Page 55 of Jealous of the Clouds
She smiled. “Get up. We need to get going.”
Chapter 26
Ted
Everything’s okay now, right? I mean Josh is dead. Threat neutralized. I still can’t quite believe it.
I wrestled with my own joy at knowing another human being, no matter how reprehensible, but one I thought I might love, was deceased.
I knew I shouldn’t beat myself up. Josh was a monster, a murderer. An evil person. What was wrong with rejoicing that the stain on humanity was gone?
And yet…and yet…
I worried. I waited for that proverbial other shoe to drop.
It was morning and I’d spent the night here, at Karl’s. He’d given up his bedroom, although part of me wanted to share it with him. Despite all the trauma and fear going on right now, there was a tension between us. Agoodtension that can only be relieved—and isusuallyrelieved—by coming together, both literally and figuratively. But the fact that he took the couch demonstrated to me that he was not a man who’d prey upon a vulnerable person, no matter how much we were mutually attracted to one another.
Shafts of light shone in through the partially open Plantation shutters on Karl’s bedroom windows. The day was a lie, I knew. Summer beckoned in those rays of golden light. My iPhone, though, told the truth. It was only thirty-nine degrees outside, with a chance of snow flurries.
I sat up in bed, feeling refreshed. I realized this was the first good night of sleep I’d had in a long time. The world, despite my lingering fear, was now a safer place without Joshua Drake in it. I was eager to get up to see what had killed him. Surely, they’d release the cause of death today. Besides Shondell, I was pretty sure he had no other family.
And she knew, so there was no reason to withhold the information.
Sounds filtered in. The Bluetooth speaker, playing the Piano Guys, and hushed voices—Karl and Camille. I smelled coffee and, oh God, was that bacon?
Was it possible this would be simply another cold Chicago morning, marching toward winter, and all I had to be concerned about was that there was enough bacon for three friends to share and have enough?
There was a part of me that still wanted to question everything, as though the media would lie about Josh’s death. Had he come to a violent end? Had he died, mysteriously and unexpectedly, of some natural cause, like a heart attack?
“Ted! You want breakfast? Please come and eat something.” Karl called out, interrupting my musing and turning my thoughts to more physical needs.
Karl’s yellow kitchen was flooded with sunlight. It looked like a normal day. It felt like a normal day. It smelled like a normal morning. And yet…Shoo away those suspicious thoughts, Ted; you’re free.
I smiled as I entered the kitchen. It was a fake it ‘til you make it kind of smile, but I doubt either Camille or Karl suspected. The small kitchen island was already laid out with a pan of scrambled eggs on a trivet, a platter of way too much bacon (if too much is possible when it comes to bacon), buttered sourdough, and two French presses, full of black magic.
After we’d made our good morning greetings and hugged each other tight, we ate and drank, pretty much in silence. I had the first question. “Anyone hear from Shondell this morning?”
Karl and Camille looked at one another. Something passed between them.
“Nothing so far. She left last night after you two were asleep,” Karl said. “She’s agreed to come on the podcast later today to talk about her brother.”
Suddenly, the food tasted like nothing, like that time I’d had COVID. “Do they know yet? How he died?”
Karl nodded and his gaze met mine—there was sympathy and concern there. “Not surprisingly, he was murdered. Stabbed to death just up from North Avenue beach. They’re calling it random. And thisisChicago, so maybe that’s true. Murder happens here every day.”
I nodded. Was it simply coincidence that the man met his end by stabbing? Wasn’t that how he dispatched of Karl’s brother, Reggie? Of his mother? Would that have been my fate if someone hadn’t stopped him? Would it have been Camille’s?
I placed my hand on Camille’s. “How are you feeling, darling?”
“Relieved. The bastard’s gone and I couldn’t be happier.” She glanced up from her coffee mug, held near her lips. I could see her eyes were shining, full of tears. She drew in a quivering breath, holding back not only respiration, but grief and fear. “He would have killed me. I know it.” A jerk went through her—a spasm of remembered terror. My own guilt rose up for putting her in such a precarious situation. Then I told myself that itwasn’tme. It was a dangerous and very sick psychopath who put her in a precarious situation.
Yet, if not for me…
I drank some of my coffee. It had gone tepid.
*
Camille left after breakfast.
