Famished, Meghan O'Flynn [free ebooks romance novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Meghan O'Flynn
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“Why didn’t you report him missing?” Petrosky kept his voice even, trying not to scare her into silence. Three days was a long time not to notice he had disappeared.
She shrugged. “I didn’t know he was missing, I guess, not really.”
“Neighbors say you had a disagreement the night he disappeared.”
She stared hard at her lap.
“Quite the bruise you have there.” He waited for a response, and when none came, he switched tactics. Maybe he’d surprise a real answer out of her. “How did you not think he was missing when he didn’t come back home for three days?”
Finally, she met his eyes. “He was moving out.”
“That must have made you pretty upset.”
“I…I don’t know,” she whispered. A tear dripped on the metal tabletop, where it formed a shiny little bead.
Petrosky wished he had a tissue. He pushed the thought away. “You were angry enough to go out with someone else the day after he disappeared.”
Her eyes widened with surprise. She choked back a sob and gripped the sides of her chair as if she were trying to hold herself upright. “It was just a friend thing. I didn’t want to go home.”
Guilt jabbed at his chest.
Do your fucking job. He balled his fists behind his back. “Where were you on the night of October tenth?”
“October tenth?”
Petrosky froze. Repeating phrases was a classic sign of lying.
“I don’t know,” she said, “I mean probably at home with—”
“How about the first of October?”
He waited for a telltale twitch, a flash of guilt. She just shrugged.
“Anyone else who might have seen you on those dates in October?”
Montgomery shook her head. “Maybe at the apartment? I don’t know.”
“I’ll look into it. What about your friends?”
Silence. Again. Talk to me, dammit.
“Anyone else who may have wanted to hurt him?”
Montgomery jerked her head up, and her eyes were brighter, her mouth open in stunned realization. “Maybe. He had another girlfriend. She sent him a letter the night he left.”
That was what she had found in the mailbox that night, the note that had sent her sobbing to the stairwell. “What’s her name?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you knew he was messing around on you?”
Her face crumpled.
Petrosky wiped his own face with a beefy palm. She’s not Julie, for Christ’s sake. Get it together, Petrosky. “Do you have the letter?”
“Um…no, I don’t think so. He took it.”
“Did you look at the postmark?”
“It didn’t have one. It was just slipped into the side of the box.” She was gripping the chair hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Her eyelashes were wet.
Petrosky looked away. “I’m going to look into your alibi and check some security tapes. I’ll also need to look through his things, check out your apartment.”
She stared at him. “All his stuff is in a box by the door.”
“He do that?”
“No. I did.” Her voice shook.
It sounded like she couldn’t get away from him soon enough. “Do I have your permission to search, or do I need a warrant?”
“You can look.”
Petrosky pulled a page from the folder and unclipped a pen off the cover. “I’ll need your signature here. Until we sort this out, don’t leave town.”
She left without another word. He strode to his desk and rummaged in the top drawer for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. They had been there for six years, since the day he’d promised Julie he’d quit.
They’re bad for your health. His daughter’s voice echoed in his head. He could almost see Julie, her face tilted toward the sun, her dark hair shining. He wondered what she would have looked like had she been allowed to grow up.
Probably a lot like—
He ground his teeth and tore open the pack on his way to the parking lot, trying to shut out the voice that told him he had just badgered an innocent girl. Julie had been innocent, too. She had died innocent.
He walked out into icy drizzle, feet squelching on half-melted snow and parking lot sludge. He yanked a cigarette from the pack and lit it. Acrid smoke burned his throat.
Sorry, honey.
Some days I missed him so terribly I could almost taste the despair. Other days, I hated myself for feeling relieved that Jake’s murder was connected to the others. “Serial killer,” the news said. I still cried myself to sleep, wondering if my actions had caused him to leave, caused him to die, but the idea that he was killed by a stranger and not as a direct result of my past made me almost giddy. And my guilt at this almost giddiness weighed on me like a ton of rock. It was a vicious cycle.
If I weren’t so paranoid, so afraid, would I have wanted him to die?
This morning, as I applied makeup over my still-bruised face, I was thankful to the person who had taken him even as I feared that the creaking footsteps in the hallway outside would stop at my door. It was all too much. I could almost hear the moment I shut down and separated from myself, like the clank of a bank vault.
The detachment accompanied me to the grave of my murdered, almost-ex-boyfriend. I stood still and silent in my black funeral attire with dry eyes and a fluttering in my chest, like a sparrow trying to escape, though it was someone else’s chest, someone else’s bird. Beside me, Noelle clasped my numb fingers, and though I gripped her back, it still felt like she was holding someone else’s hand.
Jake’s mother stared daggers at me across the gaping hole in the frozen earth as they lowered the casket. The hem of my wool dress flipped in the breeze, and arctic air bit at my ankles. I smoothed the dress and pressed my feet together in a half-hearted attempt to warm them.
To the side and a dozen feet behind Jake’s mother stood Mr. Harwick, solemn in a black suit and wool overcoat. He raised his eyes from the casket, focused on me, and my mouth went dry. I looked away.
The casket found the bottom of the hole, and the straps kicked up ice and sludge as they were removed. The shh of the straps on the ground sounded like the earth trying to breathe.
A wailing, like a wounded animal, split the air as Jake’s mother threw herself on the ground at the graveside, tearing at the dusted snow with her fingernails. The priest tried to restrain her. I looked away, dropped Noelle’s hand, and stepped back.
Noelle raised her eyebrows. Want me to come? the look said.
I shook my head and escaped across the cemetery. The wails faded, replaced by the crackling of frozen leaves. I was halfway to the car before I realized that I wasn’t alone. Another set of footsteps ground ever closer, stalking through the snow behind me. I stopped. I was too far from the gravesite for anyone to see us, but maybe they’d still be able to hear me scream and send help. I whirled around, hands fisted at my sides.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Mr. Harwick’s ice blue eyes met mine, kind and sincere.
I relaxed my hands, heart still in my throat. “No, it’s okay. I just didn’t know it was…you.”
“I gathered. Shall we?” He gestured to the gates, and I nodded. Our feet crunched across icicles of grass, leaving a trail of brown footprints.
“I was saddened to hear of your loss, Ms. Montgomery.”
“Yes…I mean…thank you.” What the hell was wrong with me? I tried to avoid looking at his mouth. I failed. A branch caught my foot, and I was falling, the ground growing closer, my arms windmilling—
Strong hands under my arms righted me and sent currents of pleasant electricity through my chest. “Oh, uh…thanks,” I said as he released me. So much for electricity—my face felt like it had been seared by a blowtorch.
He met my eyes. “If there is anything you need, you know where to find me. And you are welcome to take some time off past the bereavement period. Just apply, and I will approve it.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded once and turned toward the front entrance once more. I watched the back of his head as he walked over the hill and through the wrought iron gate at the front of the cemetery.
Behind me, new footsteps drew closer, but their rhythm was familiar, as was the clank of Noelle’s jewelry.
“What was that all about?” Noelle asked.
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