Page 37 of Little Deaths

The house smelled like her. Had it always, or had he just gotten so used to it as a child that he had never noticed? A musky sweetness with a sharp herbal sting. It suited her; she distracted you with bright theatrics, while holding back the parts of herself that really mattered. She was so fucking hard to pin in place, like a glittering butterfly hovering just out of reach.

Rafe went to the fridge and grabbed one of the beers he assumed was his father’s, which he opened with his teeth—glancing at her as he did it. She didn’t like that. She liked it even less when he spat the cap out on that ugly marble counter of hers, which he then leaned against so he could look at her. “So,” he said, prepared—to be both vicious and patient, if he had to be. “Tell me everything.”

He watched her closely as she talked, paying as much attention to what she was saying, as what she wasn’t. There was a studied emotionlessness to her voice that didn’t match the cadence of her hand movements. She was talking about the warning and the photographs, and what she’d said to the cops, but he got the sense that there was more that she wasn’t telling him. Something more that she was afraid of.

“What did the cops say?”

That halted her dead in her tracks. “They’re sending someone to drive by. And they’re going to analyze what the letter was written with. And see, I guess, if they can find out what happened to the dog. In the meantime, they suggested calling someone to stay over.”

“And you chose me.”

Donni folded her arms. “You said you got pictures, too. What were yours of?”

“Take a look.” He dug into the pockets of his leather jacket and spread out the four Polaroids, watching some of the warm tones fade from her skin. “He knows his subjects.”

“Ohno.” She picked up one of them with a shaking hand. “Where did you get these?”

“Not where anyone else could see them. They were left in a cremation box outside my motel room. I tried to call you when it happened, but I guess you were asleep.”

She dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, with enough force to make it scoot a few inches down the tile. She set down the photo she’d picked up and stared at the others.

“Who did this?” she whispered.

“If I had to guess, it was someone at the funeral. Do you have a guest list? Perhaps one of the O’Donnells will remember who they sold the box to. They can’t sell that many.”

“Yes, somewhere.” Donni was staring at the photograph of them kissing, running her fingers over her wrist in agitation. “Opal said there was a man with a camera at the funeral.”

Interesting. “Did she say who?”

“No. She didn’t recognize him. That was why she told him to leave.”

“That was foolish of her. It probably led to her death.”

He stepped forward to sweep the photos into a neat stack. She looked up at him then and he realized how close his hips were to her face. The image of her with her head in his lap gripped him powerfully. She’d left streaks of lipstick on his shaft that night. That had turned him on so much that he thought he might ask her to do it again.

“Since I’ll be here all night, maybe I’ll order in. I was just getting to the point where I was figuring out dinner.” He tugged at a lock of her hair, toying with it. “Do you want anything?”

She laughed humorlessly, pulling her head away. “When you tell them the address, someone might poison it.”

Rafe was pretty sure she was joking, but the thought did give him pause. Considering how close her stalker had gotten to them both so far and the level of anger this town held against his father and, by proxy,her— He set down his phone with a clunk. “You might have a point. I’ll make something.”

“I’m an adult woman,” she said, rising. “I can take care of myself. You don’t need to make me dinner.”

“Ah yes,” he said. “I forgot about the olives.”

She looked ashamed, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that she couldn’t cook. His father hadn’t married her for her homemaking skills. But maybe it was the money that bothered her, and the fact that the set of skills shedidhave were exactly why she had called him here in the first place.

He reached into his jeans for the familiar shape of that gold chain he’d started carrying around with him. When he dropped it on the counter, the clatter of it, as well as the gleam of the golden heart-shaped locket, made her wander over curiously.

“Look familiar?” he asked. “I found that in your side yard.”

“No. It’s costume. I don’t wear costume. It’s probably from some kid.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of this.

Rafe opened her fridge, pointedly ignoring her irritated glance, and took out an egg, a tiny fragment of cheese, and a withering bell pepper. As he poured oil into one of her very unused-looking Le Creuset skillets, he said, “It looks like the one you wore inSleepover Fiends.”

“Really?” She picked up her phone reluctantly. He heard her gasp. “Oh my God, you’re right. It looks exactly the same.”

“I think it mightbeexactly the same.”

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