Famished - Meghan O'Flynn (learn to read books TXT) 📗
- Author: Meghan O'Flynn
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Book online «Famished - Meghan O'Flynn (learn to read books TXT) 📗». Author Meghan O'Flynn
It’s probably just a painkiller for if he overdoes his workout.
Unlabeled in the back of the closet?
I pulled out my phone, fumbled it against my thigh, and called up photos for medicine identification. There were thousands, but you could narrow it by shape and color and type. Blue. Oval. What helped you calm down? Tammy had recommended them once, and I’d refused. Shit. Narcotics? No. Benzodiazepines. I stopped scrolling.
Xanax. Five milligrams.
It was identical.
Maybe he was suffering from anxiety, and I had accidentally ingested the pills.
Then why were they in the closet, the one place I had been told not to go?
The bottle went into my pocket. I watched my numb fingers fold the towels and put them back on the shelf.
Run, Hannah! Run!
I folded the rags and put away the buckets.
What the fuck are you doing? Get out now!
When everything was in place, I walked downstairs to the living room, my legs not quite connected to me, but moving, still moving. I opened the flue and started the gas fireplace. Then I retrieved my journal and flung it into the hole.
Oily flames licked the cover, and the cardboard crinkled and disintegrated. The urge to reach in and salvage the burning pages tugged at my arm as if by keeping the journal, I could save what was left of my dreams. When the inner pages curled in the heat, I let the tears fall. Fear thrummed through my veins, thick, liquid, and scorching.
No one can ever know.
My lungs cracked and shriveled, wrenched in an iron fist of hopelessness. As much as I tried to wish it away, his secret was mine now, locked forever in the ashes on the fireplace floor. I wiped my tears with the back of my hand. If he was a monster, then I was just as much a monster for loving him so much.
I have failed every man I ever loved.
I cannot fail again.
I sat on the couch to wait for him.
Petrosky sucked smoke deep into his lungs and blew it at the no-smoking sign on the wall next to his desk. He needed a stiff drink—several, actually. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave.
Since discovering Fredricks’s body, he’d gone over the case again and again. Fredricks had to have been their killer. It was the simplest explanation, the obvious explanation. They had a mountain of evidence.
Just not a confession.
Fredricks’s eyes blazed in his memory—and the way he’d turned hostile when Petrosky had mentioned Hannah Montgomery. Hostile, but almost…protective. Their guy was supposed to be a sadistic psychopath, removed from all human emotion. But Fredricks had cared.
Maybe he was a good faker. Petrosky had seen that before.
Or maybe you’re wrong.
He flicked ashes onto the floor. If he was wrong, then the real killer must have followed Fredricks, preying on the women he abused after he was done with them. That left Jacob Campbell—the biggest question mark in this whole ordeal. Fredricks had a motive to kill Campbell if only to free Montgomery for himself. If he was lonely enough, desperate enough, crazy enough to think no one else would do… Petrosky could see it. And who else had that motive? Certainly not her new guy. That high-horse-riding motherfucker only had to look at her, and she would have followed him home, just like most of the women in America.
Petrosky sighed. Something wasn’t making sense.
You’re losing your shit, Petrosky.
Hannah isn’t Julie. Hannah’s fine.
Trying to ignore the gnawing in his gut, he shoved the folders into the drawer, slammed it closed, and marched out of the precinct. He would not waste any more time driving himself fucking crazy. He was already close enough.
I stood by the wall of windows, veiled in moonlight.
Dominic stepped into the middle of the room, ten feet away, though it felt like a chasm separated us. Even in the dark, the moonlight reflecting off the white marble illuminated him like a figure in a shadow box, and I could see nothing else. The howl of the night wind faded. I could sense his very breath sucking the air from the room.
“Hannah?”
His voice was almost enough to undo everything I had been thinking.
He has been so good to me.
He stepped forward, and terror buzzed frantically through my body.
“Hannah, are you—”
“Why?” It came out a choked whisper, like my brain was trying to tell me to just shut the fuck up before I gave away what I knew. But my heart needed to hear his confession, needed to know for sure, so I didn’t spend my whole life wondering whether this was nothing but the wild imagination of another fucked-up girl with a fucked-up daddy.
“Why what?”
I tossed him the bottle. He snatched it out of the air.
“You drugged me.”
He pocketed the bottle. “I thought you needed more sleep.”
He’s lying. They all lie.
“Did you ever love me?”
If he loves me, maybe everything is going to be okay.
Hannah, that’s crazy.
He’s never hurt me.
Just drugged you senseless.
“I needed you,” he said.
He needs me. Maybe I can help him. If he knows it was wrong, we can make this better together. No one else has to know. I can fix this.
“I need you too,” I whispered, taking a step forward. We had each other. It wasn’t too late.
“You may be misunderstanding the situation,” he said.
The air in the room changed suddenly, like a draft from an open window freezing my marrow as it crept up my arms and into my chest. But there was no window, no opening to the elements that would have caused such a chill. “I know you did some things that were—” It stuck in my throat. I didn’t even know what the words were for something like this. “You’re not a bad person. Let me help.”
“You did help,” he said softly. “You made me normal.”
I couldn’t breathe. Jesus fucking Christ, I couldn’t breathe.
Emotional thinking never leads to anything good.
But…don’t you feel anything about all this?
Not really.
Pretending to be normal is the best way to make people think you are.
“That’s why you gave me the pills. So you could…leave?”
He watched me, silent.
“And I would be your alibi because I didn’t know any different.”
I waited for him to tell me it wasn’t true, but he didn’t deny it; just fixed his gaze on me as my heart thrashed in my frozen chest.
“Did Jim help? Did he talk you into it?” Hope sputtered, tried to catch.
“Jim can’t keep his dick in his pants. He never could.”
“But that doesn’t—”
“Jim was predictable in his compulsions and statistically likely to fuck up. Sometimes people don’t do what you expect them to, but when they do, there is nothing more rewarding.” A corner of his mouth turned up. I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a snarl.
Outside, the frozen moon ducked behind a cloud, casting us into dusky shadow. A shoe clacked on the floor, and another. The moon reemerged, and he was nearer now, six feet and closing. His face was clear, as beautiful as a marble sculpture. I fought hysteria. “He could have killed Noelle!”
Dominic crept forward. I slid backward on my fluffy socks.
“I doubt that.”
“What are you—”
“His wasn’t that kind of damage.”
Hot coals in my chest fanned
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