Page 4 of What We Become

His eyes don’t leave mine through the plastic.

“I knew something had happened on that beach. I knew you were part of it. I just needed you to tell me what.”

Scrape. Tap.

The wall is at my knees now.

“So Jamie was never real. You positioned yourself in my life because of Brock—pretended to be my friend.”

“Obviously. As if I’d genuinely want to be friends with a sniveling slut like you.”

I flinch.

He studies my face, taking in every fracture.

“You made it very easy to get close to you . . . pet.”

My chest feels hollow.

All those shifts at the diner. Coffee and pie. Horror movies. Escape plans. Every ridiculous conversation because Jamie was supposed to be my best friend.

Clean.

Safe.

Normal.

“You were waiting for me to confide in you—confess. You think I killed Brock?”

He laughs. “You. Your men. It’s all the same to me now.”

“Why can’t you accept that he left you?”

“Because those men of yours wouldn’t have protected you so hard if that’s all that happened, bestie. Every time I came back to the diner, one of them was there. Sitting at your counter. Parked across the street. Following you home.” His mouth curves. “They weren’t subtle, and the timing seemed a little too perfect. So I started following them.”

The trowel scrapes across the brick.

“And you know what I saw?”

He pauses for me to respond, so I just shake my head.

“One night, I followed them to the country club. Watched them pull on skull masks and enter through the service door after the gym closed.” He presses another brick into place. “The next morning, Bill Hudson was found hanging in the shower. Apparent suicide.”

“That’s why you put that noose in my apartment? And why you tried to hang me.”

“I wanted them to know I understood their language. I wanted them to find you wearing their work. Understand that they were the reason you were dead.”

My stomach twists.

“That didn’t work, so I’m making you disappear instead.” His eyes flick toward the steadily closing wall. “This time, they won’t find you at all.”

No body. No proof. Nothing to bury.

Exactly what they gave him.

“You never wanted me to confess,” I say. “You just want them to suffer.”

“Duh.” He lifts another brick.