Page 86 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

I pick up my phone and check the time. Just after 11pm. I do some quick maths. It’s seven o’clock in the morning in the UK. Would Charlie be awake? I know he would. He was always a lark and I think I’ve established that I very much am not. But it was never something that clashed for us. It meant that he’d make a lavish breakfast before I woke up. Or he’d clear up any mess we’d made the night before. Mess we didn’t tidy because we were too busy pulling each other’s clothes off.

I miss him so much.

I want to talk to him so badly.

I want to tell him about Antoinette and how scared I am for her. How scared I am for myself.

I scroll to his contact but, just as I’m about to hit the call button, I remember.

I remember that he’s blocked me.

That he wants nothing to do with me.

I blink the tears away. I can’t let myself crumble. Not now.

But I need to speak to someone.

Not Tor. I can’t burden her with this. Not with everything she’s dealing with.

Not Maisie. She’s probably got her head in a toilet bowl. And she’s growing actual people. I can’t stress her out.

I scroll to my mother’s number instead. There’s very little chance of her being awake but I try anyway.

The phone rings and rings until her voicemail kicks in.

I don’t leave a message. I want to talk to her, not her answering service.

I end the call and stare at the phone in my hand.

The loneliness is a punch when it hits me.

I have no one.

Absolutely no one.

48

The wine cellar, Kitty and Antoinette’s Airbnb, West Hollywood

So it’s not technically true that I have absolutely no one. There’s one person I can talk to right now. And there’s the added bonus that he can’t walk away from me. He can’t even answer me back if I leave the duct tape on his mouth.

I pull a robe over my pyjamas and head down the stairs, quietly, like I don’t want to be caught.

Aidan Ward is asleep when I creep into the cellar. He startles like I’ve fired a gun when I flick the light on. His eyes are saucer-wide and confused. Then the confusion morphs into fear. He looks frantically at my hands, trying to figure out if I’ve brought a weapon down this time to finish him off.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’m not here to kill you. I’m just here to talk.’

His eyes get wider.

‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? Talk. Listen. Aren’t you a therapist? Somehow?’

He nods.

‘Will you behave if I take the tape off?’

He nods again so I go over and rip it off. He presses his lips together, licks them. It’s actually funny that my emergency contact is a man I’ve got tied up in my basement.

One I’m still planning on killing.