Page 42 of Haven't Killed in Years
That was a decent excuse; it was a good sandwich place. But she could totally be lying. It doesn’t take a genius to pretend to like sandwiches. “They have a great teriyaki wrap,” I said. “You should try it sometime.”
“I’d love to.” She smiled like what I said was an invitation.
I was attempting to interpret this conversation as an insidious metaphor, but I was failing.
She guided me to the couch. “How’s Porter? Is everything okay?”
We sat together on the white couch that didn’t have a single stain or throw pillow or evidence that we weren’t the first two people to ever make contact with its surface. To answer her question, Porter was not okay. I stared at her, trying to compute where I should land betweenYeah, he’s fineandOf course not and you know it.
I had been awake all night. I was not making rational choices, and once our eye contact reached peak alignment, I couldn’t help myself. “Elyse, are you fucking with me?”
She flinched at my boldness. “What do you mean?”
“If it’s you, I get it, and I’m into it, so tell me and we can get darkand up the stakes and you can put a bomb in my car or something, but please tell me, because if it’s not you—”
She reached up and touched my cheek. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her words were soft and her eyes stayed engaged. She was unbothered by the insanity I was spouting at her. Then she leaned in. Her lips touched mine.
It wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, but it was happening and I let it. We had been playing a game after all, just not the one I’d thought we were playing. She pulled away, but I followed her and then we were still kissing. What was I doing? She was with Jake and I was up to something with Dominic, but that didn’t seem too relevant in the moment. What did seem relevant was that my father had ruthlessly slaughtered her family.
I pulled away. I was hiding too much. She wanted to kiss Gwen, but she would never consent to kissing Marin. I leaned back and opened my eyes. “We can’t do this.” I looked at her before realizing that speaking wasn’t enough. I stood up and backed away. “It’s…not a great time…I have to be somewhere.”
“Then why did you come here?” She forced a tight smile that didn’t tell me anything about what she was really thinking.
I wanted to go back to the couch. Why not? What did I care that I was lying to her about everything? Deep down inside, I hoped she was lying right back. That was what made it exciting, right? That she could be just like me?
“Sorry,” I choked. “I wanted you to have your mug.” It wasn’t the smoothest excuse.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I reached for it, hoping and praying it was Porter, but it was Dominic.
Be there in 20.
It took me a second to register what that meant. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Too much. Then I remembered. Dominic wanted to take me somewhere, somewhere he wouldn’t tell me—a mystery that had to do with my father. If this wasn’t going to be the confrontation and subsequent showdown with Elyse that I was hoping for, I guess I really did have somewhere to be after all. Even if I had completely forgotten about it. Even if I could be blindly walking into some kind of trap.
Twenty-Three
I raced home from Elyse’sto get there before Dominic showed up. I basically walked into my apartment, spun around, and walked back out the door at the sound of his text.
I climbed into his car and demanded an answer to where we were going. He made sure to put the vehicle in motion, and after a few tugs at his hair, he got into it. “I know the whole trip to Pennsylvania was a bust last time, but—”
“Are you serious?”
“Hear me out,” he pleaded, offering up a greasy brown paper bag.
I yanked it out of his hand. I could eat the entire breakfast sandwich before the light at the end of my street turned green; it didn’t mean I was agreeing to anything.
“I did some more research,” he continued, hurrying to get it all out while my mouth was preoccupied. “The place has a different name than when Marin lived there.”
“Allegedly,” I chimed in, mouth full.
“Fine,” he said, humoring me. “In the period of time that Marinwould have hypothetically lived there, the place had a different name.”
“And…?” I swallowed.
“And it was owned by Care Vision, LLC. Not the same company that owns it anymore.”
“Riveting,” I mocked.
“Stick with me. Care Vision, LLC, ran into some major legal drama a while back. They were operating heavily in some gray areas between a school, a detention center, and a psychiatric facility, I don’t know. Whatever they were calling themselves in whatever moment to manipulate funding and circumvent regulations.”
