What You Don't Know(54)

“Believe it or not, you’re not the center of my universe,” she’d said once, when he’d started complaining that she wasn’t satisfied, all because she’d made the mistake of wishing out loud that they had the premium movie channels on the TV, when they couldn’t afford it. He accused her of being disappointed in him, in wishing that he made more money, that he had a better job, although she thinks those are thoughts that he has about himself, ideas he’s projecting onto her.

“Maybe,” he’d said, “you wish you’d married someone else. Someone better.”

The idea of being married to someone else has crossed her mind—who hasn’t had those kinds of thoughts? But would it be better to be married to someone else, or to be alone? In the end, her answer was always no, although Dean doesn’t seem to believe it, and she’s tired of pleading her case to him. I chose you, she wants to say, but doesn’t. I could have left anytime, I could be with Hoskins, but I chose you.

Oh, they haven’t had a perfect marriage, but Dean—and Hoskins—are the only men who’d never treated her like nothing more than a piece of ass. Dean listened, and he’d encouraged, and he’d always tried so hard, and she wishes she could be honest with him, but he’s so afraid. So insecure.

“I’m writing again,” she says. “Corbin called, because of those women who’ve been killed. They think Seever might be connected.”

“You’re writing again.” Dean shifts his feet under the covers, away from her, so they’re no longer touching. “About Seever.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I’ve been waiting for a chance like this.” But she understands what he’s asking. He wants to know if she’ll be seeing Hoskins, if they’ll be sleeping together again. He’s apprehensive, and maybe that’s to be expected, after everything she’s done.

“I guess.”

“Have you ever hurt someone?” she asks, pushing the words out of her mouth and into the dark, because she has to say something, and that’s the first thing she thinks of.

“Physically?” Dean says, surprised. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What happened?”

“In the third grade I shoved another kid into a wall, he got a bloody nose.”

“Not kid stuff. Like, lately.”

“Lately? No.”

She stretches out, touches her toes to his, then pulls away again.

“Would you ever kill someone?”

There’s a long pause, so long that she’s sure he’s fallen asleep again.

“Yeah,” he finally says. “I would. If I had to.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like, in self-defense,” he says. “If someone broke in and tried to hurt us, I’m entirely within my rights to defend myself.”

“How politically correct of you.”

“And I’d do it for you.”

“What?”

“I’d kill someone if you wanted me to,” Dean says. “Sometimes I feel like that’d be the only way to get your attention. Start murdering people so you’d have a story to chase.”

She doesn’t say anything, but his words set off a faint alarm in her head, make her think of something else, although she can’t think what. They’ve both said strange things under the cover of dark, admitted to things they wouldn’t normally. Instead of another question, she gently pushes him over to his side, so his back is facing her, and she presses against him, their bodies perfectly aligned, and she pushes her forehead into the spot where his neck widens into his back, and they fall asleep that way, like one body under the covers instead of two.





HOSKINS

He goes straight to his car when Sammie drops him off, sits behind the wheel and watches what’s going on. The crowd has mostly dispersed, driven away by the lack of excitement, but there are still plenty of cameras, lots of media. Lots of cops going back and forth on the property, pairs of them walking down the street. They’re going to be at it all night, going door-to-door through the whole neighborhood, asking every resident for their whereabouts, if they’d seen anything suspicious. There is a process to catching a killer. There are steps. They’ve secured the crime scene; now it’s time to find a witness. That was always the part Hoskins hated the most—pounding the pavement, ringing doorbells and trying to coerce people to remember things. Most people walk through life wearing blinders; they don’t see much besides what’s in front of their own face, but it has to be done, because there’s always a chance that someone saw a strange car parked out front, or a guy they hadn’t seen around before.

And there will be more cops inside, he knows, taking photographs and dusting for prints and looking for any bit of evidence they can, because it’s almost impossible for a perp to not leave behind DNA, unless they’re incredibly careful. And this guy—he was careful, he’d kept Simms locked up with him for days and no one had suspected a thing, but maybe he hadn’t been careful enough. Loren had said the last two victims—Abeyta and Brody, Hoskins had to remind himself, because it’s so easy to think of them as bodies—had both been raped, but the medical examiner hadn’t been able to pull anything off them. The guy could’ve used a condom, or their time in the water had washed everything clean. But this time it might be different, and he’d left something they could run through the database and hope for a match. But it might not matter if they find his DNA, because even if the guy left a fucking bucket of semen on the front doorstep, if they don’t have him on file already, it’ll be a wash. It’s hit or miss, Hoskins thinks. Sometimes worth the trouble, but not typically a lot of help in making an arrest.