My software program dumps the feed into a file every twenty-four hours and I haven’t deleted anything. If he’s doing something shady, I’ll catch it.
I start backwards from yesterday since Quinn sensed something was wrong. Her roommate rolls out of bed, bypasses the coffee machine and goes straight for the freezer. She grabs a small round pint of something and spends five minutes leaning against the counter eating it. I fast forward. The girl washes dishes, disappears into the bathroom, comes out looking like a different person and exits. After fifteen minutes, the door cracks open and a square head peeks in. He clears his throat.
“Anyone home? It’s Chris. The handyman.” When he hears no response, he pushes the door open and slides through. After he locks the door, he moves into the kitchen, where he rifles through the dishes that the roommate washed. He holds up a cup to his nose and sniffs. This guy is weird as fuck.
“What are you doing?”
I nearly jump out of my chair in shock. “When did you get out of the tub?” I hadn’t heard her. That’s never happened to me before.
“Is that…” She leans forward. I move to try to block her view, but she’s seen my monitors. They’re hard to miss. “My apartment?”
I hear confusion in her voice, like she doesn’t want to believe what her eyes are seeing. I scramble for an excuse, but my mind is blank. I’m usually better at this. I can come up with a glib lie if I need to, but I also am way more alert. Old me wouldn’t have allowed that to happen but I’ve gotten complacent.
“Wait a second.” She looks at the screen and then eyes the counter where the appliances sit.
“That toaster is the same one I have and so is the coffee maker. I didn’t know they came in green. How long have you been watching me?” She spins back to me and glares. “Are you spying on me? Is my dad paying you to spy on me?”
“No. Fuck no. I told you I’d kill him for you. Why would I spy for him?” I shove a hand through my short hair.
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. And we’re going to talk about why you always say you’d kill—” She stops abruptly. Her eyes go from narrow, questioning slits to wide, surprised circles. Then she shakes her head.
“Quinn, you’re not in some damn action movie.”
I run my tongue along my teeth. There are a few hired killers that have families. I only know this because one of them had his kid held hostage in exchange for doing a hit. He killed the mark and then the person who hired him. After that I never heard of him again so there’s no one around I can ask for advice in this situation. It never occurred to me that I’d be in a position where I’d need to know how others broke this to their lover. Hey babe, got to go to work. There’s a mob boss trying to take up too much territory and I’ve been paid a cool milli to knock him off. I’ll be home before five. Love ya.
Quinn is not a fan of my silence. “You better start talking. You have five minutes.”
What do I explain? She’s not going to like this. She’s a twenty-one-year-old college student. Sleeping with a killer isn’t really high on college students’ lists—as far as I know.
“Four.”
“I’m trying to work out the words to explain this.”
“Fine. I’m leaving.” She starts toward the door. “And I don’t want you to—”
“Wait!” I shout.
She stops. “Are you going to talk?”
I nod but realize she can’t see me because her back is turned. “Yes,” I croak out. She pivots and takes a step toward me. Her chin is up and out and her eyes are flashing with anger. The near miss of losing her makes me weak in the knees. I collapse in my chair.
I gesture with my hand. “Ask me anything. I think that’s the best way through this.”
Maybe, just maybe, I can get away with not telling her that I used to kill people for a living.
“Why are you spying on me?”
“I was worried about your safety.” She cocks her head to the side as if to say the answer was not the kind of bullshit she was interested in. “When I met you in the cafeteria I thought you were the most beautiful person alive. I wanted to get to know you better, which sounds terrible now that I say it out loud but at the time, when I was planting the bugs, it seemed rational.”
“I don’t see the bathroom on your screen.”
“No. I didn’t put one there.” I mentally pat myself on the back.
“But there’s one pointed at my bed.”
I cringe. “Yes.”
One step forward, two back, I think.