Page 30 of Matchmaking for Psychopaths

I met Aidan at a coffee shop the following day. Between the flower delivery and Paul’s intrusion, the office, which had consistently felt like a safe space, had become something dangerous.

Aidan showed up wearing his pilot’s uniform. It made him look like a different person, a mask of professionalism covering his rougher edges. I understood how wealthy people could look at him and trust him enough to pay him to take them into the sky.

The uniform must’ve had some effect on me as well, because we hugged in greeting.

I hadn’t realized that I needed comfort until I had it.

He smelled good, like a man who considered how others perceived him.

I leaned in too long, and then remembered the identity of the man whose arms were wrapped around me and started to pull away.

As I did, my head turned in such a way that my lips accidentally brushed against Aidan’s, and I realized that he’d been about to kiss my cheek when I moved.

I hurried to create distance between us, my brain unhelpfully reminding me of how we’d kissed the night that we met.

What can it hurt? He likes you. It’ll make Noah jealous.

You’ve had a tough week—you deserve a little sugar, said my worst impulses.

I sat down at the nearest table.

“Something to drink?” Aidan asked, still standing. I could tell he was pleased, which irritated me.

“A latte would be great,” I told him.

Ordinarily I would never let a client purchase a beverage for me, but my life had stopped being ordinary when a human heart arrived at my door—or, perhaps more accurately, when my parents had murdered all of those women.

I had insisted upon being a stickler for the rules because I knew the kinds of things that happened to people who resided outside the confines of morality.

I collected myself while Aidan waited in line. I calmed the thumping in my chest, and picked at a hangnail. When my life calmed down, I would need a manicure. I was doing my best to hold myself together under stressful circumstances, but the body always revealed the truth.

“Is this a date?” Aidan asked when he sat down.

He had a mug of black coffee. I wondered if he sincerely enjoyed the taste or if he drank it to prove some kind of manliness.

If women had won any war, it was that drinks that tasted good—iced lattes, blended cocktails—were identified as feminine, with the power of emasculating male drinkers.

It seemed unlikely that Aidan was self-conscious about what he drank, but I knew better than to doubt a man’s ego.

“No,” I said firmly. “I wanted to talk to you more about what you’re looking for in a romantic partner, and I thought it might be nice to get out of the office.”

“I think I’ve been very clear about what I’m looking for,” Aidan said. He picked up his mug, took a sip, and set it down again without breaking eye contact.

If I were prone to blushing, I would’ve been bright red.

Though I knew that the two of us could never be involved—that I didn’t want to be involved, because I still, however futilely, hoped that Noah would return and be mine—the continued pursuit was flattering.

I was attractive, but not the same way that Aidan was.

I’d seen how the barista grew flustered when he ordered his drink.

Aidan’s appeal was more than just looks.

There was something about the way he carried himself—a swagger to his walk, a confidence in his posture.

Admittedly, I didn’t look my best. After the encounter with Paul, Serena had let me go home early, which felt like a punishment.

My mind had jumped from the flowers to the heart to my missing fiancé, and back again.

I’d tried to watch a Netflix rom-com and ended up scrolling social media, looking for signs of Noah.

Noah is missing. What if he’s dead?

Alarmingly, some of his coworkers had tagged him in posts asking whether anyone knew his whereabouts.

He hadn’t shown up to work since the previous week, and they were concerned.

I was concerned too. Noah never missed work.

It took precedence over everything else.

He’d decided at a young age that he was going to be a doctor, and every major decision he’d made since had centered around that choice.

When we’d first started dating, he told me that it was good that we’d met when we had, because he wanted to get married after he finished his residency.

There was no way that he would put that at risk, not when he was so close to being done.

I mentally listed the possibilities from most palatable to least:

Someone had kidnapped Noah and was holding him against his will. Doctors, like matchmakers, inspired all kinds of negative emotions when they didn’t give the kinds of results that their patients wanted. As a strong man who routinely went to the gym, he would fight his way free and seek help.

Noah had gotten into some kind of accident that rendered him unable to get help. Eventually someone would find him, and I could help him heal the same way that he’d done with me.

Noah was dead.

Noah was dead and it somehow related to me.

Noah was dead and his heart had been delivered to my doorstep, wrapped in a bow.

I didn’t know how to comprehend any of the options. Noah’s coworkers remained hopeful that he would be found. That was human nature. Even when my parents were slaughtering women, their victims maintained an optimism that they might change their minds.

“Please, you don’t have to do this. It’s not too late to stop. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve done if you just let me live.”

My response was more realistic—I got blackout drunk and hoped that no more body parts showed up at my doorstep.

I woke up in the morning and found evidence of the previous night’s activities on my phone.

I’d texted Rebecca about the situation with Paul.

Paul showed up at my office today. He was upset that you didn’t want a second date. What did you do to him?

OMG. Are you okay? He kept texting and calling so I blocked his number. I didn’t think that he would bother you.

I’m okay. A little shaken up. They took him to the drunk tank to cool off.

He was drunk??? Yikes. What a psycho.

Right? Good thing that you didn’t go out with him again. Do you still want to go out with Tyler? I wouldn’t blame you for saying no.

Yeah. I’ll meet Tyler. I’m just sorry that you had to go through that.

It’s on me. I should’ve known that the two of you weren’t a match from the jump.

