
The air in the room changed suddenly, like a draft from an open window freezing my marrow as it crept up my arms and into my chest. But there was no window, no opening to the elements that would have caused such a chill. “I know you did some things that were—” It stuck in my throat. I didn’t even know what the words were for something like this. “You’re not a bad person. Let me help.”
“You did help,” he said softly. “You made me normal.”
I couldn’t breathe. Jesus fucking Christ, I couldn’t breathe.
Emotional thinking never leads to anything good.
But … don’t you feel anything about all this?
Not really.
Pretending to be normal is the best way to make people think you are.
“That’s why you gave me the pills. So you could … leave?”
He watched me, silent.
“And I would be your alibi because I didn’t know any different.”
I waited for him to tell me it wasn’t true, but he didn’t deny it, just fixed his gaze on me as my heart thrashed in my frozen chest.
“Did Jim help? Did he talk you into it?” Hope sputtered, tried to catch.
“Jim can’t keep his dick in his pants. He never could.”
“But that doesn’t—”
“Jim was predictable in his compulsions and statistically likely to fuck up. Sometimes people don’t do what you expect them to, but when they do, there is nothing more rewarding.” A corner of his mouth turned up. I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a snarl.
Outside, the frozen moon ducked behind a cloud, casting us into dusky shadow. A shoe clacked on the floor, and another. The moon reemerged and he was nearer now, six feet and closing. His face was clear, as beautiful as a marble sculpture. I fought hysteria. “He could have killed Noelle!”
Dominic crept forward. I slid backwards on my fluffy socks.
“I doubt that.”
“What are you—”
“His wasn’t that kind of damage.”
Hot coals in my chest fanned into flame and singed my lungs. “Did you choose me because I was damaged?”
“Yes.”
“But you … you helped me, helped to fix me—”
But then I knew: helping me had been a side effect, not the goal. What was the goal? He clearly hadn’t fixed those other women. Or Timmy. Or … Jake.
He killed for me. He loves me.
No he doesn’t. He’s going to kill me.
It wasn’t a question. His face mutated into a mask of predatory excitement. Adrenaline zinged from me to him and back again, a ricochet like a wayward bullet.
My muscles coiled in anticipation.
He lunged, impossibly slow, as if the world had stopped spinning. I leaped sideways and pain shot through my skull as he dragged me by the hair, the room sliding past my socks on the marble as if I were walking on ice. I skidded, flailed, kicked, and pain blazed up my leg through my ankle under the distant sound of shattering glass.
The world wobbled. A dream, just a dream.
I clawed at his fist and he tightened his grip on my hair. Bright orange pain pulsed through the top of my head into my vision, dimming the shadowy white plaster of the moonlit ceiling. Then the white ceiling disappeared. A light flickered on, illuminating deep wood, and I could smell leather and books and my own rank sweat. Rugs. Wood.
He stopped at the bookshelf and reached for something. A sound like a slithering snake hissed in my ear, then a thunk as he threw something on the table. I clung to his arms, tears blurring my vision as the room pulsed black and focused again.
On the table, a box full of silver tools glittered sharply on velvet. A scalpel.
Panic screened my senses and tunneled my vision, and there was only him, the box and the scalpel he grasped. Then I was being dragged again, attached to his fist like a doll, flailing, clawing, kicking until my knee connected with something hard and a clatter reverberated through the room. Chess pieces rained off the table from the toppled board.
He stopped and stared, then jerked me toward him, my feet skidding against the hardwood as he raised the scalpel and plunged it into my upper arm.
Pain—hot, white, exquisite—shot through me. My arm weakened and my hand faltered against his.
He tore the scalpel free and the scent of copper thickened the air.
The pain. Endorphins poured into my bloodstream, smooth and warm. My vision opened. Air filled my lungs.
I wondered how long it would take me to die.
He pulled me out of the library and into the living room, and the ceiling swam, painted in bloody moonlight. Glass jangled around our feet as he dragged me through the kitchen toward the mudroom door.
