Page 143 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

I pick up my phone and swipe through to the LA gossip site that I check daily. Ron Wilde is still missing, presumed drunk. Apparently someone ‘spotted’ him living like a hobo in Alaska. Someone else says he’s working at their local 7-Eleven in Kentucky. And someone else thinks they see him on Skid Row. As long as his fans remain creepy and parasocial, no one seriously thinks he’s lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Life couldn’t be more perfect.

I slip my sunglasses down and glance at the terrace below. A couple is sitting at the bar overlooking the water. A couple I’ve been watching. To the untrained eye they look like any other loved-up pair out here on vacation.

But not to me.

I know who he is.

He’s older than she is by about twenty years. That’s my first clue. The power imbalance. She doesn’t look like she’s much older than me. Pretty in the way all the young women here are. I sit up and peer closer at them. They’re not tan enough to have been here very long. I haven’t seen them around before. And there’s definitely something off. The body language. She’s cowed and he’s talking to her, quietly, not loud enough to let anyone hear, but I can take a bet.

You embarrass me.

I saw you looking at those men.

You dress like a whore.

And then I see it. How she flinches when he lifts his hand too quickly. She’s used to that hand.

And not in a good way.

That familiar little flicker in my chest ignites.

The one that speaks to me.

The one that hasn’t been wrong yet.

This is a bad man.

A very bad man.

Agnes nudges me with her foot. ‘What are you staring at? And why isn’t it me?’

‘I’m not staring, I’m observing,’ I say.

She sits up on her lounger and looks at my face, inspecting it. ‘You’re plotting,’ she says finally. ‘What’s going on? Why have you got your murder face on?’

I nod towards the couple. ‘She’s scared of him,’ I say and Agnes squints over at them. She stares down at them too.

‘He’s old enough to be her dad,’ she says. ‘Gross.’

‘So gross,’ I agree.

The man’s voice gets louder, only slightly, but enough for the occasional word to drift up towards us.

‘Disrespect.’

‘Attention-seeking.’

‘Slut.’

The woman murmurs something to him, trying to placate him, but he cuts her off, grabs her wrist. And not lightly.

Agnes is still watching. ‘He’s awful,’ she says.

‘Yeah,’ I say, unable – and unwilling – to drag my eyes away.

‘Do you think she’s okay?’