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“I cut it,” I respond, my voice shaking with the lie.
“No, you didn’t,” he replies, pulling away ever so slightly before his lips brush against my cheek like a caress. An electric shock runs through my body. “Tell me, Charlotte, does the darkness excite you?”
My eyes fly to Desmond. He’s watching us with a frown from across the room, but I push back the uninvited guilt that bubbles up in my throat. I turn back to Lyric, whose gaze never moves away from me.
“What?” I ask, playing dumb. He’s speaking in riddles.
“Peer into the darkness,” Lyric whispers. “Do you see your reflection?”
“That’s enough, Lyric.” Desmond sets a plate before me, and his other hand lands on Lyric’s shoulder. “Don’t forget to check your schedule at the diner, Charlotte.”
Pouting, Lyric moves away and does that little body roll as he stands before he steps back and gathers his supplies. “I’ll be back to cut those out in two weeks,” Lyric promises before walking out of the kitchen on silent feet and then out of my house.
He entered earlier stomping. He wanted me to hear him.
“Answer one more question, and then I’ll go, for now.” Desmond crouches before me. Unlike Lyric, I can’t look away from his commanding presence. All I can do is nod and wait for his question. “Did you feel as though you were in danger?”
“No,” I whisper, my voice not once cracking. I swallow and continue when he just stares at me. This is what eats at me when my head hits the pillow at night. “I knew he wasn’t there for me. I don’t know how, but I knew.”
“Eat, you don’t eat enough,” he says, giving me conversational whiplash as he stands and steps away. “I’ll see you soon, Charlotte.”
I don’t breathe until I hear the door shut.
Then I deflate.
What the hell was that?
Eleven
“When you sitwith a beautiful girl for two hours, you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it’s two hours.”
I believe it was Albert Einstein who said that—the person, not the cotton ball with legs, who’s lazily staring at me from the top of the fridge. There is this strange phenomenon where, at times, a second can feel like hours, and at other times, an hour may feel like seconds. I’m sure in science circles, there is a name for it, but here in my kitchen, it’s just my existence as the clock blinks nine-thirty at me. Desmond and Lyric left all of ten seconds ago, and yet my mind seems to slow and dissect every single moment of their presence, and there’s just one issue I can’t quite shake.
Why?
Desmond demanded to know how I felt that night. He wasn’t asking about Sal or the hitman, which any normal person would bring up first and foremost.
Clearly, normal is overrated and doesn’t exist here.
I expected him to review every minute detail, from the way I crept down the hallway, which is on camera, to the moment I snuck around the corner. They didn’t want to know any of that.
How did you feel?
My eyes stray to the omelet. Desmond only made one, then they left. How did I feel? I’m not sure it matters, really, when I clearly felt shock. Is shock truly my response, or am I merely numb to the extremities of this reality? That is the only explanation for my non-reaction.
It’s different for everyone, right? Apparently, I process shock the same way as a sociopath.
A knock on the front door draws me away from that spiral. Standing up, I walk across the floor, listening to how the floorboards creak beneath my feet. Lyric walked like a cat prowling for mice in the middle of the night.
A shadow darkens the frosted glass of the front door. I never get visitors other than Tatum, and aside from the mystery murderer in my basement and then the two this morning, I’m feeling popular.
I hate it.
Agent Hayes stands at the threshold, his blond hair tousled and his eyes bearing the strain of fatigue. “Mornin’, sweetheart. You sure are a sight for sore eyes,” he drawls, his tone contrasting with his worn appearance.
“And you look like you have sore eyes.” I swing the door open for him, head to the living room, and practically toss myself onto the couch. The cushions cradle me like a lover, and I sigh contentedly while dragging a blanket over me.
“I received your text,” he announces, gently shutting the door behind him. In one hand, he carries a substantial brown paper bag, which he playfully sways like a pendulum before him. Surprisingly, he’s coatless, despite the weather. His attire consists of cargo shorts and a long-sleeved button-down shirt, an ensemble that, coupled with his accent, paints the picture of a landlocked surfer out of place in the confines of New England.
