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I take off my jacket and put it over Noah’s hips and chest. I cannot leave him like that. I know it will mess up the scene. I know Marcus will hate me for it. I do it anyway.

Rafe makes a broken sound. He gets to his feet like his legs will not hold him. He looks at my jacket on Noah’s body and does not tell me to take it off. He runs for the stairs.

I stay on nineteen with Noah and the whiskey still in my blood and that close voice still in my ear. Three nights. Then a face.

Outside the window, the town is still lit up for Halloween, like nothing in this building has gone wrong at all.

3

Rhys Preswood

Tuesday, October 28th. Close to midnight.

The house sits above Harrow Mills on the dark side of the ridge. It is glass and stone. It has a long drive and a gate that opens for my car. Inside, the floors are pale wood. The ceilings are high. The windows on the west wall run from the floor to the roof, so the lounge looks down through the trees to the town.

I paid for quiet. Tonight the quiet feels like it belongs to someone else.

The police kept me at the building for hours. Longer than I wanted. They made me wait in a glass room on thirty-eight while they went over nineteen. Marcus took the file room. He would not let me back in once he saw the jacket on Noah. Rafe sat in a chair down the hall with Noah’s blood still on his shirt cuffs. He stared at the floor and would not look at me. I answered every question they had. What time I left my office. Why I went to nineteen. Who was on the phone. I did not have a name for them. Then they told me to go home. There was nothing else I could do on that floor except stand there and make it worse.

So I came here.

The shower is big enough to stand in without touching the walls. The stone is black. The water comes down hard and hot. I let it hit me. It runs over my neck and my shoulders and down my back. I have been tense since the file room. My jaw hurts. My hands hurt. The muscle in my right thigh hurts from kneeling on that floor. The water works on all of it. I put my forehead on the wall and stay there until my skin turns red.

I keep seeing Noah on the floor.

I keep hearing that close voice in my ear.

I keep seeing Rafe in the doorway with a cheap cup and his phone still lit.

I keep hearing pretty when you bleed.

I shut the water off.

The towel is white and thick. I wrap it around my waist and tie it low on my hips. That is all I put on. The mirror shows the rest. Forty-two. Dark wet hair pushed back from my face. Green-gold eyes. Olive skin still shiny from the shower. Water running down my chest, over my stomach, into the towel. I look good. I hate that I look good. I do not look like a man who found a body. I look like nothing happened at all.

I walk out barefoot. The floor is cold under my feet.

The hall is wide enough to waste space. There are pictures on the wall. They came with the house. I never asked what they were and I never liked them enough to take them down. There is a table under them with nothing on it but a dark bowl. To the left is the kitchen. White counters. Warm wood. The kitchen is large and empty. I do not have anyone living here with me. To the right, glass stairs go up to the bedrooms. The main bedroom takes the whole front of the top floor. The window up there looks at the same trees as the lounge. If a lamp goes on, anyone standing in those trees can see it.

I do not go up yet.

I pour whiskey in the kitchen. Too much. I carry the glass into the lounge.

The lounge is a long room. One whole wall is glass. The other wall is stone, with a fireplace I do not light. The couch is dark leather and deep enough to sink into. It faces the windows. I sit. The towel opens a little over my thigh. I leave it. I pick up the remote and turn the television on. The television is on some late sports game. I do not know who is playing. I do not care. I only wanted the noise. I drink.

My phone lights up on the cushion.

Unknown number.

The first text is not a name.

Unknown: Still in the towel. Good. I have been thinking about your cock since you hung up on me. I wanted you on that desk. I wanted your towel on the floor and my glove wrapped around you until you made a mess of your own hand.

I stare at it.

I should call Marcus. I should call the officer who gave me his card and told me to go home and lock the door.

I type anyway.