Page 160 of Perfect
She even seems to think it’s better than what she has at home.
“I love you so fucking much, sweetheart.” I freeze, and scorching heat rises in my chest and the back of my neck.
It’s one thing that he’s fucking my stupid whore of a wife, but this is beyond unacceptable. She’smywife, which she seems to have forgotten, because she looks up at him with a sweet smile and blushes. Her mouth moves, and I can’t hear her voice, but based on the dumb, smug look he gets on his face as he walks away, she says it back.
I’m going to kill that worthless fucking cunt.
By the time I can finally stop my hands from shaking, he’s in the kitchen and she’s laid out on the couch, and I don’t have a good aim on either of them. I head for the front door, ready to kill both of them.
Just as I step out of the tree line, the floodlight cameras go off.
I jump back into the trees, crouching and aiming for the front door. He doesn’t come out, but as I make my way back slowly to the windows, I can see he’s got a shotgun in his hands.
I lean against a tree and holster my gun as I watch the two of them. The floodlights shocked me out of being angry for long enough that I can start to think about this rationally. If I kill Alice, I can’t take her home to Boston and make her spend the rest of her life apologizing to me for running away.
After watching her, that’s what I fucking want.
I know I can get it, too, because she’s sensitive and she’s always been so easy to tell what to do. I just need to be sweet to her, to save her from herself and show her why she needs me, why she should come back home to Boston and let me take care of her again, and she will.
Then, I’ll spend the rest of my life getting the love and respect I deserve from her.
I wait until they’re busy eating dinner to head back to my car, heading down into the tiny town they’re staying in and renting a hotel room. I start looking into the guy, who’s a rich trust fund fuck. Alice is such a spoiled little princess that it makes sense she’d go for someone with money, and guys like that always get away with murder.
When I get access to the crime scene photos, I realize just how right I am.
It’ll be so easy to show her why she should run away from this guy and back into my arms. I’m going to be her fucking hero, and she’ll realize what a mistake she’s made and want to come home and make it up to me.
***
I trail them all weekend, watch her and take photos of her, watch all the things I’m going to make her do for me when we get home, getting progressively angrier every time I hear the dumb fucking whore tell him she loves him.
They spend the weekend mostly fucking, hiking, and eating, and I follow them at a distance when they leave the house wearing a ball cap and a hoodie, but neither of them seem to notice me.
I see him packing their bags the day before her birthday, so I use the hotel’s printer to print out the crime scene photos and the photos of them.
Alice and I are going to have a long fucking talk before she even gets on a plane back home.
I trail them back to some old shithole house in Astoria, and once I realize he’s not leaving for the night, I rent a secluded cabin close by, unpacking and setting up to show her what a fucking idiot she is.
I head back to her place early enough to catch her as she goes to work, but he drives her to work like a fucking chauffeur, so I park near her office and wait.
He’s finally gone, for now, and she’ll come out eventually.
Around noon, I watch her running down the street, the skirt of her dress flapping around her legs underneath her long jacket. I start to follow her, but I can’t be seen chasing her down the street, so I turn back halfway and smoke while I wait.
She’ll come back to the office at some point.
I only have to wait impatiently for about ten minutes before I see her sprinting back in my direction. She’s going to pass right by me, but she doesn’t see me at all. She’s never been that aware of her surroundings, which is just another reason why she needs me to take care of her.
From now on, she’ll be taking good care of me, too.
48
ALEX
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27
I wake up to an empty bed and quiet sounds coming from the kitchen, but when I check the time on my phone, it’s too early for either of us to be awake. I walk into the kitchen, half asleep and confused to find Theo in running clothes, sweaty and pacing quickly in the small space while he waits for coffee to brew.