Another thing I’d done was text Aidan. I wasn’t even aware that I’d saved his number in my phone, but apparently I had, under “Handsome Man.” Oh no.

What had I said? Why couldn’t I stay away from him?

There was something that drew me to Aidan when my defenses were down.

It was like food that made my stomach hurt but that I couldn’t stop eating.

We need to meet.

The time stamps showed that he responded quickly, like he’d been waiting for me to reach out.

You name it.

Coffee tomorrow? 9am?

I named a local place. It was unclear whether I understood the implications of what I was writing. Aidan hadn’t been wrong—it had sounded like a date.

Looking forward to it.

I tried to guess my own motivations. Had I texted Aidan because there was some small part of me that was attracted to him?

Or had I done it because I suspected that he had something to do with the heart delivered to my house, the flowers to my office?

Unfortunately, I was prone to using the phrase “two birds, one stone.”

With Aidan seated across from me, I attempted to regain my footing. One of the reasons that I enjoyed being a matchmaker was because it made me feel like I could control destiny, my own included.

“Why did you turn Mary down?” I asked.

“She’s not the kind of person I’m looking for.”

“How do you know? You haven’t even met her.”

“I can tell. You understand that, don’t you? Looking at a person and knowing that you’re meant to be. By the way, how are things with that fiancé of yours?”

He delighted in the question like he knew things weren’t right.

Could Aidan have done something to him? Was Aidan the one who delivered a heart to my house?

I didn’t know how to answer. I was like a basketball player who’d forgotten how to put up a shot.

An intrusion: Noah is missing. What if he’s dead?

“That’s not why we’re here,” I said.

“Then why are we here? There’s something on your mind, Lexie. I can tell. This isn’t about Mary.”

There was concern on his face, and I struggled to ascertain his sincerity.

The skepticism was something that my parents had given me.

I’d watched them lie and lie and lie, their expressions conveying utter honesty and then, as soon as they were out of hearing range, they’d burst into laughter over how gullible people were.

I’d learned to assume that no one really meant anything that they said.

Aidan might’ve looked like he cared, but Aidan was also a psychopath.

“Some strange things have been happening,” I said. “I’ve been getting…gifts.”

“Gifts? You make it sound like a bad thing. Normally women love getting presents.”

“They’re anonymous.”

“So a secret admirer?”

“They’re not nice gifts.”

“Cheap?”

“No, threatening.”

Aidan took a sip of his coffee. He stared intently at a picture on the wall, an amateur painting of a local landmark.

“You think that I sent them.” His voice was quiet. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve guessed that he was sad.

“No.” The lie was an impulse. I wished that I could remember what he’d told me the night we first met.

I’d told him who my parents were, but why?

What could he have said to make me trust him like that?

It wasn’t like me. I’d done everything in my power to escape their shadow.

I’d revealed myself to Molly, and clearly that had been a mistake.

Instead of bringing us closer together, my secrets became a weapon for her to wield against me.

“I mean, maybe. Whoever is sending them knows things about me. There might even be multiple people—I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“What did they give you?”

“I can’t say.”

“Why don’t you trust me, Lexie?”

“I barely know you.”

“That’s not true. What about the night that we spent together?”

“I thought I would never see you again. I just needed someone to vent to.”

Aidan shook his head.

“No. It was more than that and you know it, Lexie. I think that you’re scared of getting close to someone. That’s why you want your fiancé back, because he’ll always be at a distance. You can’t be with me because I know who you are. I know about your parents.”

The invocation of my parents in the coffee shop felt like a bullet.

I looked around to see if anyone had noticed the comment or my distress, but they continued to move about their lives like Aidan and I were normal people discussing normal things.

Aidan’s phrasing was also alarmingly similar to the wording used in the card I’d received at work.

“You sent me the flowers, didn’t you?” I said.

Aidan let out a painful laugh.

“You’re in denial,” he said. “You’re scared to let yourself have what you really want. You’re making me the villain because it’s easy.”

“I’m making you the villain because that’s what you are. Did you send the heart too? Did you do something to Noah?”

“Whoa, wait a minute. What happened to Noah?”

He sounded so sincere in his surprise, like he hadn’t known that Noah was missing.

I disliked the popularization of the term “gaslighting,” because most of the time people used it incorrectly.

They didn’t know what it was like to grow up with chronic liars.

This is the world, my parents had told me, and I believed them until the paint started to peel.

Aidan had the same effect. I started to doubt myself.

What if it hadn’t been him? What if Noah was fine?

Was that really a human heart that I’d held in my hands, or was it something else entirely?

“Never mind,” I said. “Forget that I mentioned it. I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this. I’ll match you with someone else, but you have to give them a chance, okay? You’re never going to find the love of your life if you continue to judge people based on first impressions.”

“Okay, I’ll give them a chance. But I think that you’ve gotten too deep into matchmaking, Lexie. Sometimes people just know that they’re meant for each other.”

“Sometimes people are wrong,” I told him.

I left the coffee shop more rattled than when I’d arrived.

It was possible that Aidan was feigning his shock at the news of Noah’s disappearance.

Psychopaths, after all, were known for their acting abilities.

But what if he’d been sincere? That meant either that Noah was alive and Aidan was delivering me parts of someone else’s body or that Aidan hadn’t done it at all.

Molly, my brain hissed, followed by Mom .