Page 73 of Perfect
“Twenty-eight.”
“How’d you meet?” I raise my eyebrows and sigh, looking down at my hands. I’m too tired to lie to him right now.
“He was one of the cops that came to tell me my parents died.” Theo makes a choking sound, and when I look up at him, he looks furious. I smile a little at his reaction. “I know, right?” I say softly. “I haven’t told anyone that,ever.”
Theo runs his hands through his hair quickly as he paces back to the stove to check on the pot of water, staring at it for a long moment before he walks back towards me. He leans against the island next to me and strokes a hand over my shoulder.
“Sweetheart, did he ever hurt you?” His voice is quiet, and I nod slowly, not looking at him. “How often?” I shrug. “What made you leave?” I place my head in my hands, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes gently.
I don’t like to think about any of this, and I’m done talking about it.
“Stop.”
“Okay. One more question, and it’s not about that, Ipromise.” I groan, looking up at him. He pushes my hair behind my ear, giving me a tight smile. “What do you like in your oatmeal? I’ve never seen you eat it.” I blink, taken aback.
“Honey. Lots of honey.”
“You got it.” He moves back to the stove and the boiling water, and I stare after him, trying to figure out why him asking me what I like in my oatmeal seems sweet.
It’s probably just because I’m thinking about Danny.
22
THEO
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19
Since that first weekend with Alex, since I found out who she was, I assumed things were bad before she ran away. I knew she had some trust issues, but I assumed that she would let her guard down and feel how connected we are once we got past them. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard or take this long, but now I know why she’s a fucking minefield of issues that I have to navigate.
Daniel Murphy is the biggest fucking piece of shit, and I’m going to kill him.
After Alex fell asleep on Saturday and I had a panic attack in the basement, I went into my office and started digging, trying to figure out what the fuck happened in her life to make her sotricky to deal with. I’d found out enough by the time she woke up to know it was a lot worse than I’d initially thought.
Then she told me how they met, and I had to work ridiculously hard not to freak the fuck out in front of her.
She shared it with me, though. That’s something.
I’ve spent almost every second I’ve been away from her looking into her past. Between my own limited hacking skills, buying more complicated hacking programs off the dark web, and the information available on Daniel and Alex’s social media, I’ve put together a basic timeline and have a rough understanding of what happened, and everything I’ve found makes me want to kill him even more.
Alex’s cell phone number was noted down in the police report. The phone records aren’t available anymore, but I’d bet money that Daniel started reaching out to her immediately. She was placed in foster care for a very brief period, and from what I can find, her foster mom is close to one of Daniel’s aunts. Alex seems to have spent a lot of time around the Murphys right after her parents died, and there are a few photos from that time on his aunt’s Facebook. Alex looks like she’s not there, and Daniel’s extremely close to her in all the photos, which isveryupsetting.
I got into her Facebook and Instagram accounts, and she had a small army of people who had reached out at the time - her friends, her teachers, friends of her parents, people who cared about her and tried to be there for her. She wasn’t exceptionally responsive, understandably, but she started ignoringallof them about three weeks after her parents died.
Alex’s high school guidance counselor saw her twice a week following her parents’ death and listed concerns that Alex was dissociative and potentially suicidal, but she started refusing all help offered to her with no explanation three weeks after her parents died.
I don’t want to know what happened three weeks after her parents died, but Iknow.
Alex petitioned the court for legal emancipation a few weeks later. Because she was a straight-A student who was a few months away from being eighteen and had considerable resources and community support, it was granted. The “community support” listed on Alex’s emancipation petition seems to have been compromised entirely of her foster parents, the Murphy family, and their church, even though she didn’t seem to know any of these people or go to that church before her parents died.
She moved back into her house after her emancipation was granted, and Daniel moved into Alex’s house, herparents’house, a week later.Shortly after that, Alex, a straight-A honors student who co-captained her track and field team, was involved in extracurriculars, and wasactivelyworking on college applications, dropped out of high school.
Alex’s parents had money. Not Anderson Timber money, maybe, but both of her parents came from well-off families, did well for themselves, and were smart about managing their assets. Setting aside their million-dollar house in a nice neighborhood, Alex inherited roughly four and a half million dollars.
Five months after her parents died, Alex got married on her eighteenth birthday with no prenup, and Daniel’s quality of living improvedsignificantly.
Alex’s medical charts have notes about domestic violence concerns foryears. She always said everything was fine and turned down any help offered, even when her arm was broken about two years into their marriage.
I don’t understand how this fucking bastard manipulated Alex into any of this, or why it went on so long, but I can make some assumptions. Alex drinks, dissociates, lies to herself andeveryone else, and tries her best to pretend like everything is fine. If I had to guess, she probably spent her entire marriage trying to avoid conflict that way.
