Page 25 of Speak of the Devil (New Hope 3)

And how well can you really ever know anyone?

“She’s lovely,” I confess.

“She’s chaos.” Her voice is warm. She looks over at me and props her head on her elbow. I follow suit. Mirroring is powerful.

Despite the fact that I’ve done my job, having an exit strategy is important. This is a sign I need to start considering mine.

Her eyes narrow. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“I’ll keep it till the day I die.” This feels like the opposite of an exit strategy. In a way, it’s supposed to.

“I never wanted kids. They complicate everything. They make you feel things you don’t want to feel…”

“Like guilt?” Sometimes it’s best to hit things head-on.

“Exactly,” she says. “Like guilt.”

“It doesn’t make you a bad person for wanting something for yourself.”

Her brow furrows. “When did you get so wise?”

I don’t answer. She flips through photos.

“My son,” she tells me, pausing. She holds the phone toward my face.

“He looks like you.”

She laughs. “Poor kid.”

“He’s lucky.”

Her face scrunches up. She wants to believe me. They usually do.

“Wait. Is that your husband?” I use my finger to scroll back to a photo of her and a man. I know him. Well, not really. But I’ve seen that face before. Just the other night, in fact.

When she flips back to it and holds it up, she says, “No, that’s nobody.” She studies the photo carefully. I do too. The two of them are at a business dinner. A black-tie function, she mentions. “He looks nice, doesn’t he?”

I glance at her phone and shrug.

She chews at her lip. “He’s very charming…”

I shift to get a better perspective. “I can see that.”

“He’s poison, is what he is.” Her eyes meet mine. “A heartless bastard.”

I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know why I’m doing what I’m about to do. It’s never happened before, and it must never happen again. My hands shake as I tap the delete button. I don’t know what’s come over me. I should stop there, while there’s still hope. But that’s not what I do. I scroll through the file that contains the deleted videos on my phone. I erase it from the deleted folder. It might as well have never existed.

I guess there’s a first time for everything.

I text Sean the photo of her. Fully clothed. No luck, I wrote. She wasn’t open.

I copy the text and send it to Adam’s assistant.

The following morning, I wake up in the rejuvenation center.

Chapter Ten

Elliot