Page 18 of Half the Summer's Night
Ipace around my darkened living room, feeling jangly and agitated. I know I should call 911.
But I don’t.
I stop in front of the window and jerk the curtain back, peering out at my front yard, with its flower patch and neatly manicured grass, and then to the cemetery itself, everything illuminated in patches by the street lamps. No movement.
He’s not going to come back.
I drop the curtain and stumble backward, my arms wrapped around my chest. I hate that the thought almost makes me feel disappointed.
I stifle it before it can get any further. That was akillerwho pinned me to the desk and ran his leather-gloved hands up my bare arm like I was something precious. A killer who pressed his lips to mine and then asked if he could touch me.
Why did you want to say yes what the HELL is wrong with you?—
I fling myself out of the living room and back into my bedroom for what has to be the third or fourth time tonight. After it happened, after the masked man—the maskedkiller—left me trembling and terrified in my office, I could barely move.Eventually, I managed to drag myself over to the back entrance, which he had left hanging open. I shut it. Activated the lock. Every second, I expected him to leap out of the shadows and wrap his hand around my mouth again.
It never happened.
I scoured the house, both the funeral parlor downstairs and my living space upstairs. Nothing. I picked up my phone a dozen times, but I could never bring myself to call the police.
I still can’t.
Every time I look at my phone, I think about the last time I dialed 911, when I was 16 and Blake Fletcher was lying crooked and broken at the bottom of the stairs of his house. I had shoved him.
He had touched me, too. But he hadn’t been gentle about it, like the killer. He had grabbed me and thrown me against the wall and ripped my shorts over my hips, hissing that an ugly nerd like me should be thrilled to give it up to a guy like him.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the memory. When I think about it, I also think about everything that came after. The interrogation. The grand jury. All the newspaper stories and the harassment and the death threats.
It always felt like everything started because I called the police instead of running away.
I throw myself onto my crumpled bed, roll onto my back, and stare up at my ceiling fan. My sheets feel sticky and uncomfortable, and I squirm around to get them off of me. Somehow, I hike my nightgown up in the process. It bunches around my hips the way it did when the killer pressed his knee between my thighs and whispered in his soft, whiskey-rough voice.
I want to touch you.
Why?
Because you’re beautiful.
I suck down deep lungfuls of air. I wish I knew what’s wrong with me. It washim.He told me who he was. He confirmed my suspicion that all those deaths weren’t accidents.
But I don’t have real proof. Only my word. And I know how much stock Rosado law enforcement puts in that, coroner appointment or not.
I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes, but it’s not enough to block out the memory of what happened. The killer’s soft, chaste kiss. His hand splayed across my belly, asking permission to touch me.
That’s the thought that sends heat down between my legs. He asked permission.
“No,” I whisper, my voice thunderously loud in the silence of my room.Thisis the reason I keep stalking back and forth between my bed and the rest of the house. Because every time I lie down, I feel his silky touch on my skin, and I wish?—
I wish I hadn’t shoved him away.
A sick, heavy guilt squeezes my chest. He’s murdered at least seven people. He broke into my home, presumably to murder me.
Although he didn’t.
He kissed me instead.
The house creaks, settling into its foundations. I jerk up on my elbows, but there’s no one in my bedroom with me. He’s not here.
What if he was?
