Page 110 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

It’s stress.

It must be stress.

I can’t stand this feeling of uselessness. I feel so helpless. Completely impotent. I should be with Agnes and Charlie. I should be the one hammering on Cort’s door, storming in, demanding to know where my sister is. What’s he done to her.

And then … what I’ll do to him.

Doing nothing feels so pathetic.

Sitting here isn’t helping.

I push myself up, ignoring the dizziness prickling my vision, and head back to the kitchen to refill my glass. Caffeine and sugar. That will keep me going until I hear from Charlie and Agnes.

A knock at the back door startles me, even though it’s quiet, tentative.

‘Kitty?’

It’s Lauren.

I don’t want to see her now.

‘Unless you’ve got something useful to say about where your fucking psycho boyfriend might be, it’s probably best you stay out of my way.’

‘I’ve come to say sorry,’ she says, poking her head in and giving me a thin, shame-faced smile. ‘Can I come in? Please?’

I want to say no, but I also have a million questions to ask her about Cort. I want to know everything about him now. How long she’s known him. Where he’s from. How the fuck she didn’t notice that he’s a murdering lunatic.

I nod and she slips inside, perching on one of the dining chairs, her arms wrapped around her thin frame.

‘Where is everyone?’ she asks, looking around the room.

‘Agnes and Charlie have gone to Cort’s place,’ I say. ‘I’m waiting to hear from them.’

‘That was Charlie?’ she says. I suppose we didn’t really get the chance to do introductions.

I nod. ‘Yes.’

I stare at Lauren, waiting.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says eventually. ‘About before. I just can’t believe it …’ She trails off, lowers her eyes. ‘I can’t believe Cort would do those awful things.’

I frown at her. This is nothing new.

‘Lauren,’ I say, ‘I’m really not in the mood for another round of you not being able to believe it. So if you’ve got nothing else to say—’

‘Please let me finish.’ She looks up at me again and now I can’t miss the pain and confusion in her eyes. She takes a deep breath. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I can’t believe it. But I do. I do believe it.’ She sighs heavily and her eyes dart around the room. ‘You guys are right. There’s no other reason Antoinette’s scarf would be in his car. Why there’s blood on it. And … that list. Handwritten. Cort never writes anything down. It all goes into his phone …’

I remember what I said to Antoinette about not leaving a digital footprint.

She rubs her eyes with the back of her hands. ‘It’s like he didn’t want to leave a trace.’ She stares intensely at her fingers. ‘I didn’t want to think that I could’ve made such a bad choice. I really thought he was one of the good ones.’

Guilt shoots through me. I didn’t even consider how hard it would’ve been for Lauren. Seeing those screaming truths about her boyfriend like that. About the man she trusted.

‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘You weren’t the only one he fooled.’

She huffs out a hollow laugh. ‘Turns out he’s a better actor than me.’

We sit in silence for a few moments, the heaviness of the situation like a presence in the room.