Page 53 of Peak Cruelty

Now he looks at me differently.Not softer—he doesn’t have soft—but sharper.Focused.“Why do you care, anyway?”

“Because I like breathing.And useful women die slower.Because you’re rattled, and it almost seems like you’ve never done this before.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a long breath in.I sense his frustration, but I don’t let it stop me.I double down.

“Your plan doesn’t seem very solid so far.All this ocean around us.Let it take care of your problem.Make it look as though he ended up there and disappeared.Did he go for a swim?Who knows?Your best bet is to let the tide take the evidence.The silence will take care of the rest.”

He doesn’t respond.Just stares, as though I’ve offered him too many answers at once and he doesn’t like how easily I gave them.

“Do you know how deep the ocean is?”

He shakes his head.

“It’s seven miles deep.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, but I don’t think he’s listening.

“You have killed a person before, haven’t you?”I shift in the chair.“I hate to ask—it’s just you don’t seem very good at it.”

That gets him.Not a smile, exactly, but the ghost of one.Then it’s gone.

I don’t lean into it.I don’t push.That’s how women die—pressing their luck because they think a man’s near-laughter means forgiveness.It doesn’t.It just means he hasn’t decided what to do with you yet.

He crosses his arms.Leans against the wall.Watching.Still measuring.“You’re not afraid of me.”

I look at him and keep my voice even.“Of course I am.I’m just better at hiding it than you are at earning it.”

He steps closer, trying read my expression—to find some tremor, some shift—but there’s nothing there.Not right now.That’s the trick.Stay still long enough and the threat has to move.

We sit in that for a long second.Nothing in the room moves except the air between us.

He doesn’t say a word when he finally turns to leave.Doesn’t check the straps again.Doesn’t glance back.

But I see it—the hesitation in his shoulders.Half a breath, maybe less.The part where his body wants to look and his pride won’t let it.

This time, he doesn’t wedge the chair under the knob.

And that?

That’s how it begins.

27

Vance

She walks in like nothing’s changed.Like she didn’t just Houdini her way out of a locked room with her hands tied and no motive but curiosity.

She lifts my glass from the counter—my water, not hers—and takes a sip like it’s aged Scotch.“Didn’t want to run.Didn’t seem smart.But I did want to see if I could.”

I don’t answer.

I should.I should ask how.Should ask what she used, how long it took, what else she touched on her way here.

But she’s already answered: none of it matters.

“What do you want?”I ask.

Her answer is slow.Measured.“A shower.A different shirt.Maybe a sandwich.”

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