Page 47 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

‘Can I get you a drink?’

I look at the juice in front of Travis. It’s green and looks like it’s oozing with health. Like something I should definitely be drinking.

‘I’ll have one of what you’re having,’ I say. ‘Whatever it is.’

‘Kale and beetroot with added collagen,’ Travis says with a megawatt smile. It sounds awful and it looks like he knows this.

‘Great,’ I lie.

Travis hops up and begins an easy conversation with the woman behind the bar who is so young and pretty that she probably bathes in this stuff as well as drinks it. She’s the perfect advertisement for this place. Two minutes later he slides back into his seat.

‘She’ll bring it over,’ he says.

‘Can’t wait.’

He gives me a look like he knows I’m lying but is amused by it.

‘So,’ I say, ‘what have you found?’

Travis gives a quick nod and glances down at his laptop, as if he’s activating business mode. ‘Yes, of course, right,’ he says and clears his throat with a little cough. ‘A couple of things that I wanted to show you.’ He reaches down and pulls a brown envelope out of the satchel at his feet. ‘I’ve printed out a few pictures of men I thought could be potentials,’ he says, handing me the envelope. I take it and slide the photos out, suddenly feeling like I’m in some old movie about a private detective. The envelope and actual tangible photos feel very retro.

‘They’re all British men who have arrived in LA in the past month,’ Travis is saying. ‘I tried to narrow it down to the, um, vague description you gave me. They’re all in the right age bracket. I think. It’s sort of hard to know out here.’

I run my fingers over the photos. There are about a dozen of them in total and I flip through them, poring over the images, which look like they’ve been taken with a long lens.

‘How did you get these photos?’ I ask. ‘You know, without being spotted.’

Travis gives a one-shouldered shrug. ‘I used to be a pap,’ he says. ‘You know, a paparazzi photographer. You get good at it.’

‘Why did you stop?’

‘Oh, you know, money. Work dried up the moment everyone had a camera and wifi connection in the palms of their hands.’

He takes a sip of his drink just as the server comes over with a glass, which she plonks unceremoniously in front of me. She gives me a cold stare but dials up warmth when she directs a smile towards Travis. I notice some of the green concoction has slopped onto the table and has made a little puddle under my glass.

‘Is she always so friendly?’ I ask Travis as the server slopes off.

He lowers his gaze, looks embarrassed. ‘We dated for a bit,’ he says.

‘Ah that explains the service with a snarl,’ I say. ‘She thinks we’ve got something going on?’

‘I might not have completely disclosed that you’re a client,’ Travis says, having the grace to look a bit sheepish. ‘My bad. I’ll put her straight.’

‘No biggie,’ I say. ‘I’m not the one who has to clear up the drink she spilled. I suppose I should just be grateful it’s not in my lap.’

Travis gives a nervous laugh. ‘Sorry about that.’

I turn my attention back to the photographs in my hand and begin to sift through them. They’re all men who look to be in their early thirties, wearing band T-shirts and glasses, that chaotic professor aesthetic thing that Aidan Ward had going on. They’re in varying degrees of beardyness, all with messy, slightly too long hair. All very Aidan Ward coded. Yet none of them are him. My heart drops into my Saint Laurent Tribute platforms. I wasn’t really expecting Travis to have tracked him down already, not really.

But there was a tiny part of me that was hoping.

It really is the hope that kills you.

I shake my head and hand the photos back to Travis. ‘No,’ I say. ‘None of those men are Aidan Ward.’

Travis gives a single nod. ‘Sorry,’ he says.

‘That’s okay, thank you for trying.’