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There was a half-drunk bottle of Steiner Bock sitting on the coffee table, the sweaty container leaving a ring on the polished surface. He picked it up and took a swallow, then said, “I didn’t want to, but after Doug Snyder came around — ”
“You talked to Doug?” I cut in. “When?”
“Earlier this afternoon. He told me that he’d been in touch with Lilith’s accountant and wanted to hear my side of things.” Boden drank some more beer before adding, “I told him I didn’t have anything to say, but he started shouting at me, yelling all sorts of accusations. Emily heard the whole thing, and after he was gone, she started asking way too many questions.”
“Where is she, Boden?” I asked, a trickle of nervous sweat sliding down my back. The house had air conditioning, as far as I could tell, but it still felt uncomfortably warm in here.
“Upstairs.” He paused and set down the bottle, dark eyes piercing as he stared at me. “You understand why I did it, don’t you?”
“Did what?” I asked, trying to play dumb.
Boden tilted his head, thin mouth quirking in a lopsided smile. Maybe he’d hoped his expression would look guileless — or at least endearing — but he really only looked crazy.
Which was entirely the problem.
“Oh, I think you know what,” he said. His thumbs hooked around the loops of his faded jeans, and he rocked back slightly on the heels of his scuffed motorcycle boots. “But I really didn’t have any choice.”
Somehow, I managed to swallow, even though my throat felt as dry as the rocky hillsides that surrounded the town. “We always have a choice, Boden.”
I wasn’t sure why, but that comment seemed to amuse him. His smile broadened, making him look positively shark-like, and he said, “Maybe. But there wasn’t really anything else I could have done.” Suddenly, his expression sobered, and he reached over and took me by the wrist. Those thin fingers felt a lot stronger than they looked, and again a shiver made its way down my spine as I thought of how he’d thrust that knife straight into Lilith’s back.
“Let me go, Boden,” I told him, trying my best to keep the words calm, even. I couldn’t afford to freak out right then, not when I knew he was walking a knife edge when it came to maintaining control.
“What if I don’t want to?” He pulled me closer, and he stared down into my face, even as something softened about the set of his mouth.
However, I didn’t find that shift at all reassuring. Just the opposite, actually.
When I didn’t respond, he went on, “You and I would make a great team, you know. Your powers are real. Just think what kind of a following you could get.”
“Oh, like all the people who said they’d come to my ritual and then ghosted me?”
Boden shook his head. “Only because Lilith interfered. But she won’t be a problem anymore.”
And, thanks to Chuck, I knew exactly how she’d interfered — with an Instagram story saying how her ritual would be much better and that people shouldn’t attend mine. I’d been busy and hadn’t been following her posts as closely as I probably should, and I completely missed the story, an oversight made even easier by the way Instagram stories disappeared after twenty-four hours anyway.
I made myself stand completely still. Boden was way too close for comfort, but I had the feeling that any movement I made, he’d be on me in a second. As it was, he was maintaining his distance…for the moment.
“Maybe,” I lied, hating myself for the spark of hope that flickered in his eyes after I made that answer…and also knowing the best thing I could do was stall for time. Just where the hell was Calvin, anyway? I’d sent him that text almost twenty minutes earlier.
But Calvin could have been hip-deep in something at the station, and maybe wasn’t checking his phone as often as he should. I had to believe he’d look eventually…just as I also hoped and prayed I could keep Boden going long enough for the cavalry to show up.
“You need to tell me the truth, though,” I added. “If you want me to work with you, I have to know what happened.”
Something flickered in his eyes, and he hesitated for a moment, even as I noted another series of red pulses before his aura faded again. “You’ll be angry,” he said.
“No, I won’t,” I told him. Although I generally tried to be truthful with everyone, I thought this was one instance where a few lies were warranted. “What makes me angry is when people try to hide the truth from me.”
Another pause. “Okay.” He smiled then, expression suddenly shifting into something sunny, a look that felt so off-kilter, I had to keep myself from tearing my wrist from his grasp and bolting for the door.
How had he been able to hide his madness from Lilith and everyone around him?
Unfortunately, as I’d told Calvin just a few days earlier, people tended to believe what they wanted to believe. Lilith had probably overlooked the warning signs because she liked having such an obedient slave. And honestly, wasn’t I guilty of the same thing? I’d also tried to convince myself that Boden couldn’t possibly be the murderer because he seemed like such a nice guy.
“I was skimming some money out of her business account,” he said, looking singularly unconcerned by this confession of his casual embezzling. “I knew she would never notice, because she thought paying attention to that sort of thing was beneath her. And it wasn’t a lot — a couple thousand bucks a month at the most.”
Well, that was a lot of money to a lot of people. There were quite a few residents of Globe who got by on that much each month, if not even less. However, since I guessed Boden wouldn’t much care for me pointing out that little fact, I kept my mouth shut.
He ran a distracted hand through his shaggy hair, even while he maintained his death grip on my wrist with his other hand. “But I guess her accountant noticed. Lilith confronted me the night of the ritual, told me there was going to be a reckoning when we got back to L.A. I tried to laugh it off, but she said Doug had evidence, and that she’d make sure I went to jail.” He stopped there, mouth hardening. “I couldn’t let that happen, not with my priors.”
