Love in the Time of Serial Killers(39)

“Our first date,” Conner said. He glanced at me with an exaggerated parody of Don’t say anything! that was way more suspicious than anything I would’ve ever said. “I don’t know. I just had the urge to get the Rollerblades out again.”

“Well, hopefully this has cured you of it. That place smells like feet, anyway.” She turned to me, giving me a quick hug before I could slip out of it. I’d never admit this out loud, but sometimes I was grateful to people who were automatic huggers. It took the pressure off me to initiate anything, and it felt nice, being embraced even for a few seconds by someone you cared about. The problem was that my list of people I wanted a hug from was pretty short.

I was pleasantly surprised that apparently Shani was on it. I gave her a quick pat on her back with one hand as she pulled away.

“Thank you so much for making him go to the clinic,” she said. “On his own, he probably just would’ve come home, taken some ibuprofen, and then wondered why it still hurt days later.”

“Oh, it was no problem.”

“Do you want to stay, hang out? We’re in the middle of watching Selling Sunset but we could go back to the first episode if you wanted.”

All this time I’d been back in town, getting to know my brother and his almost-fiancée better, it hadn’t fully hit me how they had a whole life here. That this was where they lived, and they had jobs and school and shows they watched and . . . each other.

Meanwhile, I’d be leaving in another month or so, and I didn’t really have a place here. It was nice of them to try to include me, but I didn’t want to intrude.

“Actually, I’ve already reserved a rideshare to get home,” I lied. “But maybe another time.”

I said my goodbyes and then headed down to the entrance to the apartment complex, opening up my rideshare app to see if there were any nearby cars. It wasn’t my preferred way to travel for sure, but if the company’s latest crime reports were to be believed it was relatively safe. I texted Conner a screenshot of my ride confirmation just in case.

Luckily, my driver had the attitude of someone begrudgingly picking up a coworker for a carpool she didn’t want to be a part of in the first place. She barely spoke to me, which meant an automatic five-star review in my book. I had her drop me off a block away from my house, and walked the rest of the way home.

I had to pass Sam’s house on the way, which hadn’t been deliberate, but which did make me slow down. What if I went back, just for a minute? To apologize for leaving so abruptly (again), or to offer to take care of my dirty plate, which might still be sitting in the garage (probably not; I couldn’t help but notice that his sink had been a lot clearer than mine)? But instead I just kept walking, stepping over the cat, who was back in my driveway again. She jumped to her feet as I passed, winding around my legs as I unlocked the front door, making a move as if she was going to dart inside.

“Sorry, little buddy,” I said, blocking the entrance with a foot as I slid inside. “This isn’t your home.”

She gave a single, pathetic meow, and I shut the door.





TWELVE





THE CONVENIENT THING about Conner’s broken wrist—for him, anyway—was that it got him out of doing more work around the house for a bit. I told myself that was why I put off writing my dissertation chapter again in order to focus instead on doing a deep clean of the kitchen. Now that most of the furniture and stuff was gone from the main common rooms in the house, it was mostly elbow grease to finish the job—dusting blinds, scrubbing baseboards, scraping at whatever had been stuck to the stovetop since the early 2000s.

I was able to get the audiobook for I’ll Be Gone in the Dark through my library app, so I was kind of working. If not working, then growing spiritually at least, which was what always seemed to happen as I followed Michelle McNamara down her obsession with the Golden State Killer. Some people had Eat, Pray, Love. I had I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.

I was right at the part where she revealed the origin of the title of the book—a bone-chillingly creepy moment, if ever there was one—and trying to carry two large garbage bags out of the house. I left the door open because my hands were occupied and why not? But then I glanced down right in time to see that fucking cat dart around my feet and into the house.

Shit.

This time I left the door open on purpose, hoping that maybe she’d exit as quickly as she’d entered. But instead she seemed to have already secreted herself somewhere deep in the house, because I went from room to room and didn’t see her.

“Here, kitty,” I said, feeling like an idiot. I made a tch-tch-tch sound with my tongue against my teeth, hoping she would respond to that. Those two techniques were the only ones I’d learned from watching TV, so if they didn’t work, I was all out of ideas.

I’d never really had a pet before, other than a couple hamsters and a fish. We hadn’t been allowed to, when we lived in this house as a family, because my dad said he was allergic. Said—I never saw any evidence of the allergy, even on the rare occasions when we were at someone else’s house who had a dog or near someone whose clothes were covered in cat hair. For all I knew he was allergic, but I had my suspicions.

Once I’d moved out with my mom, I’d asked her to get a cat. The one I was interested in was a beautiful Russian blue who’d landed in a shelter because she had feline immunodeficiency virus, and I’d tried to sell my mom on how the shelter gave you everything you needed to take the cat home.