Page 12 of Over Her Dead Body

It comes out easily.

His head tilts slightly. “And you are?”

“Emma Calloway. Reid Calloway was my husband.”

His eyes stay on mine.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

The words land so cleanly I almost admire them.

Almost.

“Don’t.”

He eases back half a step.

“Don’t what?”

“Talk to me like we met thirty seconds ago.”

“We did.”

I laugh once.

“You were at the airport in Austin.”

“So were several thousand other people.”

“You were three rows ahead of me on the plane.”

His attention drops to my carry-on.

“I noticed.”

That stops me.

“You saw me?”

“I saw you at the airport. Then on the plane. Then in arrivals.” He gestures toward the street. “And now you’re outside my building.”

He says it carefully, the way you speak to someone whose next move you are trying to predict.

For the first time, I hear what this sounds like to anyone who isn’t me.

I don’t care.

“You watched me follow you all this way.”

“I was hoping you’d stop.”

The fucking audacity.

He saw me in Austin. Watched me board the plane. Watched me follow him through arrivals. Ten years I would have given almost anything to see this man alive, and for this?

I’ve never wanted to murder anyone before.

I’ve also never wanted to see someone this alive.