Dead Pretty

by Samantha Towle

  His eyes move over my face before settling back on my eyes. “No?”

  “Nope. Rarely is anything a coincidence.”

  “Rarely?” he queries.

  He’s so damn sharp. Picks up on everything.

  “Never,” I correct.

  “Okay. So, what is your theory as to why we keep running into each other?”

  “Because you’re following me?” It comes out more like a question than a statement.

  And laughter bursts from him.

  He has a great laugh.

  Deep and throaty. It makes him even better-looking, and until this moment, I didn’t think that was possible.

  His blue eyes are alight with pure humor. “So, I’m stalking you?” he says, still laughing.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. You tell me.” Surprisingly, I’m smiling when I say this, and stalking is definitely no laughing matter to me.

  “No. I’m not stalking or following you.” He’s still smiling. His full lips tipped up at one corner.

  I want to bite those lips.

  And where the hell did that thought come from?

  “I could say the same about you. That you’re following me.” His brow lifts.

  And it’s my turn to laugh. “I’m really not.”

  “No? Why should I believe you?” He throws back at me with a smile in his eyes.

  “Ditto.”

  “This could go on a while, huh?”

  “Yep.” I stubbornly jut my chin out.

  Another smile, this one actually on his lips. “Okay. So, why don’t we agree that neither of us is following the other? And I know that you don’t believe in fate or coincidence, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. So, we’ll settle on that. What do you say?”

  I lift a shoulder. “I can … do that.”

  “Good.” His voice is softer now, and his eyes linger on mine, longer than acceptable for two people who are barely even acquaintances.

  I can feel things starting to heat and tighten inside of me. Things that have been dormant for a long, long time.

  Things that have no business coming to life.

  Still, I can’t seem to stop them or shut them down. And the longer I stand here with him, staring into his eyes, the harder it is to remember why I’m not supposed to feel anything.

  “Go out with me? For dinner or even just a coffee. I still owe you one, remember?”

  The words out of his mouth … the softly spoken words, said in that rough-sounding voice of his, are like being hit with hot and cold water at the same time.

  They wake me up from whatever spell I was letting my hormones lure me under.

  “No. I can’t.” I take a big step back from him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Shit.” He rubs a hand over his face. “It’s my fault. I misread things.”

  The expression on his face. He looks … uncomfortable, awkward.

  He’s probably not used to being turned down. A guy with a face like his … I can’t imagine it ever happening.

  No woman in her right mind would ever say no to a coffee date with Jack.

  But I’m not a normal woman.

  I hate that I can’t have those things that I once took for granted. I hate that my life is this way. But it is. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do to change it.

  I wish I could tell him that he hadn’t misread anything. I do. I would love to go out for dinner with him. When I was the old Audrey, I would have taken him on that dinner and more. But now … I can’t.

  I won’t.

  “I should go.” I start to leave, but he says my name.

  And that has me turning back.

  “Friends?” He gives me a tentative smile.

  I briefly close my eyes, wishing I could do at least that.

  I stare past him. I can’t bring myself to look him in the face. This guy has an effect on me. I have never been so affected by a man before. And why I am now with him, I’m not sure.

  That is something for me to figure out later—when I’m back at my apartment, alone.

  “I don’t … have friends.”

  His brows pull together. “You don’t have friends?” he echoes my words back to me.

  I shake my head. “It’s just …” I push a hand through my hair, releasing a sigh. “I’m not someone you want to be around.”

  And with that, I pivot on my heel and walk away from him.

  He doesn’t call me back this time.

  And I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed.

  Murdered Female Found

  The body of twenty-five-year-old bar worker Natalie Jenkins was found in her apartment late last night. Sources say she was stabbed to death.

  After not coming in to work for her shift and not being able to get ahold of her, concerned staff had called the police.

  Police are not saying if Natalie’s case is linked to the murder of twenty-six-year-old veterinarian nurse Molly Hall, who was found dead in her apartment three months ago, her throat slit and her body mutilated.

  We’ll update as we learn more on the story.

  I stare at the words on my laptop screen, them screaming and jumping out at me in the silence of my apartment.

  An icy chill slithers down my spine.

  That is the second woman who has gone missing since I moved here six months ago. Both found murdered.

  I had been here three months when Molly Hall disappeared. I followed the story in the beginning because it unnerved me—for obvious reasons due to my past experience with Tobias.

  Aside from the fact that Molly looked similar to me, it was the way she had been killed.

  Tobias liked knives. It was his weapon of choice.

  Throat slit. Body mutilated.

  That is exactly how Tobias killed all the women back in Chicago.

  He would break into their apartments and wait for them to come home. Then, he would attack.

  I get the bitter taste of bile in my mouth, feeling nauseous, just like I do every time I think of anything related to what Tobias put those women through—his sick, twisted way of getting my attention or whatever the hell he was doing.

  I never understood any of it. I still don’t.

