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“Okay. But just for a few hours,” she insisted.
“However long,” I countered. “Stay on the phone with me. I will be at your house in… five minutes,” I said, taking a quick turn to head in that direction.
“I think you’ll get there first,” she said, voice slowing to a more normal cadence as she calmed down. “Really, I think I’m just being paranoid.”
“Paranoid is good,” I said. Adding silentlyIt will keep you alive.
I couldn’t tell her what Gawen had told me.
About how this bastard likely wasn’t done with her.
And how he would do even worse things to her than he’d done to the other victims.
I knew that maybe I was supposed to tell her that kind of thing. But what good would it do? She couldn’t leave. All it would accomplish was making her even more terrified of something she had no control over.
“I guess,” she agreed. “I mean, that’s kind of the whole point of the true crime obsession, isn’t it?” she asked, seeming to talk to herself. “To be aware and prepared. To know who to look sideways at.”
“Exactly,” I agreed.
I was sure that Gawen would have some thoughts about it not being great for women’s mental health to have this obsession. But even he had to admit that working this job had changed him. The cop in him would make sure he never sat in a restaurant with his back to the door. And we always have a weapon on us now, even when off-duty.
Shit like that.
Being close to crime changes you. And how you act.
Consuming crime changes you and how you act too.
For the women like Mari, whose obsession with it likely helped save them in a bad situation, how could anyone think it isn’t good to be aware that this shit was going on?
“Alright. I’m here. And Matilda isaware,” I added, smiling as I heard her bark through the house and the rolled-up windows of my cruiser.
“She hates anyone in the driveway,” Mari told me. “She’s a good girl. Okay. I’m coming down the street,” she said. “Hey,” she said, giving me a sheepish smile as she pulled in beside me in the driveway.
“Hey.”
God, she looked good.
Even in her work uniform which consisted of khaki pants and a black scrub-type shirt and black sneakers.
“I just want to make sure she pees before I put her in the car,” she said as we both climbed out.
“If you want, I’ll walk her while you pack a few things you might need,” I told her, inwardly cursing myself for the invitation in between those words.
Like a change of clothes.
A toothbrush.
Because you will be staying the night.
“That would be great,” she said, rushing inside to leash Matilda, then handing her to me before heading back inside.
Matilda and I walked around for a few minutes.
When done, she looked up at me, a curious tilt to her head.
“This is probably a terrible idea,” I told her, watching her ears perk up. “But I can’t help but feel really fucking excited about it.”
CHAPTER TEN
