He reaches his arms out, like he wants to grab my hands, but instead of moving toward him, I put my own hands up, motioning for him to stop moving.
“It’s me,” he says. “It’s Aaron. Chloe, you know me.”
The moon streams through the blinds again, and that’s when I see it, lying on the ground between us. I must have dropped it when I ran to Riley, my hands frantically searching her body for a pulse: Aaron’s press badge. The card I had used to jimmy the back door. But now, something about it looks … different.
I lean down slowly, refusing to peel my eyes from Aaron, and pick it up. I bring it to my face, looking closer, and that’s when I notice that it’s cracking, the force from the door causing it to break. The edges are fraying. I flick at the tattered paper, pulling it gently, and the entire face begins to peel. I feel a shiver run down my spine.
It’s not a real press badge. It’s fake.
I look up at Aaron, standing there, watching. Then I think back to the first time I saw this card, in that café, conveniently clipped to his shirt. Easy to read, that New York Times logo big and bold, printed at the top. That was the moment I had first met Aaron—but that wasn’t the first time I had seen him. I had known it was him because I had seen his picture, in my office, the Ativan making my limbs tingle as I drank in his headshot online—small and grainy, black-and-white. That checkered button-up and tortoiseshell glasses. The exact same outfit he had been wearing when he stepped into that coffee shop, rolling his sleeves to his elbows. And now, I realize with a sense of sinking dread: That had been on purpose. All of it, on purpose. The outfit, something he knew I would recognize. The press badge with the name Aaron Jansen printed somewhere easy to see. I remember thinking that he had looked different from his picture, different from what I was expecting … bigger, huskier. His arms too thick, his voice two octaves too low. But I had just assumed this man was Aaron Jansen before he had even introduced himself, before he had ever uttered the name. And the way he had sauntered into that café—slowly, confidently—as if he knew I was there, where I was sitting. As if he was putting on a show, like he knew I was watching him.
It’s because he had been watching me, too.
“Who are you?” I ask now, his face, in the dark, suddenly unrecognizable.
He stands in place, quiet. There’s a hollowness to him that I’ve never noticed before, as if all the yolk has been drained from him, his body a cracked shell. He seems to consider the question for a moment, trying to determine how best to respond.
“I’m nobody,” he says at last.
“Did you do this?”
I watch as he opens his mouth and closes it again, as though he’s searching for the words. He doesn’t respond, and I find myself thinking back to every conversation we’ve ever had. His words are loud now, echoing around me like the blood I can hear pulsing in my ears.
Copycats murder because they’re obsessed with another murderer.
I look at this man, this stranger, who injected himself into my life at the start of all this. The man who had first shared the theory about a copycat, nudging me along until, finally, I believed it, too. Those questions he had asked, always probing, leaning in close: There’s a reason this is happening, right here, right now. When I had talked about Lena, the childlike giddiness that had crept into his voice, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, he had to know: What was she like?
“Answer me,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Did you?”
“Look, Chloe. It’s not what you think.”
I think of him in my bed, his hands on my wrists, his lips on my neck. I think of him standing up, pulling on his jeans. Bringing me that cup of water before running his fingers through my hair, lulling me to sleep before stepping back into the dark. That was the night Riley went missing. That was the night she was taken—by him, as I slept, my forehead dotted with sweat, my limbs still throbbing from his touch. I feel disgust bubble up from the pit of my stomach. But that’s what he had told me, after all—that day on the river, cardboard cups of coffee between our feet, gazing out at the bridge in the distance, emerging gently from beneath a blanket of fog.
It’s a game.
Only I didn’t realize that the game was his.
“I’m calling the police,” I say, knowing now that he never called them himself. That they’re not coming. I push my hand into my purse, fumbling for my phone. My fingers are shaking, brushing up against everything inside—and then it hits me: My phone is in the car, still lodged inside my cup holder. It’s still where I had placed it after I had watched Daniel on my camera before driving mindlessly to Breaux Bridge, parking the car, breaking inside. How could I have forgotten it? How could I have forgotten my phone?