  But I guess no one can understand the mind of a psychopath, except the man himself.

  Not that Tobias has ever admitted to any of his gruesome crimes. He maintains his innocence to this day. He currently has his lawyers working on an appeal to try and get him out of prison.

  Jesus, I can’t even think about what I would do if he ever managed to get out of jail …

  I press my hand to the upper part of my stomach, feeling the familiar scars he left there.

  It won’t happen. He won’t get out of jail.

  I’m safe.

  And there is zero evidence to say that Natalie Jenkins’s murder has any link to Molly’s. Just because those two women were murdered, stabbed to death, does not mean that another serial killer is on the loose or that those women’s deaths are at all connected to the crimes that Tobias committed.

  He has been in prison for a year. These women were murdered during that time.

  And people are killed every single day in America. It’s an awful fact, but it’s true.

  Knife crime is high.

  Nothing in that news story says Natalie’s murder was the exact same as Molly’s.

  In fact, it says Natalie was stabbed to death and that Molly had her throat slit and her body mutilated. If anything, Molly’s murder is closer to Tobias’s method, but that still doesn’t mean it has anything to do with his previous crimes.

  Each woman could have been murdered by an ex-boyfriend, a family member, or a friend. Something like eighty percent of people are murdered by someone they know.

  Yes, the murders of those women are similar to the killings of Tobias Ripley—both killed by knives in their apartments.

  But the same could be said of a lot of murders.

  Yes, Molly Hall looked a lot like me, but that means noth
ing.

  And I have no idea what Natalie looked like. They didn’t show a picture of her with the news story.

  What if she looked like me?

  Fuck.

  I shouldn’t look her up. I know this. But still, I can’t stop myself.

  Self-control has never been a strength of mine.

  I’m already opening up a fresh window, bringing up Google and typing Natalie Jenkins in the search bar, before I can think again about why this is a bad idea.

  The screen fills with links. I click on the Images tab, and the first row of pictures shows photos of the same girl. She has dark brown hair.

  Please be her.

  I click on the picture and find her Facebook page. It’s private, so I can only see the profile picture.

  Unsure if this is the right Natalie Jenkins, I type murdered next to her name in the search bar. Several other news stories come up, and a couple of them include a picture.

  I click on one, and it’s the same picture from her Facebook page.

  So, it’s definitely her, and she has shoulder-length dark brown hair.

  A sense of relief fills my chest.

  Which makes me feel shitty.

  This girl lost her life, and I’m relieved that she had brown hair.

  It’s just … Tobias would only kill girls who fit my physical description. He never deviated from that. The girls always had long blonde hair, like mine, and blue eyes.

  And, yes, I know Tobias is locked up, so it couldn’t have been him. But I have a fear that Tobias will somehow get someone to come here and kill me. Or worse … there’s a copycat killer, and it will start all over again.

  But with Natalie having dark brown hair, it means it couldn’t have anything to do with Tobias. If someone were following Tobias’s rules, the victim wouldn’t have dark hair. She would be blonde, like me.

  And Molly was murdered months ago, and nothing weird has happened to me. No love notes, no dead animals left outside my door for me to find. No notes left on any dead bodies, addressed to me.

  The first woman Tobias murdered, he left a piece of paper on the body with my name written clearly on it, stating that he had killed her for me. He left it unsigned though.

  Always unsigned.

  Like the note on the second body that he left for me.

  After the third murder, he stopped leaving notes for me, but the police, the press, and I knew that those women—those innocent women whose lives he had snuffed out—were another of his gifts for me.

  Why?

  I don’t think I will ever know.

  And I’m not sure I want to.

  I let out a breath, my head dropping onto the back of the sofa.

  I have got to stop this crap. I really need to quit torturing myself in this way. And I have to stop looking for similarities in every death or murder that happens, in fear that they are somehow similar to what Tobias did. Worrying that it’s one of his fans—yes, the guy has fans. I need to stop fearing that another sicko is going to come and finish the job that Tobias started.

  Why didn’t he kill me that night?

  It’s the one question in all of this that tortures and haunts me. The one thing I can’t get away from to this day. The thing that I will never understand.

  I was supposed to be Tobias’s finale. Everything he had done … was building up to me.

  Not that he ever told me that.

  I came to that conclusion myself. I mean, what else could all of it have been for?

  The night he took me … he didn’t speak a word to me. Not one single word.

  I never saw his face.

  But I felt him. Felt the blade that he used to cut my skin.

  Mine.

  That word forever scarred on my body.

  Chills cover me, sinking into my bones. My hand instinctively covers my scars again.

  I remember the pain. How much it hurt.

  How I thought I was going to die.

  I can feel my anxiety rising.

  My breath starts to come out in quick pants.

  Stop.

  I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to block out the memories, forcing my breaths to slow down.

  Deep breath in through the nose. Out slowly through the mouth.

  And repeat.

