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“Our hero,” sarcasm drips out of my voice.
He grunts comically at that. “I never imagined this situation. Not in my wildest dreams.” He taps his cigar.
“You know those things will kill you.” I point to it.
He arcs an eyebrow and side-eyes me.
“What? I’m just looking out for our grocery man.”
“Uh huh,” his voice purrs like the car engine. He looks to the sky again. “I’m supposed to be on a beach somewhere with Marissa, building our home, taking care of her. That was the plan.”
“You? The guy who wears a sleeveless shirt in the cold? You’d melt.”
“True, I would’ve hated it. But for the right woman?” He shakes his head and steps on the cigar.
“You know… you’re nothing like I imagined back when I was a kid.”
“You still are a kid,” he says.
“Mid-twenties is not a kid. Anyway, you had all those boys shaking. The Hook this. The Hook that. They said they couldn’t wait for the day Don Shadow took down his own dog so they didn’t have to sleep with a shotgun under their pillows.”
“Never came to be,” he said.
“Obviously. Is it true, though? Did you hang your kills in a meat locker?”
He eyes me again, pushing himself off the hood and casually stepping away from the car, hands shoved in his pockets. “The eggs tasted different this morning.”
I blush, thinking of the oregano mix I added. “Good or bad?”
“Refreshing. Jane cooks with the rigidness of her personality. You? You add some spice.”
I rub the smile off my lips before it can fully form.
He stops a few feet ahead and turns to face me. “Now that the dust has settled, I want to ask you something.”
“Okay…”
“If you don’t think it was her that stopped you from pulling the trigger, then what was it?”
I avert my gaze. The most obvious answer is – I’m not a killer. But after talking to the other women, maybe it’s something more. Do I view him as a savior, somewhere deep, deep down?
“Just hours before you, Lenny, and Tony arrived at my doorstep, Joey threw me off my stool.”
“I saw that,” he grunts.
His response sends a shiver down my spine.
“I could’ve sniped him right then and there, so you would understand what divine intervention feels like.”
“But he needed to see his killer,” I surmise. “For Marissa.”
“Yes. But back to my question.” He takes a step closer to me.
“I—”
“You what?”
Bzzzzt! Bzzzt!
