Page 62 of Dead Love
His stare lacked warmth. “I had made a promise to myself.”
I held my chin high. “You’ve always wanted to hurt me.”
“Pain comes in different forms,” he said, his voice measured like it always was. “If you only experience the absence of it, of all feelings, then how could you know I wanted to hurt you? You’re not the little girl your parents think you are.”
“Then what am I?” He searched me, but I knew he would never find that answer because he didn’t see me as anything more than a girl too. A toy he could break. “We did nothing to you,” I whimpered. “It’s like you’re out for revenge for something that never had anything to do with you.”
He lowered his eyes, his jaw set. “It was never about revenge.”
“No,” I shook my head, “just your own messed up version of justice.”
Vincent didn’t move. I tried to understand, to make sense of it all. But I couldn’t. Had he been thinking about killing me this entire time?
Why had I let myself believe I was safe with him?
“Did you kill your brother?” I asked. His forehead scrunched and his eyes hardened. “Answer me, Vincent. Did you kill your brother?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, peering down at me. I had no idea what to say. He wanted to destroy our family, simply because all ofhisfamily had died?
A man like Vincent is wrong in the head,Andrew had said. Now, it seemed so true. Maybe there was something seriously wrong with him.
As we went back through the graves to the main part of the cemetery, we passed some empty rectangular holes, like the one that had been dug for me. Lined up. Waiting to be filled.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The Echo deaths,” he said. “They come at a steady pace, so I figured I’d plan ahead. Be ready for them.” Was he anticipating them because heknewwhen those waves were coming?
“Have you picked up their bodies yet?” I asked.
“They’re coming.”
My stomach dropped, but I held it together. Because I knew I had to do something. Everything seemed to indicate that he no longer wanted to kill me, but that meant that I had to worknow.He could change his mind at any minute, and I had to help. Because if he had killed Nyla, then I—
But he hadn’t killed Nyla. He had just wanted to killme.
We continued walking and it all passed so quickly. Like we were watching ourselves in a dream. Then, inside of the house, he turned to me.
“You can stay up here for a while,” he said. “But I need to clear my head. Do some art.” He nodded toward his studio. “You inspire me.”
“Maybe I’ll go to the basement,” I said. It seemed safer there when I would at least be able to hear that he was coming. His brows furrowed, but he said nothing. As we went down the hallway and he headed to the studio, I followed him. On the pencil bank of the easel, sat a bright green pill broken in half, like a burst of life in the room’s darkness. Three wavy lines on top. Was that Echo?
“On second thought,” I asked, not sure what the hell I was doing, “Can we go to the funeral home? I think I forgot something there. In Catie’s office.”
He led me in complete silence to the funeral home. Our footsteps vibrated in the empty building. Right outside of her office, I turned to him and held my breath. “Can you get me a snack from the break room?” I asked. “I’m starving.”
He cocked his head to the side, his lips pursed together. “Okay,” he said.
Once he was in the hallway, I immediately dialed Andrew, my heart pounding so hard that it thumped in my ears.
“Officer Andrew,” he said.
“Andrew,” I said.
“Miss Kora? Have you found anything yet?”
I didn’t think Vincent could be the Echo Killer.But what if he was?That had to be why he had that unexplained pill in his studio.
The truth was that he had never hurt me. Not like that. And even if he had, he had done it in a way that had made the painmine.
