“Mr. Tolyan,” she says again.
“Tolyan is fine.” Mr. Tolyan makes me sound like my grandfather. I’m far too young for that.
“Okay. Tolyan, I need your help.”
I raise an eyebrow, like this is unexpected.
She clears her throat and takes a small step forward. “I know we barely know each other. But I feel like you’re it.” You have to be it, her eyes say.
“It?” I roll the word in my mouth. I don’t enjoy it when people presume I’m the solution they need to make their problems go away. Perversely enough, I expected it to be the same in this case, even though I engineered events to make her think exactly that. But somehow it doesn’t feel as offensive. Or entitled.
Reassuring words swell in my chest, but I catch them before they can come out. Deviating from a plan without a solid reason is never a good idea. I have multiple contingency scenarios, but my delivering reassurance isn’t one of them.
I frown slightly at my unusual urge. The only explanation is that I must be more tired of waiting for her to come to me than I suspected.
After all, I only have one name left on my kill list. And I’m so very close to crossing it off.
But she must be interpreting my reaction as annoyance or rejection. She steps forward and puts a hand on my forearm. I despise people touching me without my permission. Normally I’d shake her off.
I look down at her slim hand, the fingers flexing like they want to cling but aren’t sure if they’re allowed. She’s afraid of my answer. And she smells of desperation. If I pull back, even a little, she’s going to tighten her hold.
Is she going to cry, too? Maybe get on her knees to beg?
For the briefest moment, I want to step back and watch her shed tears.
Another odd reaction. I don’t, as a rule, kick people when they’re vulnerable, unless they deserve it. This little fawn hasn’t earned a kick.
But she bothers me. Not like a pebble in one’s shoe. More like a small, round pearl underneath a mattress. It’s not obvious, but you can feel it when you shift or when you think you have everything under control and want to relax your guard.
I know the fairytale says it’s a pea, but that’s idiotic. The original writers screwed up because they were too poor to realize a pearl was an option. Peas aren’t strong enough to withstand the weight of a fully grown and well-fed adult. Plus, peas rot easily. A pea would turn into a mush before anybody noticed anything underneath the mattress.
“Look, I know I sound crazy, but please. I’m not.” Her words come out fast and desperate. “My stepbrother’s a psychopath. He’s been harassing me, and the police say they can’t do anything until he does something more physically threatening. Apparently, playing mind games doesn’t count. He has to do something concrete.”
That’s always the case. Mental torture is far superior, and it’s much harder for law enforcement to deal with, especially when the target keeps moving. It’s virtually impossible to build a case among so many different jurisdictions. That’s one reason the most prolific serial killers generally kill across state lines.
Roy Wilks is a cunning little jackal. It’s so simple to break a person. And you don’t even have to touch them to do that.
Just look at this girl. She wouldn’t be asking a man she barely knows for help if she hadn’t been driven almost to her breaking point. For all I know, she might be broken already.
“I can pay you,” she adds. “I have some money saved up. Just in case.” Just in case I need to hire somebody to take my brother out is what she really wants to say.
I raise my eyebrows. The last time I checked, she had nine thousand and fifty-six dollars and twenty-two cents in her bank account. According to the statements over the years, she’s been saving a little bit at a time, despite working minimum-wage jobs.
It came with sacrifice. She doesn’t go to movies, doesn’t go out, doesn’t buy anything except the bare essentials—clearance-rack clothes and shoes—and she eats only what’s cheapest. Given her reaction last night, I’m pretty sure she skips meals when she can.
The notion puts a nasty taste in my mouth. People who don’t need killing should eat.
“I can give you all of it,” she says, then nods for emphasis. “It’s all yours.”
“I don’t want your money,” I say.
Her chin comes up as fire sparks in her whiskey gaze. “Look, it’s not a small amount. I have almost ten grand.”
“I don’t care if you have ten billion.”
Her fingers tighten. Her hand is barely large enough to circle half my forearm, but she’s trying her best to hold on to me.
For a reason I can’t quite identify, I like that. And because I like it, I want to be a jerk about what she’s saying even though I’m going to say yes at the end anyway. I don’t want her knowing how much I enjoy this small contact.
Before I can say anything, her mouth firms. “Okay. I hate to have to use this, but… I know what you did last night.”
“You do?”
She nods.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
I give her a purposefully salacious smile. “I should update my security. I didn’t know you were watching me masturbate in the shower.”
Her face flushes.
I let my smile grow wider. “I came hard. Twice. Hope you enjoyed it. If I’d known you were watching, I would’ve—”
“No!” She hunches her shoulders as though just realizing how loud she was. “I meant,” she hisses, “I saw you at the house. The man in the news today who supposedly committed suicide. You…suicided him, didn’t you?”
Suicided. When did that become a verb? “You were there? At the house?”
“Yes.” She tries for a hard-bitten stare.
This is an amusing turn of events. I didn’t expect her to attempt to blackmail me. What’s next? Trying to strangle me into submission? She just might, from the desperation in her eyes. Whatever she got in the package freaked the hell out of her.
Strangely enough, I want her to try to put her hands on my bare skin, even if it’s around my neck. Of course I’m too tall for her to strangle me while standing, so she’d have to pull me down to the ground, then straddle me, her inner thighs pressed tightly against my sides. As she strained—futilely—her hot breath would fan my face, her eyes burning into mine. When I’d had enough, it’d be child’s play to flip her over, watch her gasp while she was spread underneath my much bigger and stronger body. And I’d enjoy the realization dawning in those whiskey eyes that she was utterly in my power.
“I’m very willing to go to the police.” Her words break my thoughts.
I almost laugh. She honestly believes she was good enough to tail me without my noticing. Either she’s lost her better judgment, or she’s too desperate to think clearly.
“And I’ll tell them everything I saw,” she says, her hands in tight fists.
I let out a soft sigh. Her threat is about as serious as a kitten smacking a lion with its tiny paw. “And after I fed you dinner last night.”
Her throat works as she swallows. She shifts her weight and looks like she wishes she could sink into the concrete. Ashamed, aren’t you, little fawn? You have a functioning conscience. A liability in my business.