Page 35 of Matchmaking for Psychopaths

It was easy to be lulled into a sense of safety in Rebecca’s orbit.

The intrusive thought Noah’s dead still reverberated through my skull, but her presence dulled it to a whisper. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed someone—needed her.

I woke in the morning to find the bed empty next to me. It was reminiscent of the night that I spent with Aidan—a connection that disturbed me—until I heard the sound of pots and pans in the kitchen. I wandered out of the bedroom and found Rebecca standing over a skillet, frying pancakes.

“Good morning, beautiful. How did you sleep?” she asked as she handed me a cup of coffee.

“Great,” I told her, not mentioning that I woke up several times in the night with my brain going Sleepover! I’m at a sleepover! like some kind of bad remix of the film 13 Going on 30 .

On one of the stools that lined the kitchen island, I took a seat in front of a stack of pancakes and poured maple syrup over them.

“I got the recipe from someone I dated. He refused to give it to me for weeks, and then, as soon as he did, I ended things. It was worth it though, all the mediocre sex that I’d had to endure,” Rebecca said.

I took a bite. They really were good. For some reason, breakfast was considered a “manly” meal, and a variety of men had made it for me as a form of proof.

Look at me! I can make an omelet! Would you like creamer in your coffee?

Noah, a noted noncook, was exceptionally proud of his ability to make eggs, a food that he ate regardless of the time of day.

On the rare morning that he was still at home when I woke, he liked to present me with a plate of food before I left for work, an effort that I found touching.

However, Noah’s eggs were nowhere near as tasty as Rebecca’s pancakes, which seemed like something that might be served at an expensive brunch.

I ignored the sting that came with the thought that Noah would never make me—or anyone—eggs again.

The scene was exactly as movies had led me to believe breakfast after a sleepover would be, which was a rare feat, for real life to live up to film.

Despite my carb-and-sugar-laden meal, I felt light as I headed into work.

Sure, someone had murdered my fiancé and was delivering him, piece by piece, to my house, and sure, that someone was probably the psychopath who insisted that we were meant to be together, but the future was bright.

In some ways, Noah’s having been forcibly removed from my life made things easier, because it meant that I no longer needed to fixate on him.

I would find someone new and better, the same way that I’d found Rebecca as a replacement for Molly.

That’s why what I discovered when I arrived at the Better Love office came as such a shock.

I’d shown up late because I’d had to take an Uber to my car, and then drive to my house to change.

Serena wasn’t usually a stickler for punctuality, and after what had happened with Paul she’d told me it was fine to take time away from the office as needed.

My grief over Noah was another, unspoken excuse.

In any other circumstances, no one would’ve even noticed my late arrival, and everyone would have been in their offices, trying to finish up their work for the week in order to enjoy the weekend.

As it was, every single Better Love employee was standing outside the building, and when I arrived, they all turned to look at me in a way that let me know that whatever was happening, I was somehow implicated in it.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We had to evacuate. The police are on their way,” Oliver told me.

“Why?”

“Because there are body parts inside,” Nicole said. Her voice occupied a strange register between hysteria and glee.

“What?”

I suddenly regretted eating so many pancakes.

My stomach roiled, and I could feel bile in the back of my throat.

The night I’d spent with Rebecca had given me a false sense of security.

When I’d gone home and found nothing new there, I’d hoped that Noah’s murderer’s reign of terror—whoever they were—was over.

I’d been so wrong. While I lay in bed, eating snacks with Rebecca and telling her the saga of Noah and Molly, someone had been strewing the remainder of Noah’s body parts around Better Love.

It was only a matter of time before the police ran the DNA and discovered that the body parts belonged to the missing medical resident.

There was little comfort in the fact that I’d spent the night with Rebecca, and therefore couldn’t have planted the remains.

The narrative was too good. I was the daughter of serial murderers and had recently been dumped.

On top of that, I had actually buried other pieces of the corpse in the woods.

I’d been careful, but it was impossible to have been careful enough when you were a suspect.

I debated my options. My first impulse was to flee.

I thought of an episode of Real Housewives in which a cast member was arrested.

She’d tried to run, which had made for excellent television and a poor defense.

I imagined escaping was feasible only for millionaires, who had the kinds of funds that would allow them to relocate to countries that didn’t extradite to the US.

I didn’t even know what countries those were.

No, I would have to stay and fight. I tried to think of any lawyers I knew, and I couldn’t come up with any.

It was likely that the lawyers my parents had used had retired or passed in the years since the trial.

Then there was the mortification of being a grieving person.

In a strange way, I found it less embarrassing to be thought of as a killer than to be seen as a wounded woman.

I couldn’t deal with the pity. It would all come out at once—Noah leaving me for Molly, my pathetic attempt to get him back, and his subsequent death.

Everyone would know I was sad. It was possible that even my mother in prison would have access to the news and would bear witness to my downfall.

Just as I started to really panic, Oliver said, “I don’t think they’re real body parts.”

“What do you mean, ‘not real body parts’?” I asked.

“You’ll see. It looks like a Ryan Murphy show in there.”

“They could be real,” Nicole said defensively as a police car, its lights flashing, pulled up to the scene.

Serena greeted the police, shaking the officers’ hands like they were there to help.

What would she do if they tried to take me away?

Would she defend me? I know Alexandra. She would never do something like this.

Or would she let them march off with me forever, the way that I had with my parents?

I tried to reassure myself that Oliver was probably right, that the body parts were fake, the whole thing a prank.

“Whoever did it obviously has it out for you, Lexie,” Nicole told me.

My head swiveled from the officers, now entering the building, to Nicole’s face.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they wrote ‘matchmaking for psychopaths’ on the wall. That’s obviously about you, right?”

There was that stomach roiling again. No matter what was unfolding in front of me, I probably needed to use the bathroom sooner rather than later.

“Not necessarily,” I replied, though I knew she was right.

Two police officers emerged from the building. Despite my efforts to will them in the direction of their car, they approached the huddle of matchmakers.

“How can we assist you, officers?” Nicole asked, her voice suddenly like a baby’s.

I did my best to shrink, which was difficult inside my puffy jacket.

“We need to talk with Alexandra Smith,” one of them said.

My parents were arrested twenty years prior, and in a different state, which meant that neither of the officers in front of me had been present. However, my brain interpreted them as the same officers as back then. The only difference now was that it was me they wanted to take away.

I coughed.

“What is it that you need?”

“It would probably be best to discuss this inside,” one of the officers said.

I followed them to the door like they were the ones who worked in the office and I was a visitor.

The carnage was immediately apparent. There was red paint thrown about the room, most of it still wet.

Mixed in with the paint were plastic mannequin limbs.

Though they looked wholly different from the real body parts that were delivered to my house, there was something unsettling about them.

It felt like something human had been torn apart.

As Nicole had mentioned, someone had written MATCHMAKING FOR PSYCHOPATHS in dripping red paint on one wall.

The paint was blood for people who had never seen blood before.

“If you could keep moving, please…” one of the officers said.

“Sorry,” I said.

We sat down at the conference table. I still needed to use the restroom, but I was scared to ask if I could go. The limbs in the lobby were fake, the blood obviously paint, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in trouble for something.

“We understand that, a few days ago, there was an incident with one of your clients,” an officer began.

It took me a second to catch up. Paul. I’d forgotten about him. Could he have done this? He’d certainly seemed angry enough, but the messaging was confusing. He didn’t know that I worked with psychopaths. He didn’t know what he was.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “I set one of my clients up on a date, and when she refused to go on a second, he got angry with me.”

“Have you received any correspondence from Paul since then?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Do you have any other clients that you think might’ve done something like this?”