Page 42

I reach for the air conditioning controls, needing something to do with my hands, some excuse for the restless energy thrumming through me.

The digital display glows blue as I adjust the temperature, then the fan speed, then the direction of the vents.

Anything to avoid looking at him, avoid acknowledging the way his presence seems to fill every inch of this enclosed space.

My fingers are sticky with syrup from breakfast. The sweetness clinging to my skin is a sensory anchor to the mundane world, to the version of myself who ate pancakes and laughed at Thatcher’s jokes like we were a normal couple on a normal date.

But we’re not normal, are we? Nothing about this is normal.

I lean forward to open the glove compartment, searching for tissues or napkins, anything to clean the syrup residue from my fingertips. The compartment opens with a soft click, revealing the usual car detritus—registration papers, a phone charger, breath mints.

My hand brushes against something that crinkles softly, the sound distinct and somehow ominous in the quiet car. It’s wedged beneath the owner’s manual, just a corner visible. Without thinking, I pull it out.

“Put that back,” Thatcher says.

He tries to grab them, but now I’m curious, pulling out of his reach.

A small envelope of Fujifilm Instax photos slides into my palm, the kind of instant film pictures that develop right before your eyes. Curiosity overrides caution as I flip open the envelope, extracting the small square photographs. The first one slides out easily, and my world tilts sideways.

“Dove, I fucking said–”

But it’s too late.

Jack’s face stares back at me, eyes closed, dark hair matted with blood that spreads in an abstract pattern across the hardwood floor. The image is stark, clinical in its clarity, and for a moment my brain simply refuses to process what I’m seeing.

But then the details register. He’s breathing. He’s alive.

My hands begin to shake, a tremor that starts in my fingertips and spreads up my arms like an earthquake. The photo flutters between my fingers as I stare at it, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.

There’s another photo behind it. With numb fingers, I slide it out, already knowing what I’ll find but hoping desperately that I’m wrong.

The same scene. The same angle. More blood has pooled beneath his head, a dark halo that wasn’t there in the first picture. His last moments between life and death.

“What the fuck is this?” The words tear from my throat, hoarse and broken, barely recognizable as my own voice.

Thatcher glances over from the driver’s seat, his eyes flicking to the photos in my trembling hands. I watch his jaw tighten, see the muscle tick beneath his skin.

“Put those back, Rhea.” His voice is calm, controlled, as if I’m holding something as innocuous as grocery receipts instead of evidence of a murder.

“No.” The word comes out sharp, brittle with panic. “No, what the hell is this? Why do you have pictures of—”

I stop, staring at the photos again, my mind racing to catch up with what my eyes are showing me. The angle of the shots, the professional composition, the way the light catches the blood just so. These aren’t crime scene photos taken by police. These are deliberate. Intentional.

“He was alive.” I can barely hear my own voice over the roar of blood in my ears. “In this first one, he was still alive.”

Thatcher’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel, his grip so tight I can see the tendons standing out beneath his skin. But his expression remains maddeningly neutral, as if we’re discussing the weather.

“You told me he died when he hit the bureau.” My voice is getting stronger now, fueled by a growing horror that threatens to consume me. “But these... Thatcher, what did you do?”

The question hangs in the air between us, accusatory and desperate. The car feels smaller suddenly, the leather seats too close, the air too thin. I can’t breathe properly, can’t seem to get enough oxygen into my lungs.

Thatcher signals and pulls into the parking lot of a closed gas station, the kind of forgotten place where broken dreams go to die.

Weeds push through cracks in the asphalt, and the windows of the convenience store are covered with faded “For Lease” signs.

But he doesn’t turn off the engine, doesn’t unbuckle his seatbelt.

Just sits there, staring straight ahead through the windshield.

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” he says finally, his voice so calm it makes my skin crawl.

“The wrong questions?” I can hear my voice rising, hysteria creeping in at the edges. “The wrong fucking questions? You have photos of Jack!”

“I have photos of someone who hurt you getting what he deserved.” Each word is measured, deliberate, as if he’s explaining something obvious to a slow child.

The casual way he says it—the complete lack of remorse or surprise—hits me like a physical blow. My stomach lurches, bile rising in my throat as the implications crash over me.

“That’s not what happened.” I’m shaking my head now, denial automatic and desperate. “I killed him. I pushed him and he hit his head, and he died. I killed—”

“Did you?” Thatcher turns to face me fully, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity that makes me want to shrink away. “Are you sure about that?”

The question is like ice water in my veins, freezing everything inside me to a crystalline clarity. The pieces begin clicking together. The photos, Thatcher arriving so quickly at the scene, his certainty that I was “safe,” the way he seemed to know exactly what had happened before I told him.

“You killed him after I left.” The words come out flat, emotionless, my mind too numb to process the full horror of what I’m realizing. “You let me think…”

“Rhea—” He reaches for me, but I jerk away, pressing myself against the passenger door.

“You killed him.” My voice breaks on the words, but I force them out anyway. “You fucking killed him, and you let me think I did it.”

The photos slip from my nerveless fingers, scattering across my lap like grotesque confetti. I stare down at them—evidence of a murder I didn’t commit, proof of a manipulation so complete and twisted that my mind rebels against accepting it.

All this time. All this guilt, this fear, this desperate gratitude for his protection. All of it built on a lie.

“You let me think I was a murderer,” I whisper, the words barely audible over the idle of the engine. “You blackmailed me, threatened me, made me agree to be yours—all because of something you did.”

Thatcher’s expression doesn’t change, doesn’t show even a flicker of remorse or shame. If anything, he looks almost relieved, as if a burden has been lifted from his shoulders.

I grab the photos, my hands shaking so violently I can barely grip them and hurl them at his face. They flutter through the air like deadly butterflies, landing harmlessly on his lap and the center console.

“You sick fuck!” I’m screaming now, rational thought consumed by a rage so pure and complete it feels like burning alive from the inside out. “You fucking psychopath!”

My hand flies to the door handle, yanking on it with desperate force, but nothing happens. The locks are engaged, trapping me in this leather-lined prison with a monster who wears the face of someone I thought I was learning to trust.

“Let me out.” My voice cracks like breaking glass. “Let me out right fucking now.”

But Thatcher just sits there, calm as death, watching me fall apart with those calculating green eyes. And I realize with a terror that cuts deeper than any physical pain that I’m trapped—not just in this car, but in his web of lies and manipulation.

I don’t know who he is. I don’t know what he’s capable of.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of him.