Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
“Ah, well we do. Know each other.”
“Okay,” he says, drawing out the word. “So you can vouch for his whereabouts?”
Oh, fuck. What do I say to that?
I turn around to look at Alasdair, as if he’ll give me some guidance, but when I meet his eyes, they’ve gone jet black. It’s enough that I breathe in sharply, the sight of him freaking me the fuck out.
Then his eyes go back to normal, and he gives his head a single shake.
What the fuck is happening?
“Ms. Galloway?”
“Uh, yeah. Hi. Sorry. His whereabouts? Well sir, he’s been with me, and he was with me two nights ago.”
Alasdair frowns, looking normal again, and opens his mouth to protest, but I put a finger to my lips. The thing is, I have to tell the truth. If I tell Sinclair I haven’t seen Alasdair, then he’s going to go straight over to his place again and paint him as a suspect.
But isn’t he a suspect? a voice pipes up inside me. I immediately shush it.
“Right. Well. You’ve my number if anything comes to you. And…Miss Galloway? I’d keep your doors locked out there. Till we know what this is. Maybe don’t…” he trails off. “Just stay safe.”
“I always do.” I hang up.
I lock eyes with Alasdair again and I can’t read a word on his face.
“Two nights ago,” I begin slowly, “he was calling about a woman who went missing two nights ago. Becca Rhys.”
“Iris…”
“You got up, two nights ago.” I try to keep my voice level and calm. “Three in the morning, out the window. I saw you go. I always see you go. I let myself think it was the loch. I tell myself it’s only ever the loch and your little late-night skinny dipping. But that night, two nights ago and every night since, you got dressed before you went out…why did you get dressed? What were you doing? Where were you going?”
“Iris.” He sets the mug down, careful, soundless. “I have not been unfaithful to you. I want you to hear me say that. I didn’t touch her in the way you’re afraid of. Whatever you’re holding in your head right now, it isn’t that. I’ve not so much as looked at another woman the way I look at you since the day you opened that door. On that, foxglove, I am clean.”
I stare at him, gobsmacked. That’s what he thinks this is about? He thinks…he thinks I’m accusing him of sneaking out and being unfaithful, of cheating?
“Alasdair.” My voice has gone very quiet. “What are you talking about? I’m not talking about you being intimate with another woman, I’m talking about you killing another woman. You killed her, didn’t you! You went out and you killed this Becca Rhys!”
He doesn’t flinch or look away.
“Aye,” he admits.
And there it is. No hesitation, no softening, no let me explain. Just aye, the aye that doesn’t know how to be ashamed.
“That’s…” I press the heel of my hand to my mouth, then take it away. “You say that like I’ve caught you forgetting to put the bins out. Aye. A woman is fucking dead. Becca Rhys, thirty-four, she had a job she didn’t turn up to, she has people who reported her missing, and you got up out of my bed and you went and killed her.”
“I didn’t break faith with you,” he reiterates, and the awful thing is that he means it as comfort. He thinks if he can just make me understand that he was loyal, that he didn’t want her in that way, it will make it all better. “She was nothing to me, Iris. She was…” He licks his lips and looks away.
“Food,” I mumble flatly, starting to go numb. “She was food, right? She was just food?”
“Aye.”
“Don’t—” My voice cracks and I let it. “Do not say aye to me again. Not like that. Not when we talk about you murdering people!”
He stops. He goes quiet. And he watches me with that confusion still on him, working at it, genuinely working at it, trying to find the place where he’s wronged me and not finding it, because in whatever ancient reckoning runs under those pale eyes, fucking and food are different books entirely. One of them he understands he must never do. The other is just what he is. He has kept the vow he thinks he made me. He cannot for the life of him see that I’m grieving a woman whose name I only learned ninety seconds ago.
“You know what I am. I warned you many times, and you’ve made peace with it. You know that I’ve killed, what I eat, and that I’ll do it again. Christ, I’ll do it more and more now that the bargain is through, you know I will. I can feel myself slipping, it’s as if the only thing tethering me to my humanity is you, Iris.”