People Like Us(55)
“By hooking up with Brie in my bed?”
“It was a mistake, it wasn’t about you, and I regret it. You can’t possibly say the same.”
“I did regret it. The second I woke up, reality hit and I wanted them gone.”
The words knock me breathless. I look up suddenly, and stop cold. His car is parked at the curve of the path. “Where are you?”
“Driving in circles.”
I turn around slowly, but I’m completely alone. I’ve come far enough along the path that the thorny hedges and thick border of trees now separate me from the campus buildings. That’s definitely his car, the battered, ancient Volvo with a dented hood and smashed left headlight. I begin to back down the path toward campus, keeping my eye on his car. “Where?”
“Near campus. Want me to come get you?”
“Why are you here?”
“Because—”
“Why are you always here?”
I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see him walking down the path, and I break into a run. I hear him follow, and I sprint toward his car. There’s no other option. The thornbushes are too thick; they’ll only ensnare me, and the lake will similarly suspend me. He calls after me to stop, and I shout that I’ll stop if he does. I finally slow when I reach his car and hear him halt behind me. I turn around to see him a good ten yards back. We’re at the edge of the village now, and since it’s the middle of the day, people are strolling from shop to shop. I beckon him toward me cautiously.
“What did I do, Katie?”
“Don’t call me Katie. Especially not now.”
He closes the last few steps between us and looks down at me, the liveliness gone from his eyes, his face a wreck. He smells like cigarettes and coffee and he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days. “I don’t know what you want from me anymore.”
“I want to know how far you’d go to hurt me.”
He closes his eyes and a ghostly cloud of breath escapes his lips. “I didn’t sleep with Maddy to hurt you. It just happened.”
“Jessica?”
“Maybe.” He opens his eyes. They are the same pale blue I fell almost in love with, but the angelic-demonic paradox is gone. They are blank and broken and empty. “Did it work?”
“Did you kill Maddy to hurt me?” The words sting my mouth, but I have to say them. It will hurt worse if I don’t. I can’t stand uncertainty anymore, not even the shadow of it.
He takes my hands in his and turns them over, examining my palms. Then he traces a line and looks up at me, one last spark igniting in his eyes with a twisted smile. “You see this line? Everyone focuses on the life line and the love line. This is the killer line. You’re a killer, Kay. You look so innocent, but you shatter everything you touch.” He pauses, and then presses my hand to his lips.
“That’s not fair,” I whisper.
His eyes fill and he closes them. “No. Not everything. Just everyone who loves you.”
He drops my hand and walks back to his car, leaving me standing frozen and speechless.
Then something inside me hardens. “Well, everyone you fuck is dead, Spence.”
A disquieting calm falls between us, and for a moment the rest of the world goes silent. The image of him with Jessica, dead, flashes in my head once more. “That’s one hell of a coincidence.”
He eases back onto the hood of his car and places his hands over his mouth. “Do you think I killed Maddy?”
“I don’t know who did it.” I flick my eyes over to the village. There’s no one passing by just now. Just Spencer and his car in front of me, a barrier of thorns to one side, and to my other, the lake where Jessica was murdered.
Spencer hops off the car and I take a defensive step back, but he turns away from me and yanks the door open.
“Good-bye, Katie.”
Then he’s gone.
* * *
? ? ?
I TRY NOLA again, and finally dial Greg’s number, even though he has no reason to speak to me again after what I did to him.
He answers on the first ring. “Ms. Kay Donovan,” he says in a pleasant voice. Clearly, he doesn’t know what I did. On the plus side, it doesn’t sound like it did too much damage.
“Are you busy?”
His voice sobers. “Are you crying?”
“I just need to talk to someone.”
“I’m not busy. Are you okay?”
“The polar opposite.”
“Want me to come get you?”
“Can you meet me at Cat Café?”
“Sure. Do you need anything?”
“Just be there.” I hang up. My nerves are too raw to design my answers with wit or grace.
I barely recognize myself in my reflection in the glass door of the café. The cold and the crying fit have puffed my face out to twice its size. My eyes look swollen and bruised, and my lips are dry and pale. I haven’t showered in over a day, and my hair is matted and frizzy, escaping from its ponytail in wild bursts. I order a decaf tea, load it with lemon wedges and sugar, and blow my nose into a wad of napkins. Then I settle myself into a corner table far from where icy air is leaking into the room through the front door.
A freezing gust of wind sweeps in with Greg. He jumps over a table and sits down across from me.