“I will.” Justin puffed up his chest. “We all will. We’ll make it work.”
“She has family,” I said. “She doesn’t need strangers.”
“O,” Gil groaned, his voice deepening. He couldn’t stop looking at me, his body rigid. Love that he could no longer hide poured from his gaze, wrapping around me, drowning me. “O, you don’t have to—”
“I do.” My voice was bold and determined. “I am.” Wrenching my gaze from his, I focused on his daughter. The daughter I’d been sacrificed to find. The daughter who’d been the reason Gil had left me.
Her creation drove us apart.
Her desperation kept us together.
There was no other option but to protect her like Gil had.
Pausing all my plans, allowing love to trap me further, and kindness to make me powerless, I arched my chin at the agents. “Is that satisfactory enough for you?”
The redhead pursed her lips, looking at her colleague. “I suppose that would be okay, for now. We will monitor the situation.”
“Fine.” I nodded. “Now, please leave.”
In a tense standoff, the women looked one last time at all of us, turned around, and vanished out the door.
The moment they’d gone, Gil almost crashed off the bed.
The monitors screamed.
A doctor flew in.
The chaos that followed ensured everyone focused on Gil’s recovery and not the future where he might have wished he’d died in that forest instead.
I wished I could stop what was coming for him.
I wished I had the capacity to slay monsters and defeat court dates and stop murder trials, because it wouldn’t be a disgruntled, greedy family member who would tear him apart this time, but the law.
A monster no one could win against.
Chapter Eleven
______________________________
Olin
POLICE RELEASED A statement today, assuring the public that the killer responsible for the body painting murderers has been arrested. Currently, it is believed there were two men involved. Jeffrey Clark was killed the night a fifth girl went missing. Olin Moss was to be the next victim and was already painted before the police found them. The second man, Gilbert Clark, is in hospital. The families of the deceased are demanding swift and severe justice for their loved ones and have taken to online petitions and GoFundMe requests to ensure Gilbert Clark receives life imprisonment.
More details to come.
I trembled on my couch, phone in hand, internet searches giving me nightmares.
Darkness rained all around me, hissing with horrors, while Olive was in my room, asleep.
It’d been a long day.
After leaving the hospital, Justin kindly dropped Olive and me off at my place. He’d offered to stay, to run errands with us. But Olive had withdrawn and I sensed female company would be better for her fragile state. Once Justin had gone, I’d shown her around, changed the sheets on my bed, then taken her grocery shopping.
She’d perked up toward the end, asking if I could take her to Gil’s warehouse to grab her things as she literally had nothing. No toothbrush, no nightie, no clothes.
But I’d rather use the money from Status Enterprises that’d been earmarked for rent and bills to replace her things rather than go back to the warehouse so soon. I bought her what she needed, doing my best to buy her happiness as well as staples.
The strawberry scent I’d caught in Gil’s apartment now laced mine from her shower. The sweet pull of maple syrup and pancakes lingered from the unhealthy dinner I’d made, cooking Olive pancakes like I’d once cooked for her father, hoping it would fix her troubles and knowing nothing had that much power.
Exhaustion had sat on my shoulders all day—a whisper in my ear to fall asleep and hide, but I waited until Olive collapsed beside me watching Netflix before carrying her into my bed and returning to the little nest of blankets and pillow I’d made on the couch.
I got comfy.
I closed my eyes.
And images of paintbrushes and caravans and blood, blood, blood surrounded me.
Gil followed on such gruesome thoughts, fisting my heart and making me fear he’d died after all. That the blood he’d lost at the hospital would push him the final way into a grave.
He won’t die.
He can’t.
Even though his future was bleak, he had to stay alive for Olive’s sake.
Heart winging, I sat up, peering into the darkness. I checked the door was locked for the third time, and grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen.
My pulse stayed too high to rest, so I made the terrible decision of googling information on the most recent body painting murder case.
I hated that my name was printed for everyone to see.
I hated that Gil sounded like a blood-thirsty beast.
They hadn’t given any facts, just vague accusations that would lead to a witch hunt.
Returning to the page results, I braced myself all over again and clicked on a link for a petition set up by the parents of Moira Jonston, one of the murdered girls.
Sign the petition below to ensure this doesn’t happen to any other English girls.
Gilbert Clark, the renowned body painting artist and owner of the company Master of Trickery, used his stature as an artist to lure unsuspecting women into his lair to kill them.
He is a despicable human being and we boycott all his work.
We want Facebook to delete his Master of Trickery page.
We want the police to provide clear justice.
We want compensation for the families he’s torn apart.
We want him to pay to the highest degree.
Sign now to ensure he doesn’t get away with it.
#deathsentenceforthebodypainter
I tossed my phone away, closing my eyes from the screen’s glare.
Could they do that? Could they take away his business and force the law to lock him away indefinitely? There was no mention of his arrest for killing his uncle. But they’d pinned the girl’s murders on him instead.
Gil hadn’t killed them.
He might have painted them, but he didn’t actively kill them.
Jeffrey had gloated that he’d done that.
Their deaths coated his hands, and Jeffrey’s demise coated Gil’s.
He’d done the world a favour by removing him from society, yet he might end up serving a life sentence because of the power of social media and the pressure of people with a voice.
And Olive...what will happen to Olive?
I rubbed my eyes.
God, this is such a catastrophe.
My phone illuminated the gloom as it vibrated across the couch. An unknown number flashed across the screen.
Who the hell is calling me at two in the morning?
My heart kicked.
Gil?
Could he call me from his room in the hospital? Had something worse happened?
Scooping up the phone, I answered with a whisper, doing my best not to wake up Olive. “Hello?”
“Olin, is that you?”
I stiffened against the cushions. “Mum. Wow, hi.” I hadn’t heard from my parents in months. The last time was via email because phone data was expensive and international calling daylight robbery according to my father.
“We just heard the news. Are you okay? What on earth is going on?”
“I’m fine.”
What could I tell them? We’d never had a close relationship, and I’d never learned the art of assuring them I was happy and healthy while hiding things I didn’t want them to know.