Page 88 of The Tenant
“I have no idea,” he gulps.
“Did you kill Goldy to frame Whitney?”
He looks like he’s about to be sick. “No. Christ, of course not. You can’t possibly think…”
This gives me the chance to start ticking off his sins. All the strange things he’s done lately, although many aren’t things he has actually done. He listens to me, wanting to protest but knowing in his gut that I won’t believe him. All the while, I’m packing my clothes.
“That psychic woman was right,” I conclude. “If I stay long enough, God knows what you’ll do.”
“No.No.” He looks almost like he’s about to burst into tears. “I would never cheat on you, and I would never hurt you.”
Well, that’s a load of bullshit. I zip up my suitcase. “I think I better go.”
And then he stands in front of me, blocking my exit from the room. “Blake, get out of my way right now,” I say.
He doesn’t budge. The tension builds. And for a split second, I am scared that I have pushed him too far. That my mild-mannered fiancé might have really snapped. And maybe somebody really is going to find my body on the first floor in a pool of blood.
But then he steps out of the way.
He’s not done though. He follows me down the stairs to the first floor, pleading with me the whole time. He doesn’t realize his night’s going to get even worse if he eats the leftover Chinese food for dinner tonight. I grabbed a handful of Amanda’s hair from the brush she left in the bathroom and stirred it into his noodles as a little something extra. Henevertakes them out of the container or heats them up before eating them.
Blake is still begging and pleading when I get to the front door, and he doesn’t stop as I’m putting on my jacket and my sneakers. He even follows me outside.
“I love you, Krista,” he says.
Yeah. Right.
Blake seems surprised by the taxi that shows up at our front door because they’re relatively rare on our street. He doesn’t realize I called for one, and the timing is impeccable. I step inside, relieved I don’t have to listen to more of his lies.
As the taxi is pulling away, I turn to look through the rear window. Blake is still standing there, watching from the street. I notice Mr. Zimmerly coming out of his house, and again, the timing is incredible. At the worst possible moment, he starts yelling at Blake, probably to take in his garbage cans—I can’t hear them, but that seems to be all he ever talks about. Just for fun, I’ve been adding a little fuel to the flame by pulling the bins back out after Blake puts them away. I’ve caught Blake staring at the bins he’s sure he put away and scratching his head. It really is the little things. As we turn the corner, Blake has started yelling back at Mr. Zimmerly.
Blake hates Mr. Zimmerly. I know it, and everyone else on the block knows it. If anything ever happened to him, Blake would be the first suspect.
And that gives me an idea.
58
Stacie Parker followsthe same schedule every Saturday night. I’ve been watching, so I know.
Between 8:00 and 8:30, she comes out of her apartment building, teetering in a pair of stiletto heels and a dress that is embarrassingly short. She waits for a minute or two, and then she climbs into an Uber. The Uber then brings her to a bar or club, where she wastes the rest of her night drinking and flirting with men.
I can’t believe Blake liked her. I can’t believe he threw away everything we had for that woman.
One thing I have to say for him, he’s not giving up easily. Since I moved out, he has been calling and texting me nonstop. Becky has been trying to convince me to block him, but I like watching him suffer. I especially liked the messages he sent me when he discovered Mr. Zimmerly was dead.
That must have been quite the shock for him. Mr. Zimmerly was shocked too when I hit him on the head. I wasn’t sure what to use but landed on that antique clock we bought at that flea market. Blake’s fingerprints would definitely be on it, and it felt like a good way to say goodbye to our life together. It’s only a matter of time before the police figure it out.
Right now, I am sitting in Malcolm’s car, across the street from Stacie’s building. I didn’t ask his permission to borrow it, but I knew they were staying in and he wouldn’t miss it. I need a car to do what I need to do next.
At just after eight o’clock, Stacie stumbles out of her building, looking like she’s already slightly drunk. That’s good. It will make this next part so much easier.
She doesn’t even have a jacket on, and she’s shivering in the November night air. I’m sure she has already called an Uber, so I need to be quick. I pull up in front of her building. I roll down the window before she can check my license plate, although she doesn’t seem like the cautious sort of person who would do that.
“Stacie? You called for an Uber?”
She smiles at me. “Yes, thank you.”
And then she climbs in, closing the door behind her. There’s another car turning onto the same street, and I zoom away before it can arrive.
