Page 62 of Deeper

“Did you kill him?”

“Do you know who did?”

The woman stops in her tracks. The police try to budge her, but she holds her ground. She looks directly into the camera. Her face is bruised and swollen and streaked in day-old makeup. Her eyes only hold relief.

“Sebastian Rutherford was a horrible man. He kept me prisoner for two years. I don’t know who killed him, but whoever it was saved my life.”

A flurry of camera flashes go off, and the reporters litter her with questions, but the police take charge with a firm hand and place her into the back of a police car before she can say anything else. Jim throws it back to Sharon, and after a few sentences of commentary, she breaks for a commercial.

My phone rings. Tatum’s name lights up my screen.

I answer, and she speaks before I can get out a greeting, “Are you watching this?”

“I am,” I reply.

“This is insane. I can’t believe this is happening. My phone’s been ringing all morning.”

“What does this have to do with your phone ringing?”

“Freelance work. I’ve booked a handful of jobs just this morning. Everyone is looking for the story with the photographs to go with it. I won’t have to take any baby announcement jobs for months if this keeps up.”

“Well, I guess there’s a bright side in all this—at least, for you.”

“Oh, fuck! I am the worst person alive. How can I be happy about the influx of jobs when it’s because people have died?”

“You’re not the worst person alive. You aren’t the person killing these people.”

“People are saying this is the largest story with the most media attention our town has seen since that girl went missing a few years ago. There was a story about the Murder by Numbers Killer in the New York Times today.”

“What girl?”

“Um, I don’t remember her name. It was five or six years ago now. She was a student at Yale, though, and she just upped and disappeared. The media pounced big time on that story, too. By the way, did you end up seeing Callen last night after we left the hotel?”

“No, I just came home and slept off my hangover.” Lies. Lies. Lies.

“Are you still worried about him skipping out before you got up and got off?”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

I’m a better liar than she thinks. Obviously.

“I’ll see him when I see him.”

“Okay, I need to let you go. I have someone on the other line, hopefully another job. Talk later!” She hangs up.

I turn the volume down on the television.

My head spins. My new friend has no idea how absolutely twisted I am.

Callen is a killer. I like that fact about him. I like that part about me. It’s truly messed up. I take pleasure in the piece of me that gets off on his viciousness. I’ve never felt more alive than when I was getting off while Sebastian died beside me. Who Callen is and what his hands are responsible for don’t scare me away. It pulls me deeper into the lust.

I’m not repentant. Not even close.

I want more.

I thirst for it.

I’ll never get enough.

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