“Deserve what?” I ask in a falsely calm voice, my eyes roaming the woods.
“My wrath!” she yaps. “Really, you’ve got a nerve. I was okay at first with you being away but now it’s past my workhours and I’m still buried in papers and neither you nor Racket...”
Tensing I snap, “Racket?” The wind intensifies, whistling in my ear and I think about all the times I watched him with Melody. The way he sometimes would look at her for a little too long, the way his eyes flared in fury for a split second when I rubbed off the quotes that had been written on her body.
I erased his art. His masterpiece. And a need and lust for killing strikes down in me and it was a very long time since I felt that way. But I welcome it, bathe in it.
“He didn’t show up for work today.” Leta continues and I breathe harshly into the phone. “What? You didn’t know? I thought you two were buddies.”
I hang up as fear for Melody’s life explodes in me. Harvey. My partner. It was him all along.
19
Melody
Crouching in my hiding place behind a couple of bushes, I watch Callansearch for me. He yells my name over and over, seemingly frantic and crazed and he’s wearing no shirt underneath his coat. It flutters in the wind behind him and his muscles are tense and hard in the dark.
Picking up his phone, he frowns and I watch him speak but I can’t hear much of what he’s saying. He hangs up and even in the bad light, I can see the fury shining in his eyes. I can feel his ruthlessness slash the air, trying to grasp for me, trying to find me...
Slowly and silently I get up, making sure I don’t ruffle the leaves and then I run again. I can’t find my way here in the woods but I know the way back to Callan’s house. I need to go back again, then run through the front door and over to the neighbors.
Ask them to call the police. The cops will handle everything. They will take care of Callan and put him behind bars and...
Then I will never see him again.
I jerk myself, digging my nails into my palms until it hurts.
He’s a killer, Melody. A killer.
Tears pinch my eyes when I cross the threshold of his house, walking over to the front door and every cell in my body starts screaming, my body protesting, every piece of my mind and heart screaming the same thing.
It’s not him. It can’t be him.
I almost collapse by the front door in confusion and exhaustion when a voice behind me says,
“Hope you don’t mind that I let myself in.”
Flinching, I turn around in shock, only to see Harvey leaning against the banister of the staircase. His shirt is hanging out of his pants, his hair messy and there’s a gun in his hand. And it’s pointing straight at me.
“HelloJuliet,” he says with a horrible, dead smile that causes panic to go to my head. This is him. It’s the man behind the mask. My knees wobble. It was Harvey all along...
“Detective R...Racket...” I stutter and my hand that’s behind my back goes for the doorknob.
“No, no,” he says with discontent, waving his finger at me, “you know damn well that we are lovers of old. You must call me Romeo.”
Swallowing I nod, trying to play along while simultaneously trying to turn the knob and Harvey’s eyes turn to slits.
“These violent delights have violent ends, Juliet,” he warns with a sneer. “Do not even think about trying to escape.” He jerks his gun. “Get over here, or I will kill you.”
My eyes flare but I slowly take a step closer to him, trying to stall. “H...how did you find us?”
“Easy,” he responds, almost arrogantly. “Put a tracker on Callan’s car.”
“And...and you put the mask in his bag?” I stutter and he nods.
“Snuck inside while the two of you were having a heart to heart out in the garden. Most people don’t know about breaking and entering without leaving a trace but cops,” his eyes turn hollow, “they do.”
I clench my fists, “You were at the festival.”