DESPITE (OR MAYBE BECAUSE OF) how things went down with Tommy, I definitely go buy him a laptop and send it, along with the flash drive of his personal things, to his apartment.
IF I’M BUSTED, I WILL TELL THE COPS EVERYTHING.
This is a text I get as I’m coming out of the postal store. I don’t know the number, but the area code is 804. Richmond. Marji. She’s heard our local news and that makes me smile. Good, let her squirm. She’s not going to tell the cops shit. She’d have to implicate herself in the decapitations, which would mean life imprisonment or the death sentence.
She’s definitely bluffing.
I delete her message and don’t bother texting her back. I won’t let her think she’s getting to me.
I go straight to Patch and Paw. I need some serious Corn Chip time. He is the one constant that not only helps me forget my crazy life but also allows me thinking time. I know that doesn’t make sense—forgetting and thinking—but somehow it comes together in my mind.
He’s not in his cage, and so I head out the side door.
Zach and Dr. Issa are in the yard laughing and playing with Corn Chip and several other dogs.
I stand for a second, undetected, just watching their excitement as they chase the dogs, throw balls, and laugh at each other and the barking. I can’t recall a single time when I ever had that much carefree fun. There’s got to be something wrong with that.
They both turn at once, as if sensing me, and both their smiles drop away.
Call me the Grim Reaper.
Or rather, Slim Reaper.
“I . . . didn’t know you were coming in today,” Dr. Issa ventures.
I look between them—the guy I had sex with and the brother who gave me a much-needed release. When did I become that girl? “I didn’t know I was either.”
No one says anything for a couple of seconds. Even the dogs fall silent.
“Did you want to play with us?” Zach asks at the same time Dr. Issa suggests, “Can you come back a little later?”
Wow. Okay. But . . . I get it. After what happened between us, Dr. Issa is uncomfortable around me and Zach. Plus they need their brother time. I just never thought Dr. Issa would be so bold in his statement.
“Yeah, see you around,” I say, and head straight out, not even glancing back.
As I pull from the parking lot, I purposefully drive by the side yard where Zach and Dr. Issa and the dogs are all back in full play mode.
Yes, I would’ve liked to have played with them.
When I get home, Daisy and Victor are arguing, which is way too odd for me. Daisy and Mom, sure. Daisy and Victor, never.
“I don’t understand what the big effing deal is,” Daisy snaps.
“Watch your language,” Victor warns.
“Lane gets to,” Daisy snips back.
I immediately tune in. I get to what?
“Your sister is almost eighteen,” he counters.
Daisy rolls her eyes—“Whatever”—and storms upstairs.
I get to what?
Victor sighs, defeated, and obviously at a loss. “I’m going to the office.” With that he’s gone, and Justin and I exchange a look.
“What was that all about?” I whisper to my brother.
He gives me this look like, Really?
I shrug.
“Daisy wants her curfew upped, and she wants permission to go out every night like you do.”
Oh. “But I only go to the coffee shop.”
Justin rolls his eyes, mimicking Daisy. “Girls.”
I laugh, and my cell buzzes. Catalina. “Hello?” I answer.
“You know that statement the Masked Savior sent to the press?”
I know it very well. “Yes.”
“I just found out the task force thinks it’s all made up.”
Irritation flares in me and has me clenching my jaw. What did I do wrong? I thought that letter was pretty damn airtight.
I step out of the kitchen and into the living room, where my brother can’t hear. “Why?”
“I’m not sure, but within the task force they’re maintaining their original profile that there is a real Savior and then a copycat. Publicly, though, they’ll stick with the one about the older woman. What was it exactly?”
Educated, forty-something, single woman with no children, who likely works out of her home. “I don’t remember, but I know what you’re talking about.”
This is what I get for going on the offense. I work better in obscurity. I know this. I should’ve never sent that statement. They didn’t even believe it. This is not good. “How do you know all this?”
She chuckles as if that’s the most stupid question ever. “I bugged my dad’s office.”
Immediately I recall the nanny cam I planted in my mom’s office. Seems as if Catalina and I share the same thought process.
“My dad’s on the phone with your dad right now.”
I glance down the hall to the office at the exact second the door opens, Victor steps out, and he looks right at me.
“Gotta go,” I whisper to Catalina, and hang up.
Victor nods to his office. “We need to talk.”