That’s why I hadn’t looked too hard at the patchwork of paragraphs lurking on my computer. Because if I looked too hard, they’d tell me the truth about what I was writing.
Emily’s story.
A version of it, at least.
That was why I had printouts of crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, notes of conversations I’d had with cops, medical examiners, anyone I could use my influence to get in touch with. Everything was tacked to the walls of my makeshift office. This was not how I worked, like some fucking cliché private investigator or ex-cop trying to solve a murder to redeem themselves or some shit.
No.
My office in New York had been large. Bigger than my bedroom. Had a white slip couch, covered in hundred-dollar pillows and hand-stitched throws, and had two matching armchairs facing each other. It had a view of the park. Every wall was covered in bookshelves. Tattered copies of my favorite books. An entire wall of my own books. Not for any other reason but because sometimes, during moments of self-doubt, I needed to look up and remember I could write a book. That I’d done it, many times.
My desk itself was small. Expensive, tasteful, of course. Not cluttered. A Tiffany lamp. A marble coaster. A desktop computer. A luxe chair. I didn’t know what good it did, since I never really wrote there. I was usually sprawled out on the sofa. An armchair. The floor. The desk was for answering emails, for research, for the photos when Vogue came to do a profile on me.
This office was nothing like that. It was a small guest room I’d taken the bed out of—who would I get to stay the night?—and had a desk shipped in. The same luxe chair I’d had.
But nothing else of mine.
There were stacks of my books piled around, in no order, just put there so I could have their energy.
This room was decorated like the rest of the house. Bohemian glam. Vintage rugs. Cluttered, mismatched frames on the walls. I’d taken a lot of them down so I could decorate with murder.
Even though I hadn’t been writing, I’d been doing things, telling myself it was a hobby, curiosity, but it was research.
Not so I could solve the murders. I was far too selfish for that. I wanted to know Emily. The manner of her murder.
Because this wasn’t just Emily. Or even the other women who were killed.
This was about him.
I was guessing it was a man because women were very rarely serial killers, and if they were, they didn’t have this kind of M.O.
So, I was thinking it was a man. A monster inside of one. I wanted to know him. Because I wanted to write this as him. I wanted to write a monster. I wanted everyone to be forced to accompany one in the story. Be trapped in the mind of one. I wanted my readers to hate him, but also hate themselves for liking him. For feeling empathy toward him. At the end of this, I wanted to trick them into thinking he was a hero.
So I had been up all night doing that.
Writing a monster.
Being a monster. Because there wasn’t much else to say about myself, except that the visit from a dead girl’s father only motivated me.
Hence me having cheese and wine for a sort of “breakfast” since I’d only sucked down coffee before soaking in the tub and staring at my computer before Margot arrived.
We were sitting out on the patio because there were huge gas heaters on either side of the wicker furniture set, along with thick throws Margot had grabbed from a trunk beside the firewood pile. I had not known they were there.
“Heard you had a visitor last night,” she said, sipping the wine and staring at the lake.
This.
This was the woman who could stare at a vista and let it calm you. Though I wasn’t using actual information to come to this conclusion. No, I hadn’t asked barely any questions about the woman and her life, and she hadn’t offered them. I knew she wore a single gold band on her wedding finger, which was unusual, because the rest of her fingers were cluttered with flashy and expensive stones. Yet, she hadn’t talked about a husband or a wife. And she had a sadness, a deadness, she carried around behind her eyes.
I didn’t reply to her because she wasn’t asking a question. She knew I had a visitor because the entire town likely knew.
“Deacon had a talking to him, warned him off. The man is grieving a loss he will never get over, never heal from, and the town’s let him off with a lot this past year, but he’s gotta stop.”
This got a reaction from me. “Deacon warned him off?”
She nodded, eyes a little sharper, curious.
“I would’ve thought he’d be congratulating him,” I muttered.
“You on the outs with our resident bartender?”
I picked at the Camembert. “You could say that.”
I didn’t offer more information because I wasn’t too eager to tell my kind of friend I had all but accused him of murdering her actual friend. Despite what I liked to tell myself, I enjoyed her company and was a little afraid to think of where I’d be without it. She was a weird, robust woman and seemed to be unfazed by some of my less than ideal qualities, but I wasn’t ready to test that limit.
She didn’t press, which was why I wanted to keep her around. Because she brought booze and company that didn’t demand much energy.
We sank into a compatible silence, both sipping at the wine, letting the chill that the heaters couldn’t combat keep us awake.
I sank into my story. My ideas for it. Scenes I might like to push together. My eyes were not on the twinkling lake and the sun setting on it. No, they were a little to the left, toward an unremarkable patch of trees that had seen a rather remarkable act of murder.
“Didn’t figure you for a green thumb,” Margot said, interrupting the peaceful silence.
I frowned. “Say again?”
She gestured to the patio. “The garden, it’s alive. Figured you would’ve killed it well and good by now. Can’t picture you tending to flowers.”
I blinked, finally seeing what she was talking about. The bright blooms, surrounding the patio, not wilting or crumbling as they should’ve been, considering I hadn’t so much as glanced at them after I moved in.
Though the weather was cold and chased away most bright forms of life—as I liked—there were some resilient blooms bordering the little backyard.
I narrowed my eyes at the flowers, at their beauty. At the man I suspected was responsible for it.
“That asshole,” I muttered under my breath.
“Deacon?”
I still glared at the flowers. “As previously established, right now, he’d been more likely to set these on fire than tend to them.” I paused. “Saint.”
Margot raised her brow. “Ah, so the plot thickens.”
I rolled my eyes. “If only. My plot is about as thin as my patience right now.”
She eyed me in that sharp way I admired, yet made me uncomfortable. Because when all of her attention was on you, it was on you. Seeing things I was sure I was good at hiding.
“Writing still not going well then?”
“I wouldn’t be sitting here, drinking wine and eating pure fat and dairy if it were, let’s put it that way,” I replied, my tone bitter. Only I could be bitter with the wine, the food, the company, the view, the tauntingly beautiful flowers.
None of it mattered if I weren’t writing.
“So that’s the reason you’re creating a mess with these two men?” she asked after a beat.