Love in the Time of Serial Killers(15)

Shani gave me a sad smile, and all the energy fizzled out of my anger. It really had been thoughtful of her to think of me, even if I didn’t like the idea that she and Conner were somehow conspiring to get me “help.” I flipped through the pages as if I was semi-interested in what they might have to say.

“I’ll put it on my reading pile,” I said. “Right after the memoir by the Sunrise Slayer’s daughter. You remember that one, Conner? He was linked to at least eight murders around Central Florida in the eighties.”

Conner shook his head. “That was before my time,” he said. “And I don’t watch black-and-white television.”

I rolled my eyes. “It was before my time, too, jackass,” I said. “But it happened close to here—just over an hour north. You could’ve still heard about the guy.”

“I just collected Pokémon cards like a normal person,” Conner said. “Speaking of normal people, is the neighbor having a party or something? There were a bunch of cars out front.”

I jumped up to check the window. Sure enough, there were three new cars packed onto his driveway, and several more lining the street halfway around the circle. All my vigilance, and I’d completely missed this whole development.

“Well, that explains the ice,” I murmured.

I turned just in time to see Conner giving Shani a speaking look. First they’d had their little exchange over the book, and now this. I couldn’t let it go. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, his eyes wide.

“Conner thinks you’re fixating on the neighbor as a way to deal with all the change in your life,” Shani said at the same time.

Conner gave her a thanks a lot look that would’ve been more effective if he hadn’t still had taco sauce smeared around his mouth. “I never said that. I said my therapist suggested that might be one explanation for Phoebe’s focus, but—”

I held my hands up, as if warding off the whole conversation. Now he was discussing me with his therapist? Jesus.

“Both you and Dr. Freud are making a much bigger deal out of this than it is,” I said. “We had a couple weird interactions, okay? It’s natural that I would want to look out for myself. I’m a single female, living alone.”

“Okay, but . . .” Conner wrinkled his nose in a supremely annoying look of little-brotherly doubt. “Weird because he was weird, or because you were?”

“Hey, he’s the one who—” I realized that I had no way to finish that sentence that helped my cause. He’d moved my desk for me, politely accepted a misdelivered package, mowed the lawn. It was hardly the Macdonald triad.

There was still that night he’d been doing something in his garage. A mysterious liquid on his hands. The plastic dropcloth from his car. None of that would make him the most careful killer ever, but there had been blood all over the Ford Bronco and O.J. still got off.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I won’t be needing to borrow a cup of sugar anytime soon, and if I do, there’s always the cat lady on the other side.”

“Pat’s still there?” Conner said. “She always reminded me of the grandma in Napoleon Dynamite. She’d be out in her yard throwing bread to the birds, like, I’m doing this for your own good! Eat up, you little shits!”

“If you think about it,” I said, “she has all those outside cats and still encourages the birds to come. Pretty dark.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Conner said, making a face. “But listen. The point is, we know you’re isolated out here. We hate the idea of you worrying or feeling unsafe.”

He reached out to grasp Shani’s hand, and that was honestly the first clue that the “we” in his sentence had been him and his girlfriend, rather than him and his therapist. It saved me from having to have a serious talk about boundaries, at least.

“And that’s why we’ve decided,” Shani said, glancing at him as if for support, “that we’re going to move in here, too. That way you won’t be so alone.”

I had no idea what my face was doing. In my mind, my eyes were wide with disbelief, my mouth opening and closing like a fish, my nostrils flaring with a barely contained exasperation. But outwardly, I must have been maintaining some semblance of control, because my brother was grinning at me like they’d just presented me with the greatest gift.

And objectively, it was very well-meaning of them. Very kind. It was true that I’d moved back to a town where I didn’t really know anyone—except Alison, which was a relationship best left buried under old issues of Teen Beat. And it was true that there was a lot of work ahead with the house, work that I’d sometimes wished Conner would be around more to help with.

But it was also true that if I had to live with Conner and Shani, I would go out of my fucking mind.

“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I appreciate that offer, but—”

“It would be for a couple of months while we got the house ready to sell,” Conner cut in to reassure me. “We only have a month left on our apartment lease, and we can put our stuff in storage before we sign a new one.”

“Except for the bed, of course,” Shani pointed out.

“Yeah, we’re not sleeping on the floor,” Conner said. “And we need the Xbox and PlayStation.” He looked at me hopefully. “Unless you brought your own?”