Page 129 of Skeletons in the Closet

I stilled, keeping my hand on the desk where she could see it, fingers splayed. The device stopped ringing but immediately started again. I ignored it. If I knew anything about Tallus, it was that he was relentless. He would keep calling until he got through.

The room grew eerily quiet. Faye held the gun, and I held my ground, unflinching. Unmoving.

“I was afraid it would come to this. Call it a hunch, but I just knew you were going to try to tell me I was wrong.”

Fear was a funny thing. A familiar thing. A thing I’d experienced on so many different levels throughout my entire life. It was like a worn hoodie or beat-up pair of Converse. Fear was so common in my youth that if there was ever a lack of fear, it was almost more frightening. As a result, very few things scared me anymore. I was immune.

Even with a gun in my face.

During my childhood, fear set my system out of whack. The dump of adrenaline into my veins would make me cower, or run, or scream, or cry. Defending myself against a threat had never occurred to me. Not when I was smaller than the enemy. As a child, fear engaged the act of flight.

As an adult, the effects were more internalized, never visible on the surface. Not if I could help it. My heart ticked faster, beating mercilessly against my ribs. The blood inside my veins slowed and thickened. My senses grew alert to minute changes. Sounds. Smells. Touch. Taste. Sight. Everything was more amplified. My muscles coiled. My breathing slowed.

Fight kicked in.

Everything I’d learned about fear, I’d learned from my father.

So the gun in my face didn’t scare me, but it made me stop and think about how I wanted to proceed.

“I’m sick and tired of men thinking they are better than women. Thinking they know more than women. That they deserve more than women. That they can fool a woman. Well, guess what, Mr. Krause. I’m no fool.”

Process. Think.

Faye huffed a humorless laugh. “Cat got your tongue? I should have known this was the bullshit answer you’d give me. Had there been a female PI in this fucking city, I’d have hired her instead, but there wasn’t a single one. Not one. Can you believe that? How, in a city of millions, are there no female PIs? Explain that.”

She wasn’t looking for an answer, so I stayed quiet. Watchful.

“You’re just another man who thinks he can walk all over me. Well, you can’t. IknowNoah was cheating, and you’re sitting there telling me I’m wrong. I’m not wrong, but you’re going to defend your species, aren’t you? You had one job, Mr. Krause. One. I wanted a list of the whores fucking my husband. That’s all.”

Process. Think.

“I took a chance on you, and it started off fine. You were on board. You saw what I saw. You agreed it all looked suspicious. You gave me good leads. Solid leads. Beth. Professor Bitch Face. But now you’re going to sit there and retract everything? You’re going to take my husband’s side and pretend he was faithful? I don’t think so. It doesn’t work that way.”

My phone rang again. Tallus. The display said it was after five thirty. He would be done work by now. Goddammit. If I didn’t answer, he would drive over here to confront me face-to-face, and it was the last thing I needed.

“Got nothing to say?”

I had a lot to say, but all that made it past my lips was, “You killed your husband.”

Faye smirked. It was an ugly thing, and I took back all the flattering thoughts I’d had when she’d walked in the door. “Of course I did. He was a lying, cheating bastard, and he didn’t want to admit it. He called me paranoid. No, he got what he deserved. It was the easiest thing in the world to feed him pills when he was half in the bag. Men are stupid and gullible. Like feeding candy to a baby.”

Beth, Natalia, and Olivia had fallen prey to this woman’s psychotic delusions. I couldn’t sort out the nuances, but I knew I was right. Faye was out for blood. Vengeance. She’d hired me to find the women she thought her husband had been with, but she’d moved long past listening and had set out to destroy.

Faye had no intention of keeping me alive, but to this point, her methods of killing were meant to look self-inflicted or accidental, and they’d been sloppy and unsuccessful in two cases.

A gun was outside her modus operandi. Could she pull the trigger?

Was I going to risk it?

When my phone rang again, I didn’t flinch. I knew Tallus. The next step was breaking down my door.

But the constant interruption annoyed Faye and offered me the distraction I needed. She flicked her attention to the device, and in that momentary lapse, I threw myself sideways and to the floor behind the desk.

The gun went off, and bits of the wood-paneled wall behind me splintered and flew into the air.

Faye’s chair clattered to the floor as she pushed to her feet, screeching, “Get out from under there.”

Sure, you crazy fuck. I’m just going to stand up and let you shoot me.

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