“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, okay.”
“You need a ride?”
Detective Thomas drops me back off at my car, still parked on the road outside my childhood home. I don’t let myself look up, instead shuffling straight from his cruiser into my driver’s seat, eyes on the gravel, cranking the engine and driving away. I don’t think about much on the ride back to Baton Rouge, my eyes focusing on the yellow line in the highway until I feel cross-eyed. I pass a sign inviting me to Angola—fifty-three miles northeast—and grip the wheel a little bit harder. It all comes back to him, after all: my father. Daniel’s receipts, the way Tyler had tried to stop me from going to see him that night at the motel. Chloe, it’s dangerous. My father knows something. He is the key to all of this. He is the common thread between Tyler and Daniel and those dead girls and me, binding us all together like flies caught in the same web. He holds the answers—him, and nobody else. I’ve known that, of course. I’ve been toying with the idea of visiting him, spinning it around in my mind like fingers working at a ball of clay, hoping for a shape to form. An answer to be revealed.
But nothing ever was.
I step through my front door and expect to hear chimes, now a familiar comfort of my alarm, but nothing happens. I look at the keypad, notice that it hasn’t been set. Then I remember watching Daniel on my cell phone, flicking the lights off, the last one to leave. I punch the code into the keypad and walk upstairs, straight into my bathroom, dropping my purse onto the toilet seat. I run a bath, twisting the faucet as far left as it can possibly go, hoping the scalding water will burn straight through my flesh, washing Tyler from my skin.
I dip my toe into the tub and slide inside, my body turning an angry pink. The water rises to my chest, my collarbones. I sink so deep that everything is submerged but my face; I hear my heartbeat in my ears. I glance over at my purse, at the bottle of pills tucked inside. I imagine taking them all, falling asleep. The little bubbles that would escape from my lips as I sank deeper, until finally, the last one burst. It would be peaceful, at least. Surrounded by warmth. I wonder how long it would take for them to find me. Days, probably. Maybe weeks. My skin would start to detach, little flaps rising to the surface like lily pads.
I look down at the water, notice that it’s turned a pale pink. I grab a washcloth and start scrubbing at my skin, at the remnants of Tyler’s blood still caked to my arms. Even after it’s gone, I keep scrubbing, pushing hard. Making it hurt. Then I lean forward, pull the stopper from the drain, and stay seated until every last drop is gone.
I put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt before walking back downstairs, entering the kitchen, and filling a glass of water. I down the entire thing, sighing when I’ve reached the bottom, hanging my head low. And then I look up, listening. I feel a wave of goose bumps erupt across my skin and I place the glass down gently, taking a slow step toward the living room. I can hear something. Something muffled. A subtle movement, the kind of thing I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t so acutely aware of being alone.
I walk into my living room and feel my body stiffen as my eyes land on Daniel.
“Hey, Chloe.”
I stare at him silently, standing there, picturing myself upstairs in the bathtub, eyes closed. I imagine opening them, seeing Daniel hovering above me. His hands reaching out, holding me down. Open-mouthed screams and rushing water, sputtering to death like an old car.
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
I glance at the keypad, the alarm that had been left unlocked. And that’s when I realize: He never left. I picture him standing by the front door, exhaling before flipping that switch. The camera going dark.
But I never saw him open the door. I never saw him leave.
“I knew you wouldn’t come home unless you thought I was gone,” Daniel says, reading my mind. “I was just planning on waiting for you so we could talk. I even saw you outside last night, parked by the house. But then you left. And you didn’t come back.”
“There’s an undercover cop outside,” I lie. I didn’t see one when I pulled in, but there could be. There might be. “They’re looking for you.”
“Just let me explain.”
“I met your mother.”
He looks taken aback; he wasn’t expecting that. I don’t have a plan here, but seeing Daniel here in my home, standing smug, I’m suddenly angry.
“She told me all about you,” I say. “Your father, his violence. The way you tried to intervene for a while, but eventually just stopped. Let it happen.”