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“It’s not what it looks like.” He pauses for a moment, opening his mouth to say something else, but he stops short when I raise my palm to shush him.
“First, you abandoned me at that Christmas party. Then you go out, kill someone”—I crane my neck, seeing his neighbor face down in the shower—“And, to add insult to injury, you usethatline on me?” I scoff. “Get real.”
“How did you get home?” he asks, changing the subject as he shuts off the water. “And how did you get in here?”
I want to scream. Even though I should be more upset at the fact that he murdered someone—when we were supposed to lay low—I’m more apt to strangle him with my bare hands for tonight’s succession of events. “Caught a taxi, then picked the lock. But never mind that. Do you know what I had to deal with at that fucking party?”
He lifts a brow before answering with a shake of his head.
“Once he realized you weren’t coming back, your boss decided it was the appropriate time to ask me out.” I can still feel his disgusting hands on me, and I grimace, trying not to retch. “He even groped me. Like what the hell?!”
He clenches his jaw and grips his knife with white knuckles. “I’ll kill him, too.”
Feeling a headache bloom, I rub my temples. “Jesus Christ, Damon.” I lean against the door frame, wanting nothing more than to take off my heels and soak in a warm bath. “Be honest. How many people have you killed tonight?”
“Just two,” he replies nonchalantly, his lips tugging into a shit-eating grin.
“Well, aren’t you on a roll?”
He lifts his arm, seconds from putting his mask back on. “I can make it three if you let me go back to that?—”
“Damon! This is fucking serious!” I close my eyes, inhaling and exhaling as I attempt to calm my frayed nerves. “There’s a dead body behind you.”
It’s his turn to scoff. “You act like you’ve never seen a corpse before,” he remarks, unbothered.
“Oh my God!” I resist the urge to bash my head—or his—against the wall. “Just … Please tell me who else you killed.”
“Detective Bryant,” he replies, calm as can be.
“Oh, wow.” In my head, I visualize the card he gave me back in Ashburn. I know he would never leave us alone; he’s too tenacious. Too stubborn. Part of me knew it would come down to this. But, of all things to feel, I didn’t anticipate myself feelingreliefthat he’s gone. “What are we gonna do with?—”
“Him?” He tilts his head toward the very naked man behind him. “I have some things in my apartment to take care of this little …problem. If you want to slip into something more comfortable, then you’re welcome to give me a hand.”
“I don’t know anything about …this,” I say, gesturing to the body.
His childlike glee is clear in his wide grin and sparkling eyes. “I can teach you. Show you the ropes.”
I shoot him an incredulous frown. “On how to dispose of bodies?”
He nods, moving past me. “When you’re in this line of work, you have to get creative, Little Finch.”
The nickname stirs something dark within me, and my mind wanders back to my family’s old property. “Wait,” I say, giving him pause. “I have an idea where we could bury them.”
He smiles like the Cheshire cat, giving credence to my earlier analogy of him. “Now you’re thinking like a real killer.”
As we sneak out of the apartment, I’m not sure if I’m starting to think like a killer—or if I’ve been one all along.
This isn’t how I thought I’d spend the final hours of Christmas Eve, but here I am.
I stop by my apartment and change into something comfier—or as comfy as one can be when learning to stage a crime scene and ride out to the middle of nowhere to bury a body.
After changing into a worn Metallica shirt, we return to Alex’s apartment. Damon then walks me through the steps of setting up the scene for our plan, making it look like a successful suicide attempt since Alex is our fall guy.
But as he detailed his process, I couldn’t help but think that he truly did kill Grace in the same manner.
He had already prepared a suicide note—just in case, he said—and left it in the bathroom. It’s long-winded, having Alex confess to Damon’s murders in gruesome detail. But claims that he could no longer take the guilt of committing such ‘heinous deeds.’
After he arranges the body, I fill the tub and make sure our scapegoat has a near-identical replica of both Damon’s hunting knife and mask. Nausea roils in my stomach, and I’m unsure whether it’s from the humidity of being stuck in the bathroom—or because I just took part in pinning a bunch of crimes on a mostly innocent person.
