Page 21 of Shattered
“I’m on it.”
Now that Colin was gone and I had no reason to avoid being in the house, I could get ready in the comfort of my own bathroom, as long as I wasn’t planning to paint my body into a mural. Luckily, dropping into the club like this without being on the schedule meant that I could wear anything, as long as it was revealing.
In an hour, I was at the Dahlia District. The servers, including Teagen and her club member, were huddled around the flat-screen TVs, ones that Dahlia kept hidden unless a club member requested it.
Nick Vantage, forty-two years old, was found strangled to death beside his car, the reporter said. The screen showed a picture of his truck with police tape around it, then switched to a studio shot of Nick, taken when he was in his twenties.Nick is the latest in a line of fifteen, now sixteen, known victims of the Pros’ Angel.
“That’s why no one is here,” Iris said. She pointed at the television. “Why would anyone come in here when there’s a murderer out there, and we’re watching a stupid television show about it?”
Detective Foreman was on the screen.We don’t know, at this time, if Vantage was involved in any illegal activities. His cause of death has yet to be confirmed, but—The clip cut to the reporter,I’m sure a coroner will come to the same conclusion as we are,she said,and once he does, we’ll be here to deliver the official news.
Garrett was sitting in the back, watching the television idly, as if it was nothing of interest. He nodded when he saw me.
“No contacts?” he asked.
I shrugged. I was surprised he had noticed, but I guess the uncanniness of the blue color was memorable.
“Clear, not blue.” I slid into the seat next to him. “Hope you don’t mind.”
He gestured at the screen. “Does this scare you?”
The screen was back to the studio shot of the victim. “I don’t abuse sex workers,” I said triumphantly. “Or women. Or men, for that matter. Oranyone. Do you?”
It was supposed to challenge him, but he didn’t blink. “No,” he said. It was the first straight answer he had given. “Do you consider yourself a sex worker?”
“You tell me.”
“Does your work involve sexually explicit behavior?”
I looked down at my sheer bra. He could see my nipples if I moved my arms out of the way, or if I parted my legs, he could catch a glimpse of my trimmed pubic hair through the bottoms. I had promised Aldrich my virginity, crossing my fingers that he wouldn’t figure out that I wasn’t a virgin and hadn’t been one for a long time, all for the chance to marry him and have a life where I could paint.
If Garrett wanted to have sex, I wouldn’t decline. It all went towards my debt anyway.
I shrugged. “Detective Foreman said that they know that he’s only killing people who abuse sex workers. So I have nothing to be afraid of.”
In my mind, I asked another question: Was a man like Rourke truly bad, or was he something else? The women who worked Ivy Ledge Bridge must have seen him as a hero. Why couldn’t I think of him the same way? Colin would never give me a black eye, or hurt another woman, ever again.
But it was easy to dismiss Colin. He hadn’t left behind a family like the latest victim might have.
People hid themselves. I concealed myself behind makeup and costumery that made me feel ready for the Dahlia District, like I was someone else, the ‘Mel’ the club members were paying to see. Even Garrett had noticed the lack of blue-colored contacts, a piece missing to the facade of Mel. And yet I knew, without a doubt, that if anyone was hiding anything, it was Garrett, a billionaire with far too much on the line, and Rourke, the serial killer who would never reveal his true identity.
“It empowers you, doesn’t it?” Garrett asked, bringing me back to the conversation. “A killer is out there, and yet you feel protected.”
“What’s so empowering about a man that kills people who take advantage of the weak?”
“Are they weak?” he cut in. “Or is that the narrative you’ve created to justify the murders?”
I stared at him. His deep brown eyes twinkled in the dim lighting. He was calling me out on my perceptions of the murders. But what did that mean? Was he seeing through my exterior and finding the real me, the one who wanted to defend a seemingly awful person like Rourke? A person who saw me. A person who was more like me than I liked to admit.
Garrett gestured towards the door to the Terrariums, and I needed to think of an excuse about why I couldn’t do that tonight. “Let’s watch,” I said, pointing to the screen, pretending like I had the need to honor these victims, when all I wanted to do was watch and wait for what new information they might have about Rourke. As if the media could fill in the blanks I had around him.
