Page 28

TWENTY-EIGHT

AMETHYST

I return shaken to Parisii Drive, having spent the night sleeping in my car. Mom rushed into the bedroom after I screamed and tried to convince me that what I saw was a hallucination.

It wasn’t.

The vision of Uncle Clive hovering over me is hermetically sealed in my brain and playing on repeat. I don’t understand why Mom would fight so hard to protect a predator. It’s obvious that he planned to suffocate me with that pillow.

The words, ‘I know what you did’ run through my mind like a mantra. Was he talking about the time I pushed Mr. Lawson off the school’s roof garden? Men who get hounded by vigilante mobs probably despise girls who take justice into their own hands.

At this time of the morning, my road is quiet, save for the distant rumble of traffic. Sunlight warms the townhouses’ facades, making the road look like it isn’t a murder spot. I step out of the car and hover outside my door, wondering what I’ll find inside. Jake’s corpse? The Grim Reaper? Another red envelope containing Gavin’s left hand?

If Myra lived alone, I would drive straight to her place, but she’s crashing on a friend’s couch. Besides, I love her too much to bring her into contact with an angry ghost.

Suppressing a shudder, I open my front door and step inside. The narrow hallway is exactly as I left it, but the house smells different. I sniff the air, filling my senses with the scent of sawdust, dirt, and formaldehyde. Or maybe what I’m sniffing is just hydrogen peroxide and blood?

I walk around, checking what might have changed in my week’s absence. There’s a bottle of Armagnac on the living room table but no glass. I must have left it there the day Gavin came to restore my account.

The green room is exactly the same, save for the faint smell of chemicals. I rub the back of my neck, wondering what it could mean, and continue to the kitchen.

My heart pounds as I glance around at the tiled floor and black cabinets, finding no traces of Jake’s corpse. It’s over. I got away with killing that asshole and disposing of his body. I won’t allow myself to feel an ounce of guilt because it was self-defense. If Jake wanted to stay alive, he shouldn’t have tracked me down and shoved his way into my home.

Fuck that guy. I hope he’s burning in hell.

As I turn back toward the hallway, my gaze lands on a flash of white. On the kitchen table lies a sheet of paper, still warped from being creased. Holding my breath, I walk over to scan its contents.

It’s a contract.

My stomach plummets.

Staring up at me is the agreement I signed with Xero. It’s written in his spiky handwriting and was meant to be a bit of fun—something to spice up the phone sex, where I let him know which sexual practices I wanted to explore and the ones that were hard limits.

With trembling fingers, I pick up the four sheets and review what I checked. I agreed to all forms of breath play, humiliation, facials, bondage, exhibitionism, voyeurism and a whole host of kinks. I wanted to try everything except watersports and scat.

After glaring at my signature on the back, I glance over my shoulder toward the hallway, expecting to see Xero’s ghost. When he doesn’t materialize, I turn to the window and peer down the length of the garden but find no one standing by the trees.

I’m not hallucinating this piece of paper.

Someone or something has been in my house, and I won’t stick around to find out who.

A knock sounds on the front door, making my heart clench with alarm. I set down the sex contract and creep on tiptoes down the hallway toward the sound. My pulse pounds through my eardrums, sending its reverberations to my bones.

What if I open the door and find Jake’s corpse? That’s ridiculous. Nothing of the sort will happen because I’m back on the meds.

One cautious glance through the peephole tells me that I got rattled for nothing. It’s only Mrs. Baker. Relief loosens my chest, mingled with a touch of frustration. Why the hell am I always on edge? Every sound isn’t a bad omen. Shaking off those thoughts, I open the door.

Mrs. Baker is a retired actress in her late seventies, whom I’ve never seen without bright red lipstick or a smile. No matter the time of day, she’s always decked in something glamorous. This morning, it’s a cream cashmere sweater with matching lounge pants, which she’s paired with a string of pearls.

“Amethyst,” she says, her voice carrying like she’s onstage. “Reverend Tom said you wanted to see me.”

It takes a moment to register that she’s talking about the time I knocked on her door after she’d gone to sleep.

“Oh, it was nothing.” I run a hand through the blonde side of my curls. “I just wanted to know if you had a free room.”

She remains standing on the doorstep, waiting for me to elaborate, so I word-vomit the same garbled story about a friend who wanted a place to stay. When she continues staring, I gulp. What will I do if she mentions me dragging Jake’s corpse down to the cemetery?

“Have you completed the work?” she asks.

My brows pinch together. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been gone for a week. I presume it’s because you were having work done to your house?”

I shift on my feet, wondering if she’s confusing me with Reverend Tom, who’s having his rectory fumigated. When Mrs. Baker tilts her head, expecting an answer, I mutter, “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Because my boarders don’t appreciate the noise.” She walks away, leaving a cloud of Chanel N°5.

