Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“And I figured you wouldn’t beat around the bush like this.”
He’s right. I’m stalling. But the truth will freak him out more than thinking I’m some fucked-up stalker. Still, I gotta get it out. “You gonna believe me if I say I was trying to protect you?”
He approaches with my cookie, moving cautiously, watching me as though waiting for any sudden movements. Then he places the plate on the table and steps away, his pepper spray’s security lifted, his finger ready to hit the trigger.
I pick at the cookie, testing the heat as I lick the chocolate off my thumb. Damn, that’s good. I wonder if it’s delicious or if I think that because I haven’t had enough to eat today.
“You make these?”
“Yeah,” he says, his expression twisting up.
Of course he did. The guy’s always in the kitchen, making one thing or another.
“You said protect me. Someone else was here last night, weren’t they?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it.”
I brave a bigger bite of my cookie, thinking it might be too hot, but it’s just right—a perfect chunky/gooey combination.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Damn, you can bake.”
“Thank you…?” he says, but the way he inflects, it sounds more like a question. “So who was it?” he presses.
“Okay,” I say around a fresh mouthful of cookie, “if I knew who it was, obviously I would have gone to the police, and we could have ended it right there.”
“How could you possibly have known someone was going to break into my house if you don’t know who it is?”
Put this kid out of his damn misery. “You familiar with the Jason Kilbourne disappearance? Guy who went to Wyachet Community College. Went missing from town last year.”
Leif nods. “I didn’t remember his name, but I remember seeing the story.”
“And last March, another WCC student went missing.”
“Yeah…”
“You don’t happen to have any water, do you?”
He glares at me.
“Fair enough. A little over a month ago, you remember posting a note on Instagram? About someone you thought was bullying you by pretending to be a secret admirer?”
His face flushes red. “I remember.”
“I have a hard time figuring why you’d imagine that was a joke. You’re a hot guy. I would think you’d be used to the attention.”
His gaze shifts around uneasily. “I’ve had a rough year, and since I came back home, some of the people I knew haven’t been all that welcoming because of…reasons.”
“You don’t have to be cryptic with me. I know about your meltdown in Atlanta and the stint in the psych unit.”
For the first time, he avoids my gaze, turning away from me. “We’re not talking about that.”
I immediately regret bringing it up. “Sorry. Fuck. No. I don’t want you to think I’m being insensitive. Shit. I guess I was anyway, but trust me, whatever you’ve been through, I’ve had my share of crap too. No judgment. I’m so used to that shit that clearly it seems like a nonissue. I meant, I researched you after I saw the post.”
Just keep on digging that hole, Z.
I eat another chunk of cookie, sticking as much in my mouth as I can manage. Maybe that’ll keep me from saying any other dumb shit.
He heads to the fridge and fetches a bottle of water. As he approaches me with it, he doesn’t struggle like he did with the cookie. Just passes it to me. I take the bottle and down a quarter of it, washing down the cookie, which feels like it’s moving in clumps down my throat.
My stomach forgives me for my neglect, and I breathe a sigh of relief, happy this whole bit has prevented me from saying anything else to hurt Leif.
“So why would you care about some dumb post I made?”
“There are these subreddits where you can speculate about different crimes. A bunch of podcasters and social media sleuths gravitate to it. While I was trying to figure out what happened to the second guy who disappeared, I ran across a comment from a user who claimed he knew him and that he’d received a letter from an admirer about a month before he went missing. I tried to reach out to the Reddit user to see what he was talking about, but he didn’t respond to my DM. Then I mentioned it to the cops, but they didn’t give a fuck about some random Reddit user who could have been bullshitting. I followed the subreddit, and sometime later, I got pinged, and suddenly I see a reply to that previous comment from one of these Reddit sleuths—a link to your Insta post. Never underestimate the power of geeks with too much time on their hands.” As I reveal this, his shoulders relax, along with the arm holding the pepper spray, so that now he seems a little less ready to temporarily blind me.
“So you found my Insta. And then…”