Deanna smiles at him but says nothing. She’s visibly sweating as we make our way to where Ricardo’s waiting with the car. His cigar’s gone and he jolts awake when I yank open the passenger side door.
“Done already?” He glances back at Deanna, grinning. “How’d it go?”
“It went very well.” I snap on my seatbelt. “Mind if I mess with the radio?”
“Ah, I wouldn’t?—“
But I’m already tuning to another station as he pulls away from the house. I catch Deanna’s horrified stare in the rearview mirror and show teeth. Behind us, the corpse cools in a puddle of its own gore.
CHAPTER 25
DEANNA
Ican’t shower it off. After we get back from the meeting, I spend an hour scrubbing in hot water, but it won’t wash away. The smell of shit and blood and piss is trapped in my nostrils and I swear his brains are still stuck under my fingernails.
I didn’t pull the trigger. I didn’t touch the body. But I also didn’t say a damn word about the corpse.
I helped him cover it up.
Prime killed a man. He explained what happened after we were back at home. I want to be angry, but I’m too afraid and exhausted to feel much of anything. I clean and clean, and I still come out filthy.
How did I get here? I was his personal assistant. He was a pain in the ass, but notdangerous. Seriously, Prime killing someone?
But he did it, and he doesn’t seem bothered.
Maybe he really is a monster.
The thing is, he keeps saying it. Over and over, since this started, he was clear about who and what he is, but I didn’t want to believe him. Every time he touched me, every time he held me and kissed me and fucked me, I thought I was seeing the real man behind the mask.
But now that mask is drenched in blood and I don’t know who I am anymore.
That night I sleep on my side of the bed, afraid he’s going to touch me, but equally terrified to draw attention to myself by trying to stay on the couch. I have horrible dreams about shattered skulls and stinking bodies, and in the morning I can’t take it anymore. I dress and get out of there, only pausing to tell him that I’m visiting my parents and taking a day off work. He doesn’t argue.
“Good morning, honey!” Mom is sitting in the living room with a cup of tea and her tablet. She peers at me over her glasses. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“Thought I’d drop in. Where’s Dad?”
“Yolanda’s helping him in the bathroom. There’s coffee if you want some.”
I fill a mug in the kitchen and breathe in the smell of it. I keep flashing back to Prime, to the way his touch feels, this strange, halfway disconnect I feel, caught between being afraid of what he is and still wanting him so badly it makes my knees shake.
Dad comes down with Yolanda the nurse. I help him to the kitchen and he seems like he’s in a good mood. He thinks I’m my cousin, which is fine and close enough. I pitch in with breakfast while Yolanda busies herself straightening, and even Mom comes to sit with us voluntarily, which is a huge change.Back before the full-time nurse, it was like Mom was allergic to being in the same room as Dad, at least whenever she could help it.
But the atmosphere in the house is so much better. It’s striking how different it feels. Dad’s still the same, but Mom’s stress levels are astronomically lower. She even jokes and smiles, and for a while I start to think it’s like the old days. Sure, Dad isn’t entirely aware of what we’re doing, but he grins a few times and grunts at what we say, and he has to be reminded constantly of where we are and what’s happening, but there are stretches where he’s mostly lucid. And once, briefly, he touches my hand and asks how I’m doing, and I swear he knows me, the actual me, his real-life daughter.
It kills me. It really does. Seeing my parents like this, sitting in it, this is why I’m married to Prime, why I’m going through hell with him.
“Honey? You seem distracted. Is everything okay?” Mom smiles, her hand covering my father’s. He sometimes reacts poorly to physical contact, since he’s not always sure who we are, but today he doesn’t mind at all.
I bite my tongue to keep from crying. It’s like I’m a kid again, my father’s got his mind back, my mother’s not a ball of grief and denial anymore, and I can be free. I smile at them, wiping my eyes, and I taste blood, maybe that dead guy’s blood, but I don’t care.
“Everything’s okay. Don’t worry, thinking about work, is all. Speak of the devil—“ My phone buzzes and Prime’s name shows on the screen.
“Go ahead and take it. We’ll be here.” Mom beams at me happily. “Your bedroom’s empty if you need some privacy.”
“Good to know you didn’t convert it into a gym.”
“Not yet,” Dad says, which surprises us both. “I like rowing machines.”
