Page 63 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

I stood still for a full fifteen seconds, listening. Refrigerator hum. The soft tick of a wall clock. Nothing else.

Clear.

I had six cameras to place and no time to waste. I moved through the house methodically. Living room smoke detector first. Then the bookshelf by the front door. Kitchen vent above the stove. Bedroom lamp opposite the bed. Office desk. Bathroom last, for audio only.

The process never changed. Drill the small hole. Seat the camera. Pack the color-matched filler. Wipe away every trace of dust. Once I was in position, each placement took under three minutes.

The bedroom took the longest. I spent a full ninety seconds memorizing the exact placement of every item on his dresser before I drilled into the base of the lamp. When the camera was seated and the filler smoothed, I put every object back in its original position. Nothing looked disturbed.

I finished with the office. Twenty-six minutes from the moment I stepped inside.

I made one final slow pass through the house, checking each room one last time. Then I left the way I had come, locking the slider behind me with a thin pick. I scaled the wall again, dropped into the cover of the trees, and was gone by half past ten.

Clean.

The three-mile walk back to the car was quiet. I let myself ease the pace a little. The forest around me stayed still.

A mile out from the wall, moving through the dark, the memory came without warning.

Crying somewhere in the room. A heavy hand locking onto the back of my neck. The full weight of a grown man pinning me face-down against the floorboards I had helped wax the summer before. The crack in the leather at the toe of his right boot, right in front of my eyes. John had been first.

Brian’s voice cut through the memory.

Memories aren’t dogs you can kick, kid. You let them come. You let them go through you. Then you keep going.

So I did. My boots crunched softly over dry pine needles. I let the memory run all the way to the end, then forced it back down the way Brian had taught me.

I walked until the dark shape of the car finally came into view between the trees.

I drove east and dropped the sedan back at the rental lot just before midnight. Then I ordered a rideshare, kept my hood up the whole way, and got out three blocks from the house. I walked the rest under the dark streetlights, bag over one shoulder, the night quiet around me.

Some lights were still on when I reached the house. I let myself in through the back door, moved quietly down the hall, and shut my bedroom door behind me with a soft click. Upstairs I could hear one of the roommates moving around, the soft thud of footsteps and the low murmur of a TV. For a long moment I just stood in the middle of the room with my eyes closed, breathing, letting the last of the night’s tension settle.

Then I crossed to the desk and opened the laptop. The cameras came online one after another. Six clean feeds. No lag. No static. I left John’s bedroom on the main screen. His bed was still empty.

I sat in the dark and watched the feed. After a few minutes, I took my phone off airplane mode. It vibrated almost immediately.

Jackson: apparently when cats knead you it means they're happy and claiming you as theirs

Me: bold assumption

Jackson: are you saying the internet lied to me?

Me: first time?

Jackson: i'm starting to think you enjoy making fun of me

It was absurd. Texting with Jackson while I waited for my next target to come home.

I exhaled slowly.

My cat thought it all made perfect sense.

Maybe I really was psychotic.

Chapter 23: I’ll Manage

Saturday morning I stood at the kitchen window with a glass of water, watching two crows fight in the bare oak across the street. One of them was clearly winning. The other refused to give ground. I understood the impulse.