Anything unusual.
Nothing would ever be usual.
Nothing would ever be the same. Grant had changed the world and left Deb behind to stagger through unbalanced. With nothing to grasp.
“Please,” Levi finished, “feel free to contact me if anything comes up.”
He left.
Deb stayed in the kitchen, looking at the table and chairs and drawers and sink and cabinets as if she’d never seen them before.
CHAPTER
10
THE KILLER WAS there as Agent Levi Price left Deb’s home. Price stopped like he wanted to say something, then kept walking to his car.
The killer wanted to go inside, wanted to rush into Deb’s house, but had already been inside her home.
Many times.
Deb had never known. The killer was quiet about it. Even standing next to Deb while she slept, her face in pain. Like she was dreaming about Grant.
Had stood over Kim too. That was harder because Kim closed the bedroom door; Deb left hers open. Kim’s doorknob had to be held tight, slowly twisted, pushed open without letting the door creak or catch. Just to make sure the girl was home and wouldn’t show up while the killer was staring down at her mother.
Kim slept naked, but the killer barely looked at her.
Didn’t care about Kim, only Deb.
The killer could watch Deb endlessly, lost in love and beauty, but had other things to do in the house.
Two nights ago the killer spent hours in the basement, until morning’s pale winter sun. It didn’t seem like Kim or Deb had been down here since Grant died. Grant must have been the only one who used this storage space, the only one who had ever placed anything in the file cabinets. But nothing incriminating was here. Grant had been smart enough to burn his paper trail of payments.
The killer went through files all night, accidentally fell asleep, ended up trapped all day in the basement, unable to leave while Deb cried relentlessly for her dead husband above. Desperate to eat, forced to piss in an empty clay flower pot. Finally slipped away when the sun slipped out of sight.
Like any seduction, there was a point beyond return, a chance to be caught down here, murder as the only escape.
The killer had a gun but didn’t want to use it.
And never against Deb.
But love unrequited is a powerful, unquenchable thing. Soon the killer would have to show Deb the depth of those feelings, how they clung like an anchor in the seabed floor.
And hope that anchor stayed firmly in place.
Unmoored, everything would be lost.
Everything, including Deb and her daughter, would be swiftly, violently destroyed.
CHAPTER
11
CESSY PAID THE Uber driver, stared at that man’s house across the street. The man who had texted her.
This was too much like her mom’s life, the bad life. Sitting in a car outside of someone’s apartment or house. Entering a strange home owned by a threatening man, a man on his own property.
And men are dangerous when they feel powerful and secure. When they feel ownership.
Hector hadn’t hurt her until she was his wife.
Cessy stepped out into the cold gray evening. The house was in Silver Spring, a small suburban Maryland city just on the outskirts of DC, an hour from her apartment in Baltimore. The houses here were old, some close to a hundred years or more, and the business district wasn’t more than a block away from the residences. To Cessy, the close proximity between residential and professional neighborhoods added a schizophrenic quality to the community. Cities were meant to be confusingly combined. Not suburbs.
Cessy walked up his porch, knocked on the door as the Uber driver drove off.
It only took a few moments for him to answer.
“About time.”
He was still the same beefy blond guy who’d come to her apartment a week ago, but now he was wearing a T-shirt and jean shorts and looked slightly ridiculous.
Cessy couldn’t recall a man wearing jean shorts who wasn’t a toddler.
It helped settle her nerves.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He looked surprised. “I never told you?”
Cessy waited.
“It’s Barry.”
“Barry?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone named Barry.”
And Barry, she didn’t add, was about as nonthreatening a name as you could get.
He smiled. Instinctively, Cessy smiled back. The shared moment dispelled more of the tension. Not completely, but Cessy welcomed any sign of warmth.
“Shut up,” Barry said playfully, “and get in here.”
Cessy was hesitant to go into his house, but she had come to talk to him.
She followed Barry inside.
He closed the door behind her, his arm brushing her body.
“You live here?” Cessy asked. The house was big, but bereft of furnishings. Large, empty rooms with hardwood floors and white walls.
“I got a couple of houses,” Barry said loftily. He paused at the base of a small staircase leading upstairs. The house was a split level, and each stairway only consisted of a handful of steps. “You coming up?”
Cessy crossed her arms over her chest. “I want to talk about what Hector owed.”
Barry sighed. Cessy glanced into the kitchen, saw a table and a chair. So the house wasn’t completely empty.
“You suddenly came up with fifteen thousand?” Barry asked.
“Not exactly.”
Cessy thought about her answer.
“Not even close.”
She thought about it a little more.
“Actually, just no. I didn’t.”
“So we do my other arrangement,” Barry said, and he climbed a stair. “Pay it off in sweat.”
“You were serious about that?”
He eyed her. “Absolutely.”
“What happens if I don’t break a sweat?”
“Still counts. Besides, I’ve never been with a Mexican chick. I’m curious.”
“I’m Panamanian.”
He shrugged. “Like it matters.”
“Give me another way.”
Barry cracked a knuckle. “This is the other way.” He turned, ascended the rest of the stairs.
Cessy followed him, tried to keep calm. Tried to make sure nothing was between her and the front door if she had to run, relieved that the first and second floors were only separated by a small jump of stairs.
Had it been a traditional lengthy staircase, she wouldn’t have followed him.
At least, she realized, that’s what she was telling herself. Rather than admit that she was already under his control, already acquiescing to his demands.
That she was scared of what would happen if she didn’t.
The second floor was a row of closed doors and an open bathroom at the far end. Cessy followed Barry to the closest room, a large master bedroom, empty except for a mattress in the middle.
“You’re kind of a minimalist, huh?”
“I told you, I got a couple of houses. Haven’t decorated this one yet.” Barry rubbed his hands together.
And suddenly Cessy realized how careless she’d been. She’d been so caught up in thoughts about Barry and the money that she hadn’t considered other men might be here.