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The car ride was filled with suffocating silence. Irene refused to even look at me, and I didn’t have the strength to try to talk to her. Perhaps this was the time I had been waiting for since the day Irene became my only family. I always knew that one day she would realize she had made a terrible mistake by choosing to stick with me.
When he parked the car in a massive field, my eyes narrowed. Ryden shrugged, opening the door for us.
This is so convenient, I thought as I looked around. The funeral home looked solitary on the vast plot of land, and there was no hint of life around this place.
“That doesn’t look like a house,” Irene said as she suspiciously looked at the building.
“That’s a funeral parlor,” I said, and Irene’s frown deepened. She shot me a quick look, and I knew she must have put two and two together.
Ryden. Killer. Friend. Funeral business. It wasn’t rocket science.
Enzo opened the door before we even reached it.
“Doctor Death, you truly look like death warmed over,” he said as Ryden shook his head with a frown.
“Dude, shut up,” he said, and Enzo shrugged.
“Still sexy, though.”
I chuckled when he turned toward Irene.
“So… you’re my guest?”
“Prisoner,” she spat out. “Don’t you have a house?”
“I have,” Enzo said. “Come in. I just finished embalming a body. Do you want to see?” he asked her, and I almost scoffed. She wasn’t a kid to get distracted by that.
“I’m coming in only because I don’t want to be with her,” Irene said, glaring in my direction before she walked in. Enzo winked at me, mouthing it’ll be alright. I appreciated that kind gesture.
“Go. Don’t worry. I’ll keep her safe for you,” he said, taking out a gun from the back of his pants. “She’ll be safe here. I’m good if I say so myself.”
After thanking him, Ryden drove me toward the crime scene. My legs trembled when I stepped out of the car.
“I’ll be right here,” Ryden said as I walked toward the crime scene. Another innocent woman died because of me. Guilt and anger writhed through my body, constricting my lungs as I robotically moved forward to where Detective Rosario was talking with Keya. The officers had put a small black barrier between the crowd and the dead woman.
My legs buckled under me when I saw the woman sitting on the bench in a red wig, this time with a bunch of hydrangeas clutched between her palms.
My barista.
Miranda from Hot Cuppa. Her beautiful face was frozen in an immortal smile, and her lips were painted with Ruby Rush. Guilt burned my throat.
HI, DOC. Miranda smiled.
The red line around her neck was leering at me, so familiar and yet so strange.
Here’s his second gift.
How could she be dead? For the first time in my life, I felt fear, fear like I had never felt before.
“Did you eat anything?” Keya asked, frowning at me. “You look pale, West. Here, have some water.”
“I didn’t have the time to eat anything. Thank you.” I gulped the water down greedily until I didn’t feel like I was floating in vacuum.
My hand trembled as I leaned closer to Miranda, tugging the wig off from her head, and placing it inside the evidence bag. Miranda, kind, sweet, smiling Miranda with the singsong voice and a great memory was no more.
“Do you know her?” Detective Rosario asked, studying me carefully.
“Her name’s Miranda. She worked at Hot Cuppa,” I said, voice shaking.
