Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
I kissed him once more, then pushed to my feet and went to the stove to grab a skillet. When I took my phone from my pocket to look up the recipe, an unopened Lonely Fans notification ribbon danced on the screen.
ToesToesToes has sent you $500.
The same subscriber who’d sent me fifty last week.
I’d seen it earlier that morning but had refused to open it due to the anxious knot in my stomach. God only knew what someone would want me to do for five hundred bucks! And I dreaded telling Wolf. I couldn’t put it off forever, though. That was kind of a big deal, and the sort of thing he deserved to know about.
I turned my back to the stove, checking that Wolf was busy with his homework before I opened the message.
No request again. Just a tip.
Two tips. Fifty bucks, and five hundred bucks. Suspicion niggled at me. Those numbers were familiar. Specific. I glanced back at Wolf, who was focusing on his homework.
Could it be a coincidence that he had offered me an extra fifty bucks from the sale of that tractor? Or that he’d tried to give me the full thousand dollars for that picture. I was sure if I worked it out in my calendar, that first tip would have been sent right after he’d stolen that tractor.
I typed out a message to the Lonely Fans profile:
Thank you so much.
Then stared at Wolf as I pressed send. Sure enough, his phone vibrated on the table. Even from where I stood, I recognized the little pink ribbon that popped onto his screen.
He’d given me money via my legal attempt at sex work. Which I knew he hated. I wasn’t sure whether to melt or be mad. He’d probably just deny it if I asked, so I cut up the chicken and banked that information for later.
When everything was in the oven, I took a seat at the table across from Wolf.
“So, I Googled the serial killer.”
He glanced up from his homework, pencil in hand, and one brow lifted. “Of course you did.”
“No, listen. The guy was nearly ninety years old, right? But there have been six unresolved missing kid cases in Pikestown between the sixties and the nineties.”
The arch to his brow grew. “Kids go missing all the time.”
“Yeah, but in the last twenty years, since he got old and probably too slow to run them down…nothing.”
Deadpanning me, he put down his pencil and folded his massive, tattooed arms over his book. “Let me guess, you want to go back in the daytime and look for graves?”
A shiver lifted the hairs on my arms, like the old man’s ghost was touching me. “What? No!” I patted myself in an effort to shoo it away.
“Just think. You could solve cold cases.” He picked up his pencil again and scribbled an equation down in his notebook. Doing the parentheses first, just like I taught him. “Maybe Pikestown would give you a key to the city.”
“Who would want that?”
“Plenty of people.”
“A key to New York, sure, but Pikestown…” I swept a stray crumb from the table, which Squishy immediately gobbled up. “Anyway, I’m telling you, we profited from a serial killer.” Then a thought occurred to me. “If they figure out it’s him, they’d find our DNA in his trailer.”
Wolf shoved up from the table, went to a drawer, and pulled out a box of tinfoil. “Here.” He ripped off a sheet on his way back to the table. “I think you need this,” he said, laying the foil over my head.
“When this becomes some massive thing, I’m going to say I told you so.” Pushing to my feet, I snatched the foil away while he grinned.
“Wonder what they’d call him? The Tooth Fairy?” Wolf chuckled to himself. “Molar Murderer.”
I went to the oven and pulled out the bubbling casserole, studying it like it would have a flashing beacon saying it had salmonella. “The Canine Carver.”
“Smells good,” Wolf said.
Well, at least it had that going for it. I dished it up, trying to pretend I wasn’t nervous. Last time, it was just him who had gotten food poisoning. This time, I figured I should at least go down with him.
“I cooked the chicken really well.” I put the plates on the table.
Steam rose from Wolf’s fork when he shoveled a heaping amount into his mouth, no hesitation—brave man—or apparent feeling in his mouth.
His eyes widened. I was certain he was about to spit it out. “Holy shit. This is good.”
I speared a piece of chicken. It was about as moist as the Sahara. Evidently, he had low standards, but it was definitely cooked.
Halfway through dinner, Wolf’s phone vibrated on the table. I wouldn’t have looked, but it kept going and going. And he made no effort to answer. I stilled at the sight of Nora’s name flashing on the screen. The photograph of the two of them at Hendrix’s party popped into my mind, and unease trickled over me.