Page 69 of Crawl
“I’m not driving home. You can deal with me until the morning,” she scoffs. “Asshole.”
The lights switch off, and about twenty minutes later, their wheezy breaths fill the motel room. To be safe, I wait another hour, then let myself out of the closet, creeping across the floor until my shadow hits their forms. I go to his side of the bed. He’s a mess of light brown hair, his cheeks puffy with sleep, and I wonder if Remedy is right. Is he notthatbad? Does hedeserveto die?
Perhaps it’s better to fuck him in the ass and beat the shit out of him like he threatened to do to Remedy.
But I’m not here for that. And I don’t care if he doesn’t deserve to die.I want to kill him.
I put the gun to his temple and pull the trigger. The silencer muffles the sound, but the woman still stirs and blood sprays on the pillow, a drop wetting her face. She smacks her hand across the stepbrother’s chest.
“What was that?” she groans. “Brody?”
Her hands hit the wet spots on his pillow and she finally opens her eyes, seeing me. She opens her mouth, ready to scream.
Too late.
I shoot her in the throat. Her eyes are dull and empty; she reminds me of foster mother number seven. I put the gun in the stepbrother’s hand. The serial number has been erased before I purchased it, so it won’t be traced back to me. And with his track record—he’s been kept overnight for disorderly conduct a handful of times—it won’t be that surprising to find a gun on him like that. A hasty murder-suicide with his old fling. The evidence may not hold up for long, but I don’t tolerate rivals. No one touches or hits Remedy, but me.
After I change into a fresh pair of clothing, I head back to Remedy’s rental house. It’s late—almost three a.m.—but she’s sitting on the bed, and her eyes are dark. She hasn’t gotten any sleep.
She’s been waiting for me.
She turns to me slowly, but her mouth is closed, and it stays that way. I know what she’s asking, even if she doesn’t say it. I switch off the light, then sit next to her, the mattress dipping with my weight.
“He won’t bother you anymore,” I say. “I’m the only person who can hurt you.” I press her shoulders back until we’re both lying on the bed. Wrapping my arms around her, I suck in the sweet, fruity scent of her hair. Then I squeeze her so tight, she lets out a slight wheeze.
When I let go of the tension, she whispers, “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Close your eyes,” I say. “You’re safe.”
She sighs. I stay there until her breathing calms and she falls asleep in my arms.
CHAPTER 17
Remedy
By the time I wake up, Cash is gone and I haven’t asked him about Jenna. If she’s anything like me, seeing Winstone’s body will comfort her, but it’s more than that. Cash held blackmail over me and watched me kill my stepdad; why can’t I hold this over him?
Maybe I want to see how far Cash is willing to go for me. Maybe I feel like I have to dosomethingto take control of my life.
I need to know that I have power too.
A yellow light flashes in my mind, telling me to slow down, but I can’t. Brody is gone. I don’t need to hear the news or see his body to know that Cash killed him. Cash is the Crawler, and his crimes aren’t limited to Key West. They span years.
And he’s obsessed with me.
I go through the motions at work, thinking over how I’ll ask Cash for the favor with Jenna. Once Bones is fed and the rest of the tasks for the morning are done, I search the estate for Cash, but can’t find him. The downstairs office is closed and I remember his rule about closed doors. But that rule applied when I thought he was only a billionaire real estate developer. Now Iknowhe’s a killer, and I’m one too. Opening a closed door doesn’t seem that bad.
I hold my breath and my clammy hands slip on the door handle, but it opens. At first glance, the office is empty. The windows are still closed, and the light shines through the panes, lighting the dust particles floating in the light. I hurry to the closet, moving aside the safe and shoe bench, then I open the hatch. Rotten fruit, sweet and foul, drifts up, mixed with a hint of strong paint. The bodies don’t stink as much as you’d expect, but now that I know, it’s obviously the stench of decay.
I use the flashlight on my phone to spot the general direction of the bodies, then I switch to the camera and turn on the flash. The light washes out some of the features on Winstone’s face—Jenna is right; his mouth, even shriveled in decay, hangs like a bulldog’s jowls—but you can’t tell in the pictures. Pins and needles spike in me each time the flash illuminates the bodies. They look fake in the pictures, too plastic to be real, and for that, I’m sort of glad. It’s a good excuse. If things go wrong, I can tell Jenna they’re Halloween decorations.
Happy Birthday,I text Jenna.Drinks later? Ready for your present?I’m about to attach the picture when a shadow hovers over me. I quickly send the text without the photo.
“What are you doing?” Cash asks. Chills run down my spine and I hide my phone.
“Nothing,” I say.
He cracks his neck, and the flicker in his eyes tells me that he knows I’m lying.