  I’m safe.

  No one is going to hurt me.

  I’m safe.

  I used to have panic attacks regularly after the murders, but they abated when I moved here.

  When I stopped thinking about everything that had happened all the damn time. Letting it control every aspect of my life.

  Letting Tobias still control my life.

  He has no power over me.

  I’m the only person who has power over me.

  I have worked hard on myself to get to where I am. I’m not going backward.

  I have control over that. What I allow myself to do. Think. Or feel.

  I am in total control.

  Deep breath in through the nose. Out slowly through the mouth.

  And repeat.

  I’m safe.

  No one is going to hurt me.

  I’m safe.

  What happened is in the past. It’s over.

  Tobias is in prison.

  End of story.

  I slam my laptop shut.

  The murders of those two women have nothing to do with what happened to me, and they have no connection to Tobias Ripley whatsoever.

  They are terrible and tragic. And I hope and pray that their killers are brought to justice and punished.

  But those murders—or any, for that matter—are not something I need to think about. Or look into in any way, shape, or form.

  Pushing my laptop aside onto the sofa, I get up and head to the kitchen to get a drink.

  I reach into the fridge and grab a Diet Coke, slamming the door shut. I get some chips from the cupboard, flop back down on the sofa, pick up the remote, and turn on Netflix. It comes up with Stranger Things as last watched, and my mind instantly goes to Jack.

  Then, I remember what happened the previous time I saw him, and I shut that thought down.

  Nope. Not going there.

  I’m not thinking about Jack or anyone else tonight.

  And sorry, Stranger Things, but I can’t watch you right now.

  I search for a comedy, needing to fill my mind with humor so I don’t think about anything related to my past.

  I will sit here and pretend that I am a normal twenty-four-year-old who watches movies at home with chips for company and is … well, completely normal.

  I haven’t seen Jack at the library for the past several days. Four, to be exact. He was coming in every day, regular as clockwork, and now, nothing.

  I haven’t bumped into him anywhere or seen him around our apartment building. Not that I used to see him there, but …

  It’s like he’s avoiding me.

  And it bothers me for several reasons.

  Firstly, I’ve noticed his absence from my life. The little that he’s actually been in it.

  I shouldn’t be noticing him—or anyone. But I have, and that fact irritates the hell out of me.

  Secondly, I think the reason Jack is avoiding me is because he asked me out and I said no. And also because I told him that we couldn’t be friends. Because I’m nice like that.

  God, I’m such a bitch.

  He’s literally stopped coming to the library to do whatever the hell it was that he did on his laptop all day and disappeared out of my life as quickly as he appeared in it—right after that awkward-as-hell moment in the supermarket.

  When I repeat the whole conversation back in my head, it sounds awful.

  And it wasn’t the first time that I was a bitch to him.

  Sure, I can’t be friends with the guy. I can’t be friends with anyone. But there are better ways to handle things than the way I did.

  I could have said, Sure, friends.

  It wouldn’t have meant I had to actually do anything with him. It w
ouldn’t have meant we had to be besties and sit around and braid each other’s hair.

  When he said friends, he probably meant in the acquaintance, friendly way.

  I should have just said yes.

  Then, I wouldn’t feel like such a dick, and I wouldn’t be obsessing about it right now.

  I know I should just sort this out.

  But I can’t go actively seek him out because that would be weird and probably give him the wrong message.

  If I could accidentally run into him again, maybe I could say something then.

  But that’s not looking likely at the moment. Not now that he’s avoiding me and now that whatever had us running into each other all the time has decided to stop.

  I either shut the fuck up about it and move on. Or go knock on his door after work tonight and apologize for my terrible behavior.

  I’ve got the rest of the afternoon to figure out what I want to do.

  But right now, I’m going on my lunch break.

  Instead of eating in the break room, I decide to go wild and go out to grab some food.

  I’m heading out to the coffee shop I like to go to. They have the most amazing cinnamon-and-raisin bagels, and I have been craving one since I woke up this morning.

  I’m still deciding whether to get takeout or stay in when I walk inside and see Jack sitting at one of the tables in the corner. His laptop opened in front of him.

  And that for sure answers my question as to whether he’s been staying away from the library on purpose.

  As if sensing me, he lifts his eyes from his screen and locks on to mine straightaway.

  There’s a wariness to them that I haven’t seen before. And I’m the one who put it there.

  Guilt lodges in my chest. I really hate the feeling.

  It’s an emotion that’s been torturing me for the last few years.

  I try to push the guilt away, but it’s not budging.

  I guess this is my moment to decide what to do. The afternoon that I thought I had to figure it out has now become seconds.

  And I am well aware that I’m standing stock-still in the entryway of the coffee shop, staring at Jack across the room.

  I don’t know why I’m struggling with this so much.

  Make a decision. Go over and apologize or don’t.

  It’s that simple.

  Only … it doesn’t feel that simple for some reason.