I don’t have the mental bandwidth to ask what she means, so I retreat into the house. My body is finally getting used to the drugs, and my mind no longer feels so sluggish. It’s time to focus on completing the manuscript so I can at least have a draft ready in time for the book fair.

Ten hours later, after a couple of catnaps and copious amounts of caffeine, I’m sitting in my upstairs study, staring at the computer screen. The room is dark since I haven’t moved since I started working. I finally have seventy-thousand words, but I’m struggling with the final chapters. The heroine of my reworked story missed the execution because a copycat killer tried to make her his first victim, but she fought for her life and chased him away with scalding water.

The copycat then attacks her online presence, trying to isolate her from her fans. Then he returns the next day and forces her to watch a video of the execution. The heroine smashes a bottle of Armagnac over his head and drives away.

I stare at the manuscript, wondering what the fuck I’m writing. “This is going around in circles.”

There’s no point in fretting when I have an agent, so I email the latest version to Myra with a note asking what she thinks. If her response is lukewarm, then I’ll scrap the last twenty-thousand words and pad out the middle.

Maybe I could turn the morning phone sex to conjugal visits? I could bring the wedding forward, perhaps to the midpoint, and then fill the rest of the pages with smut.

The sound of smashing glass has me rising off my seat and walking to the window. Outside, Sparrow stands beneath a streetlight and tosses a bottle into the road, letting it splinter into pieces. His brother, Wilder, grabs his arm, urging him to stop, but Sparrow shoves him aside.

My lips purse. He’s probably pissed because Relaney finally ordered them to leave. The pair continue jostling each other, causing an almighty ruckus. I glance around at the other windows, finding that I’m the only person watching. Someone needs to call the cops. No one wants to walk or drive over that broken glass.

I’m about to retreat from the window when Wilder turns around and waves me over. I point at my chest and he nods, seeming to want me to calm down his brother.

That’s not going to happen. I don’t want to get involved.

When I return to my laptop, the screen is blank. I turn it back on, only to find it restored to factory settings. My breath catches. My gut roils with dread. All my files, all my photos, all my documents are gone.

Along with my fucking manuscript.

Panic punches through my ribcage and squeezes my heart. I gape at the screen, not quite believing my laptop could just delete itself, so I call Myra and reboot.

She answers in one ring. “Hey?—”

“Do you have the latest version of the manuscript?” I ask, my voice quickening.

“About that.” Hesitating, she draws in a long breath. “I’m not feeling that extra storyline. People want to read about the sexy killer with the pierced cock, not some bumbling copycat the same height as the heroine.”

“Right, but do you still have a copy?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“My computer just wiped everything. All my files are gone.”

“Oh, shit,” she shrieks. “Let me check.”

I clasp an arm over my belly, which won’t stop sinking with impending doom. It’s not just the manuscript I’ve lost, but all my replies to Xero’s letters. They were scanned before mailing, and the originals are in the penitentiary. As I wait for Myra to get back to the phone, I walk to my little filing cabinet to check on the letters I received from Xero .

It’s empty. They’re gone.

All that’s left is a note in Xero’s spiky handwriting that says one word: NO.

Tears prick the corners of my eyes. Whoever left the contract also broke into my house and took the letters.

“Amy?” Myra’s voice sounds from the receiver.

I bring the phone to my ear. “Yes?”

“My laptop got hit with a virus.”

I slump down on my desk chair, my lungs deflating. “You’re joking.”

“No. I also logged into my email and every single message containing the manuscript has been deleted.”

My breath hitches. “It’s the ghost.”

“It isn’t,” she says, her voice strained. “It’s a hacker. Someone out there doesn’t want you to release the book. Probably an online troll.”

I gulp over and over, my breath quickening. “Maybe this is a sign that we shouldn’t. All the letters Xero sent me are missing from my filing cabinet. I know you bought us tickets for the book fair, but I can pay you back?—”

“We’re going,” she says, her voice laced with steel. “I believe in you and your talent. If the epistolary story doesn’t work out, we’ll find something else. Something better. Something spicier. People have gotten book contracts with far fewer followers.”

I chew on my bottom lip. “But I’ve been banned.”

“Set up a second account. You can rebuild your following. Do it now.” She hangs up, presumably to get her computer fixed.

Instead of setting up a new account as she suggested, I walk to the bedroom and refresh my overnight bag. That sex contract didn’t appear on the kitchen table for no reason. But my consent only extends to Xero, and I’ll be damned if I fall asleep in this house to be molested by a malevolent presence.

By the time I step outside, Sparrow and Wilder are gone, as are all traces of the broken bottles. I ring Relaney’s doorbell, and she answers within seconds.

Her huge blonde afro is held back by a headband made of white fabric that matches her floaty, white mumu, and the lava lamps cluttering her hallway shine through the loose strands with reds and blues and greens.

“Amethyst,” she says with a broad smile. “Where have you been? I thought you’d return for another seance.”

“I’m here now. Can I stay the night?