Page 111 of For Your Own Good

So is poisoning people.

Can’t argue with that.

Again, he thinks of Crutcher. Of that book in his desk, of his interview on TV. It reminds him of those true crime shows and podcasts. Sometimes, killers can’t help but put themselves in the spotlight. It makes them relive the crime over and over again.

But Crutcher?

All of this floats around in Zach’s mind as he tries to come up with an answer that never comes. The only thing it does is distract him, and now he can’t think about his assignment at all.

Sneaking out has never been a problem—he’s been doing it since he was fourteen. The house is more than big enough that it’s easy not to wake anyone up.

At first, when he gets in his car, he doesn’t know where he’s going. No plan, no destination. At least that’s what he tells himself. When he ends up on the other side of town, near the Grove, he knows he’s been headed here the whole time.

Crutcher’s house is set back from the street like all the old houses in this area. Most have been redone, but his is a wreck. Not in that cool old haunted-house kind of way, either. From the outside, his house looks like a teardown.

Except the yard. There isn’t one.

Even in winter, the houses around here have gardens and plants. No flowers or fruit, but the plants are there, dormant until spring.

Crutcher doesn’t have anything. It looks like the front yard has been bulldozed.

Zach pulls over and turns off his car. The street is quiet, and all the lights at Crutcher’s house are off. Not surprising. He seems like an early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise kind of guy.

Out of the corner of his eye, a movement makes Zach turn. Across the street, a car is parked parallel to his. It’s old and a bit run-down, and it’s not empty. The woman in the driver’s seat looks as surprised to see him as he is to see her.

He waves, like it isn’t weird at all to see Mrs.B’s replacement sitting outside Crutcher’s house.

68

FALLON WATCHES ZACHWard drive away, her attention now on the taillights of his car instead of on downloading video from the mailbox camera.

Her first thought is that she’s been caught. Up until this minute, she’s never seen anyone she knows at Teddy’s house, but now she’s been recognized. In the middle of the night, no less. It makes her wonder if Zach has seen her out here before. Maybe he even knows her car.

She looks him up online, searching for his address.

He doesn’t live near Teddy. Not even close.

So maybe he has friends or a girlfriend around here. Impossible to tell, especially since she barely knows him in the first place. Never even spoken to him.

She finishes downloading the video, resets the camera, and drives back to her place. At this point, she’s not even sure how useful the mailbox footage is. All it shows is Teddy coming and going. No one visits. No one approaches his door except delivery drivers.

Ruining his life would be a lot easier if he had a constant stream of sex workers and drugs dealers stopping by.

Of course, he’d probably make them use the back door.

The guys at Belmont used to describe girls like that. You were either a house cat or an alley cat. Some girls would be introduced to parents; others wouldn’t be.

Fallon was always a house cat.

Her first boyfriend was Jeremy Locke, a rich kid with a background similar to hers. Same pushy parents, too. They talked about that a lot, talked about the pressure to get into a good school. The pressure to succeed. At Belmont, it was a way of life.

She loved Jeremy, as much as any high school girl could love a boy, and everything was perfect until her parents found out.

“He’s a distraction,” her father had said.

“He’s not,” she’d argued. “I swear he’s not.”

They didn’t believe her, didn’t care. One phone call from her mother to Jeremy’s ended everything.