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He laughs. “OK, so um. I’m not killing her. All right? Hear me? I’m not killing her.”
“Dude,” I say, laughing uncomfortably. “You know what Damon will do if we—”
“Shut up for a second. That point,” he says, coming towards me so he can poke his finger into my chest as he talks, “is no longer up for negotiation. We,” he says, stressing the word, “are not killing her. But you need to tell me why the fuck we’re here. And you need to tell me now.”
“We’re here to kill her,” I say again.
“What are we looking for?” he says. “I’m not gonna ask again.”
I hold out my hands, unsure why he’s so pissed off. “I mean… I’m not sure.”
“How could you not be sure?”
“Because Damon just told me to call him when we found her and tell him the situation. So I told him and he said there has to be more. Stay and watch her. So we stayed.”
“You have no idea why we’re here?”
“You know why we’re here, AJ.”
He lets out a long exhale and turns away from me. But just as quick, he turns back. “Something’s wrong. Something’s off.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. But something’s not right.”
I want to say… Yeah, no shit. Because I’m here to kill you too.
But of course I don’t say that.
“Why did she have those pills in her hand out on the terrace?”
“I dunno,” I say. “She was drunk. She wanted to take a few?”
AJ laughs. But then something catches his attention. Something in the nearby nightstand.
The journal I found earlier, I realize.
He walks over to it, takes it out of the drawer and opens it up. There’s a loose piece of paper in the middle of the book, which he withdraws and unfolds. Goes silent for a few moments as he reads.
Then he turns back to me, holding the paper up, and says, “Holy fucking shit.”
Chapter Thirteen – AJ
I take a deep breath and hold it, unable to fully comprehend what I’m seeing on this page.
“What?” Logan asks. And when I don’t answer, he says it again. “What, dammit? What’s it say?”
He snatches it from my hand and begins scanning. “Oh, fuck.”
I’ve already opened the journal to the first page. The title says My True Confession and it’s written in a pretty handwritten script. And I’m thinking, OK. Did she kill someone? What did she do?
But then I turn the next page and the handwriting changes to print. To something more blocky and hard. More masculine.
The entry is dated about three and a half years ago. Everything is confusing… until I read the first sentence.
I am Damon Dell’Ariccia, and this is my true confession.
I hold it up to Logan and say, “Jackpot.”
He takes the journal from me and reads the first page, then tosses it on the bed. “That’s not what he was looking for.”
“What do you mean? That has to be it. It’s the only thing we’ve found.”
“It’s not it,” he says. Then he sighs and looks down at the letter in his hand.
“But how do you know it’s not it?” I ask. “It’s a fucking confession.”
“He’s not looking for a confession, AJ. He’s looking for…”
But he stops.
“He’s looking for what?”
But he just shakes his head. “I don’t know, but it’s not a book. It’s a person. That’s all I know.”
“The guy who so obviously lived here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Logan, you’re not making any fucking sense. What did he tell you? Like specifically?”
“He said… he said if I found it, I’d know it.”
I shake my head. “Fuck that! Fuck that, dude! That’s not a directive. ‘Know it when you see it?’ Well, this is it! I know it when I see it!”
“It’s not it.”
An angry sigh bursts out of me. He’s being fucking stupid. I’m still holding the book, my thumb holding the place at the first entry, So I open it back up and read it out loud. “‘I am Damon Dell’Ariccia, and this is my true confession.’” There’s a page break so I flip the page and continue.
“‘The first time I raped Glori Bennett she was twelve years old.’”
I am so stunned, I stop reading and just stare at those words on the page. Handwritten words. My true confession.
When I look up Logan is staring at me. “Still think this isn’t it? We should call him.”
“It’s not it,” Logan insists. “And we can’t call him, AJ. There’s no service.”
Both of us look at the window. Checking to see if it’s still snowing. Which it is.
“This is it,” I say. “All we gotta do is take this back to him and we can let Yvette go.”
Logan shakes his head. Slowly. Almost sadly.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m not killing her. Not after… all this. Not after tonight. I can’t do it.”
In fact, a realization hits me in this moment. I’m tired of this life. I’m tired of killing. I’m tired of working for Damon. I like this place. I’m kinda jealous of whoever was living here with Yvette. I’m jealous of his gym, and his stupid shit cars, and his lift, and his tools. I’m jealous of his quaint little bar on the top of a mountain. Hell, I’m jealous of his tractor.
