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I blinked, trying to come up with new excuses for that. You didn’t ever take the can. You took the bag out and replaced it when it got full. You took the full trash bag into the garage, into the city-wide garbage bin each house had that got picked up on Fridays, and then replaced it with a new bag…
The bin in the garage. I should check it.
Abandoning my glass on the counter, I hurried around the large island, my bare feet taking me to the door that led into the garage. Thoughts flew in my head, hitting me one after the other without giving me time to think.
What was I doing? What was I hoping to find? What would I do if I did find something suspicious? If I called the cops, would they even come, or was this property and everyone in it untouchable because of who they were?
Alistair owned Eastcreek, literally. No one would want to put the entire town’s livelihood in jeopardy based on crazy accusations from the new girl. This, I realized, would get me nowhere.
But I had to look.
I pushed through the man door, stepping into the garage. Reaching an arm out, I flicked the lights on, and overhead, the lights came to life. I headed straight for the bin; it rested near the rightmost garage door, where it always was. My legs practically skipped there.
Oh, this was stupid. This was so, so stupid. What was I doing?
I couldn’t stop myself. I skidded to a halt near the can, its lid shut, covering whatever was inside. The can was over four feet high and pretty wide; you could fit a lot of trash bags into it. You’d definitely be able to fit a body inside one.
Damn it. Listen to me, going on and on about a body. There was no way Gareth had killed anyone. Just because the kitchen smelled like bleach, I’d found a small dot of red on a lower cabinet, and the trash can under the sink was gone didn’t mean anything. Just because there were no dirty dishes didn’t mean shit. Maybe Emily had arrived, and Gareth was too pissed at the fact that I wasn’t home he’d sent her away before she had the chance to cook.
That wouldn’t explain the bleach.
Swallowing hard, I brought a hand to the trash can. My fingers curled around the lip on the lid, and even though I was a bundle of nerves—I know, strange, for me—I steeled myself and lifted the lid.
Thankfully, I didn’t see a body haphazardly stuffed into the bin.
Not so thankfully, I got another strong whiff of bleach.
I flipped the lid so it would stay open, and then I reached inside and pawed at the bag on the top. I lifted it up and out, setting it on the ground near my feet. The bag had been tied tightly in a knot, so I’d have to dig into the plastic to see what was inside.
Well, I was already here. There was no going back, and the longer I stood here, wondering what the hell I should do, the more chances I gave Gareth to find me here.
Even though I thought better of it, I dug my fingers into the bag and broke through the plastic, pulling it wide enough to make a six-inch hole.
“What the fuck?” I whispered to myself, gazing down at a heap of bunched-up paper towels. It wasn’t the paper towels that made something inside me twist; it was the bright, undeniable red on them.
I knew it in my heart, in my very soul: that was blood. Judging from the number of paper towels in this bag, it was alotof blood.
Straightening out, I looked into the garbage bin again, finding the can from the kitchen was now resting on top, now that I’d taken out the bag that had been thrown in above it. It was cracked, and as I picked it up out of the bin, I got another whiff of bleach. The can had been wiped down before being disposed of.
I worked quickly after that. I dropped the small, broken can back down into the bin and bent to pick up the bag I’d torn into. Once that was on top in the bin, I moved it so the torn part of the bag wasn’t visible. I shut the lid and hurried back into the house, my feet gliding across the floor without making a sound. Back in the kitchen, I took the glass I’d abandoned and returned it to its cabinet, no longer thirsty. In less than a minute, I was back in my room.
I threw the lock before I let myself pace the length of the room. I ran my fingers through my damp hair, muttering over and over, “What the fuck? What the fuck? What. The. Fuck?” No matter what excuse I thought of for all that to be there, I couldn’t shake the feeling that none of the excuses were likely.
I’d heard it from Rick at the wedding. I’d heard it from Erin’s friends. Everyone thought Gareth was a psychopath, but he was rich. His uncle owned the town. No one would ever accuse him of anything. They couldn’t. So, they let him and his psycho self be, unable to do anything else.
But then I strolled into the picture, dragged along by my mom, who latched onto Alistair Montgomery like we’d been stranded in the ocean for weeks and he was the last lifeboat she’d ever see.
Gareth had said I was his plaything. He’d told me I was his, that Alistair had gotten me for him. What if… what if it was true, and he wasn’t just being an ass?
And then I thought of a new possibility, one that didn’t involve Gareth murdering someone. Emily could’ve started to prep for dinner. Maybe she’d cut herself badly, got blood everywhere. Maybe she had to get rushed to the hospital or something. I didn’t even know where the nearest hospital was here, but I could imagine every second counted when you lived in a small town. She had to leave the blood, so Gareth took over in its clean up. He used bleach to do it, and he was so pissed he had to do some manual labor that he broke the can beneath the sink and had to throw it out, too. He’d stopped texting me because he was so annoyed. If I’d been home, I would’ve been the one to clean up.
Yeah, that made a whole lot more sense. That had to be what happened. I was pretty stupid for immediately thinking otherwise. Like, come on. Just because everyone else kept going on and on about how much of a psycho Gareth was didn’t automatically mean he was capable of killing someone in cold blood.
But the way he could look at me… let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he was indeed capable of something like that.
One thing was for sure: I couldn’t wait for my mom and Alistair to come home.
Chapter Eleven – Gareth
