“What is this list, Cash?”
“Access log. Anyone who enters has a personalized code to get inside, and so, it tracks who comes and goes. But, Donna, you said she’s on there from Thursday? That’s not her scheduled day.”
“Yeah, I ran into her while she was leaving. She was looking for a bracelet that had fallen off.”
He tsks. “Donna, Donna. What have you gotten into?” I try to follow where his train of thought is, but I’m at a loss. Surely, he doesn’t thinkDonna, his sixty-year-old housekeeper, is the June Harbor Slayer.
“Okay, I’m gonna need you to click on the time next to her name in the log.” When I do, the screen changes to a grid of security videos of different angles and rooms of Cash’s apartment. In the top-left corner, we watch Donna enter the apartment. As she turns the knob, my eye catches on the bracelet on her wrist and my stomach drops.
It was never missing.
I become increasingly numb as we watch her walk through the apartment and into Cash’s bathroom. There’s a pounding in my temples when I watch her kneel down and fiddle around under the cabinet before taking a wrench out of her purse.To loosen the joint nut.
“I—I didn’t—Cash—” My mouth is moving, but I’m not aware of what I’m saying, my mind so mixed up that I can’t think straight, let alone speak straight.
“Look at me.” I can’t. I can’t look at him. I hang my head, and he wrenches his neck to try to look me in the eyes, but he’s still handcuffed and jerks in the chair.
My lungs contract and withhold air as I consider if this is just another elaborate deception. After all, his baseball-game alibi was so meticulously crafted…if it was crafted at all. Maybe it was real and this is exactly what it looks like: Donna planting Beth’s necklace.
I don’t realize I’m hyperventilating until Cash’s voice finally breaks through my haze. “C’mon,a chuisle.Breathe for me. Breathe for me, baby.” My airway fights to open, but I manage to gulp a huge breath and raise my head.
His green eyes are like a mossy forest in the dark building, and they are boring into mine with such intensity it nearly snatches my breath right back.
“Are you going to kill me now?” The question spills from my lips like dry ice, swirling into the air between us.
His brows knit together. “Why would I do that?”
“Because no one fucks with your family and survives.”
“Uncuff me,” he says coolly. I remain unmoved, so he says again, “Uncuff me, Harlow.”
I figure whether I let him go now or later, he’s still going to kill me, so why not get it over with. I feel out of touch with my body as I reach around him and unlock the handcuffs. He’s still in me, and when I lean forward, his cock presses against my g-spot and I involuntarily whimper. I feel him tense too.
God, this is so fucked up. All of this.There’s still a fucking knife sticking out of his thigh for Christ's sake.
The metal cuffs clatter to the floor, and the sharpness of him inside me dissipates as realization takes over and my sense of self evaporates a little more. Maybe dying won’t be painful if I don’t feel like I’m in my body. Maybe this is what Beth felt. I hope so.
It’s like I’m a vapor lifting out of my body until Cash wriggles his arms through the chair and clasps them around me. I’m slammed back into myself through his grip on me. He folds his head into the crook of my neck and breathes me in.
Then he’s leaning back and clutching my face in his hands, bringing us almost nose to nose. “If I had to kill you, I would insist you take that knife out of my leg and bury it in my neck right now. I’m not scared of dying, but I am scared of living without you.” The emotion in his voice guts me, and I break.
I collapse forward, my cheek on his bare skin, heaving sobs of relief and grief, madness and sadness. What a mess I’ve made of a situation already so muddled. Unable to control the flood of feelings pulling me out to sea.
With each wrack of my body, he only holds me tighter, whispering in my ear…
“Without you, my heart wouldn’t beat,a chuisle mo chroí.”
1.DOOM—Calivania | SummerOtoole.com/Playlists
2.Continue playing DOOM
3.Continue playing DOOM
Chapter twenty-six
Repentance
Cash