No, no, no, I cannot leave this house with him. My fingernails dug into his skin, slipping in my blood.
“Dominic, please! I won’t, I’ll never—”
His chuckle told me there was no point. He’d just make it hurt more. Like my father had.
My pulse thundered in my temples. I could see, feel, smell the cold, dark room where sheets of poetry would be scattered over pieces of my body. Here a foot, there my ear, here my entrails shoved into my dead, gaping mouth.
The pain. Focus.
I drove my palms against his hand, every drop of energy pooling in my wrists, pushing away from his grasp on my hair. An audible grinding screamed inside my head as the roots of my hair cleaved a chunk from my scalp. Wetness dripped over my ear. I crashed to the marble, free.
Run! I scrambled toward the living room, glass from the broken sculpture tearing into my feet, my lungs burning, threatening to implode. His shoes crunched closer, closer. I cut around the couch, slipped and fell to my knees. My fingertips closed around a chunk of broken sculpture—sharp, jagged, deadly.
He bared his teeth and lunged, arms extended.
You’re stronger than you think.
I lurched upwards with the piece of broken glass and thrust it into his belly. Blood bloomed across his abdomen in a vibrant red stain. A dream, just a dream. I plunged the glass into his flesh again, pushing until the hilt disappeared into the wall of his stomach.
He reached for me again but I leapt backwards, sliding on the glass and on blood that was probably mine, but maybe his too. I tumbled onto my left side and my head struck the floor. The world turned in dizzy circles—some nightmarish alternate universe where I had just stabbed the man I loved. He raised his arm above him in a final gesture of hope.
But the blackness didn’t care about hope. It was trying to swallow me. Maybe I wanted it to.
Why couldn’t he just love me?
I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.
Saturday, December 5th
Noelle pulled the blanket up to her neck, wondering if she should try to sleep some more or just give up and watch television. The nightmares had been decreasing, so she probably wouldn’t have another tonight. But that di
dn’t mean she felt like risking it.
The curtain whispered in the dark, rippling in the current of the heat vent. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. The attack itself was not what was bothering her. No matter what Jim had planned, she was alive. And he wasn’t. The news story about him swinging in his jail cell had been oddly comforting.
All men were assholes.
Well, almost all men.
She exhaled, forcing her frustration into the air.
What am I missing?
She had slapped him when he tried to kiss her, then managed to get her knee in between them enough to pop the car door and roll out. Even in heels, she had torn through the woods until she found someone else, someone to help her. “Like a freaking kickboxer,” Hannah had said.
That was the problem. Hannah.
Jim had cried when the police slapped the cuffs on his wrists.
“I need her, Noelle. Please, I need your help! I thought if I could make her jealous … I just love her so much.”
As they’d ducked his head into the car he had stared straight at her, straining against the officers.
“I can save her from him! She will save me, too. Please! I can save her!”
Then he was gone.
Noelle rolled over. Her friend didn’t need saving from anyone. Now that Jake was gone, Hannah could finally be happy like she deserved to be. With Dominic.
Maybe I should call her.
Noelle looked at the bedside clock. 12:10 a.m.
She sighed. Hannah was fine. Waking her up wouldn’t do anyone any good. Besides, what was she going to say? That killer dude wanted to save you from … uh … not sure who?
Thomas’s scent clung to her pillow. Her stomach flipped.
Thomas had been Jim’s best friend. What if—
She shook her head. Jim was a serious whack job who’d fooled everyone, even his boss. And Thomas was the nicest guy she had ever met. The fact that he was charming, and friendly, and super smart didn’t hurt either. Besides, he idolized Superman. How twisted could he be?
She fought the urge to get her phone.
None of this shit mattered anyway. That asshole was dead.
Noelle pushed aside the tingling that ran along the back of her neck and wrapped her arm around the pillow. She’d call Hannah first thing in the morning.
[Ash Park 01.0] Famished Page 28
