Once I’d paid them, I bought more supplies, returning to the freedom painting gave me.
I graffitied the ugly corners of town.
I doodled the unwanted pavements of alleyways.
I filled paper with my heartbreak.
And through it all, I never stopped watching her, protecting her, waiting on the street outside her house...making sure she was safe.
Chapter Thirty-Six
______________________________
Olin
-The Present-
YESTERDAY, MY PHONE had no power to reach Gilbert Clark.
No matter how much I begged it to connect me to him, each attempt was futile.
Now, when I needed space, the damn thing wouldn’t stop ringing.
I’d gone to work this morning.
I’d left Gil’s hatchback parked a few blocks from my office and walked to the office without being assaulted or kidnapped. I’d pretended it was a perfectly normal day even though my nerves were fraught.
I uninstalled the news app from my phone, unable to handle the regular updates on the painted murders. I plastered on a professional smile and allowed Status Enterprises to surround me in its usual hive of employees settling in for a long day. I pretended everything was normal—that I had a boyfriend with normal secrets, that I had a love story worthy of fairy-tales.
When Shannon appeared at my cubicle at lunch, I’d apologised profusely for the mess my life had become. I’d thanked her for the opportunity of employment and promised I wouldn’t let her down again.
She’d given me a hug when exhausted, screwed-up tears wobbled my voice, making me hate myself for my weakness.
For my confusion.
For my aching, breaking heart while I suspected the worst thing anyone could suspect of another.
I couldn’t stop picturing Gil’s muddy size eleven boots.
I couldn’t stop connecting dots from his disappearance, to the unusual vodka use, to the night-shrouded confessions.
On the inside, I was an absolute catastrophe—tangled and tired, doing my best to latch onto an answer that would make sense of the labyrinth I’d been dragged into.
On the outside, I sat in my cubicle, replied to emails, and answered calls. I was the perfect employee, doing the job she was paid to do.
I’d managed to stay busy until lunchtime.
To stay away from Google and stop conjuring stories without facts. But when I caught the elevator to the second floor café, I’d made the mistake of checking my phone.
Ten missed calls from Gil.
The first only a few minutes after I’d left him—as if he’d sensed I was no longer in his home.
I deliberated calling him back, but I had no idea what to say. He’d dumped his hardships on me last night without any concrete explanation of what it all meant. I needed time to understand—or at least try to. I needed space to clear my mind before I could handle any further conversation that I couldn’t decipher.
Gil may or may not be a killer. He may or may not be blackmailed into doing things he despised. He may or may not have a tragic secret in his past that explained everything he did in his present.
The only thing that would help us move on from this mess would be honesty. Bitter, brutal honesty with nothing left out.
And I didn’t think he was ready. Didn’t think he had the strength to tell me what he hid in that second bedroom, where he was last night, or why he disappeared at the same time two girls went missing.
And if he wasn’t ready to talk about it...I definitely wasn’t ready to listen.
Just the thought of my suspicions being a tiny bit true made my stomach slither and slide into my feet.
Keeping my phone on vibrate, I’d forced myself to eat a salad sandwich. With my stomach churning, the struggle was hard even though I was lightheaded from hunger.
Avoiding fellow employee stares and unwilling to be sociable, I opened an internet browser, falling down the rabbit hole of news sites and murder investigations.
With shaking hands and racing heart, I read more details on the latest killing, skimmed hypothesises, and drank up potential descriptions from so-called witnesses.
The vague description was a man wearing a baseball hat. No distinguishing features like hair colour or tattoos. Just a masculine shadow.
Gil had never worn a baseball hat in his life.
Was it purely a disguise or was his wardrobe yet another thing I knew nothing about?
You know so little...
I gritted my teeth.
I know his heart. That doesn’t change.
I sighed, tracing my thumb over the picture of the girl killed last night, following the artistic shadows and splashes of bluebells painted on her lifeless thigh.
Are you sure? Hearts can change. Hearts can camouflage into strangers.
Shaking my head, I locked my phone and slipped it into my bag. It felt a thousand times heavier than normal as I tossed out the rest of my lunch and went back to work.
* * * * *
The work day was over.
Employees slowly filtered from the building, heading home to loved ones.
I literally had nowhere to go.
My apartment wasn’t safe. Gil wasn’t safe. Justin couldn’t be expected to babysit me.
I didn’t know where to go and I still didn’t have enough information.
And I needed it fast so I could make up my mind on what to trust: my heart or my mind.
My heart urged me to return to Gil and tell him how I felt. To provide a non-judgemental, totally accepting environment in which he could spill his every revelation. But my mind cursed me for being such a stupid fool. It wanted to call the police. To use the card the female officer had provided and ask outsiders for advice.
And because both options weren’t practical, I had to rely on myself to make a correct, informed decision. Just as I’d had to rely on myself to cook, clean, and study when I was young. The one lesson my parents taught me well: independence was hard and lonely, but it meant you were strong no matter the situation.
As the last of the staff left for the day, my fingers flew over the keyboard.
I inputted every parameter I could. I read online articles and trawled through facts.
Gilbert Clark.
Murdered girls.
Previous Birmingham killings.
Maps of the forests and parks where the girls had been found.
Body paint supply stores.
Other body painters in England.
Bad publicity on Total Trickery, good press, negative reviews, glowing feedback.
I diligently did my research all while earning a chest full of frustrated heartbeats and a headache of confusion.
Nothing hinted that Gil could be involved.
The longer I stayed online, the more I hated myself for doubting.
I wanted so, so much to trust my heart. I wanted to be brave enough to return to Gil’s and ask him point blank where he was last night. Why he’d vanished for the second time. Why he’d been traipsing around in the undergrowth. Why my instincts told me there was more to his life than he’d told me. More darkness. More pain. More sin.
But all I could think about were his muddy boots.
Size eleven.
Same as the killer.
I needed more time.
Time where no one could find me.
Using the elevator, I left work by the back entrance in case Gil waited for me in the foyer like last time. Stepping out into narrower streets, I tucked my dark blonde hair beneath a grey scarf stuffed in my purse.