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I stayed quiet, because she wasn’t quite done yet.
“Where were you yesterday before you got my call?” Charlie asked, though based on her tone, she already knew.
“I was…” I wanted to finish walking up the steps, grab her, and pull her in close, but I knew she’d fight me—and the last thing I wanted was for her to fight me. No, right now we had to talk this out. “You know where I was.”
“Do I?” Charlie echoed, her nostrils flaring. “Do I know where you were? Brett, tell me you didn’t. Tell me my gut instinct is wrong and you didn’t do it.” Her thin shoulders rose and fell with a heavy breath. “Tell me you didn’t kill Zak.”
I didn’t want to lie to her, and that was why I said, “I can’t tell you that. You know I can’t.”
She took a step back, shaking her head, causing her brown hair to sway with the movement. “You can’t tell me that because you did it.Youwere the one who killed Zak. What…” She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t scream at me, nor did she collapse into a puddle of emotions and cry. Maybe a part of her had expected something like this to happen. “What were you thinking? Someone could’ve seen you—”
“That’s what you’re worried about? That someone might’ve seen me? Charlie, this ain’t my first rodeo. Do you know how many—”
Charlie interrupted, “No, I don’t know how many. I don’t want to know how many, but I do want to know what the hell you were thinking. He was…”
I finished walking up the stairs, standing directly in front of her and towering over her. To her credit, she held her own, as she always did when trying to stand up to me. “He was your worthless ex who was obviously trying to get back with you, Charlie. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“So you decided tokillhim? Brett, you should’ve trusted me not to fall for him again. You can’t get so jealous that you snap and kill anyone who looks at me.”
“I didn’t kill him because he looked at you. I killed him because…” The way Charlie stared up at me, fuming, made me lose my track of thought. Charlie was the only one who could affect me like that. “I killed him because—because I did, okay? I just did. You threw me out and I thought I’d do you one last favor before I left for good. I didn’t think you’d call me. I didn’t think I’d come back here and stop you from—”
The look on Charlie’s face right then made my stomach twist, and it took me way too long to say it, “Killing yourself.” I took a step toward her, bringing both hands up and sweeping them along her face, back from her cheeks and tangling them into her hair. “I killed him because he hurt you, Charlie. If you’re expecting me to tell you I’m sorry, you’ll be waiting forever, because I’m not.”
“You had no right.”
I bent my neck, bending down toward her as I pulled her onto her toes. That damned height difference. Our foreheads were inches apart when I whispered, “I had every right, Charlie. He hurt you. If you let him back in, he’d only hurt you again. I’ll kill everyone who’s ever so much asthoughtabout hurting you.”
“Don’t. Don’t do that for me,” she said, her voice quiet and light. Still, even though she was a little pissed off at what I’d done, she didn’t pull away from me.
“That’s like asking a wolf not to hunt.”
“Good thing you’re not a wolf, then. You’re a human. You can stop yourself.”
The breath I let out right then was slow and calm. “Charlie, you have no idea what it’s like in my head. I don’t have a conscience. I don’t think about good and evil like you do. I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong… but I do know that anyone who hurts you doesn’t deserve to keep breathing.”
As an afterthought, I added, “Besides, I’m like ninety-nine percent sure he’s the one. He has the motive and the means. He knows your schedule, knows how to get into your house, and obviously wanted to get back with you. He was your guy, Charlie, the one you brought me here to take care of.”
“There’s just—there’s just no way. It couldn’t be Zak. It couldn’t be.”
My grip in her hair tightened. “Think about it. Your stalker called right after the party, right after you spoke to Zak. Your stalker knew you. It wasn’t just some social media creep who’d found you.”
She seemed to think about this, and she thought about it longer than she ever had before, any other time I’d brought Zak up as a possibility. Eventually, she sighed and closed her eyes. “You might be right… but what if you’re wrong?”
If I was wrong, and her stalker was still out there, then I’d have killed her ex. Simple as that. Just her ex and not her stalker. No use crying over spilled milk, the milk in this case being Zak. There was only one thing we could do, and that was move the fuck on.
“I’m not wrong,” I told her, sounding so certain. And that’s because I was. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that her stalker was her ex. Charlie didn’t have a social life. She kept to herself. Her stalker being Zak just made sense.
Charlie pulled away from me, turning to walk into her room. She tossed her phone on the bed, sighed, and went to sit at her desk, where some textbooks were open near her old laptop. “My mom said we’re going to the funeral, even though we weren’t on speaking terms,” she whispered. “When it’s time for that, you know you can’t come.”
“What? Charlie.”
“You killed him, Brett. In broad daylight. You say no one saw you, but what if someone did? There is no way in hell you’re coming to the funeral. Besides, you don’t have any clothes to wear to a funeral.”
All that was true, I guess. She’d already spent enough money on me as it was, so I couldn’t make her buy more clothes. As for the broad daylight part… I really didn’t think anyone would recognize me, but I supposed it would be stupid for me to go. She’d bundle up in black and go with Mommy and Daddy, and I’d be stuck here by myself.
It took a lot out of me to say it, but I managed, “You’re right… I guess.”
“Just,” Charlie paused, sending me a pleading look, “please don’t go off killing anyone else. I didn’t ask for your help to kill anyone who’s been mean to me. Just my stalker, who Zak may or may not have been.” Her head angled down, and seconds ticked by before she asked, “Was it quick, at least?”
