50. LOST

50

LOST

RYDEN

I called Enzo. I didn’t know what else to do. This was making me crazy. The wind was cold, the night was bleeding dark, and I fucking wanted to crawl back into the bed with her, but I told her I’d be here, and so I would be.

“Have you lost your mind, Ryden?” Enzo said when I told him what happened.

“I think so,” I grumbled.

“So? How long was that? The cops aren’t there yet, so we can safely say she hasn’t called anyone.”

“She was crying, but it was as if she was crying for something else… she was strangely indifferent about me being a killer.” I scratched my jaw with a groan.

She wasn’t outraged or repulsed when I told her I was TAK.

There was no visible reaction of horror or disbelief. Except for the tears, she remained eerily composed, almost as if she had been expecting this all along. She was angry only after I told her I loved her.

I didn’t know what to think about that.

“I still don’t understand why you’d tell her that. You… you were happy with her, idiot. You fucking messed up.”

“Because I fell in love with her,” I said with a growl, banging my hand against the door. “And that’s the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life.”

I loved her, and I wanted her to know the real me, but the way I went about it? It was so fucking stupid.

“And if the cops come?”

“They won’t be able to connect me with any of the murders. There’s no evidence. It’s her word against mine.”

“She’s a reputable ME,” Enzo said with a grunt. “Ryden, if you were next to me now, I’d smack you with the dead body that’s currently lying in the embalming room.”

“Fuck. I made a fucking mess. I know that now, but it’s too late to take it back.”

Enzo readily agreed that I was an idiot without even trying to comfort me.

“How’s Irene?” I asked with a sigh.

“She’s good. I think she already misses Yara, but she’s also stubborn as a mule,” Enzo said with a sigh. “Where the hell did our lives go so wrong?”

I chuckled, despite every fucking thing.

“That day I walked into the medical examiner’s office and told her that her autopsy report was ludicrous, and she told me to shut the fuck up.”

I fell in love when she told me beggars can’t be choosers. I was just too blind to know it.

“This feels like fucking karma.”

“I know.”

“If the cops come, call me,” he said and then cursed. “I was joking. Fuck. I hope she won’t call the detectives, but we can’t blame her if she does.”

“Any normal person would. I can claim temporary insanity and… say it’s all a joke,” I muttered, scratching my stubble with frustration. “I hate myself. I knew she was trouble. I knew… she’d find a way to tear me apart, and now look at me. I should have listened to myself.”

When we hung up after an hour of Enzo telling me how much of a dumbfuck I was, I stared at the watch. God, why was time moving at a snail’s pace? I leaned against the door and tried hard to listen, but everything was so quiet. Did she fall asleep or something?

I stared at my watch with a yawn. It was only three in the morning. I had no idea how long I had been sitting here. I stood up and stretched, my body groaning in protest.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I wanted to scream and beg.

Please come and save me from this torture, Red.

I cursed when my phone rang. Was it Yara? The black was slowly wearing gray, and my Red never came to find me. The phone stopped after a while and then started again.

“Reah? What’s up? It’s fucking four.” She yawned and cursed. If Yara decided to hand me over to the cops, Reah would find out about the man she had been helping for a long time, and she’d hate me for that.

There was Vanessa, Natalia, Shayna… Oh, Thatcher would revel in my demise.

“I hate you,” she said, yawning again. “But I have some good news for you.”

I doubted that. Nothing would cheer me up right now.

I should have just kept my fucking mouth shut. She wasn’t ready for the darkness, ready to hear that the man she was fucking was a serial killer.

Oh, why in the hell would I think that was a good idea?

Fuck me in my fucking ass with a fucking chainsaw.

“The burner… your Wolff’s, it just came back online. I set up a reminder for it, and I was just alerted. I’m currently triangulating the signals… and if it stays long enough, I’ll find the location.”

“Fuck, not right now. I can’t…” I growled, tugging at my hair with a frown. “Ok. If you find something, send it to me.”

“Will do,” Reah said and hung up.

After a few more minutes, I heard another ping, and it was Reah, sending me the GPS location of K.Y. Wolff’s burner.

R: I don’t know how long it’s going to be online. If I were U, I’d leave now.

I knocked at the door and waited for a moment to hear something. There was no sound.

“Yara? Yara? Red?”

Once again, there was graveyard silence.

“Is she even inside?” I muttered to myself, pushing the door open and noticing a sticky note pasted on the inside of the door.

Going for a run. Will be back soon. Don’t worry. You’re safe.

Ripping it from the door with a growl, I crumpled the paper with a curse.

“Why the hell would you go for a run now, Red?” If something happened to her, I’d kill The Strangler and then myself.

Taking my phone, I sent Yara’s number to Reah before calling her. She picked up on the first ring. “I just sent you another number. Can you find the location?”

“Who is it this time?” Reah asked.

“My girlfriend. She’s missing. Please, jus—”

Reah cursed.

“What?”

“The number you just sent is pinging from the same location, Ryden.”

“What do you mean?” I spat out, quickly running up the stairs to her bedroom. It was empty. The next one where we used to fuck was empty as well.

My fingers trembled when I closed the door. Sweat trailed down my spine. I hoped Yara was alive, alright. If she wasn’t, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill K.Y. Wolff. There was no one on this planet I wouldn’t hurt and kill to ensure Yara’s safety.

“K.Y. Wolff and the owner of this number are both somewhere in Stony Creek.”

“That’s impossible,” I muttered, grabbing Yara’s car key from the table. Her car was still here, exactly where I parked last night.

Cursing, I entered the GPS location into the navigation panel.

“Please, please be safe. I’d kill myself if something happened to you because of me.”

The car lurched forward, tires screeching against the gravel pathway as I peeled away from Yara’s house. It took me around thirty minutes to reach Stony Creek. I broke all the traffic rules. I parked the car in a safe distance before jogging toward the woods. My steps faltered when I saw the same sedan, hidden under the cover of trees.

K.Y. Wolff’s car.

I pulled the door, and it opened without a protest. Cursing, I called Yara’s number and almost fell back when I heard the familiar ringtone from inside the car, disrupting the quiet morning.

I now knew why I stopped that day when I saw her at DPD. It was this song Yara was humming when I was coming out after talking with Detective Rosario. It was the same song that was playing that night when I met that murderous Barbie .

Cursing, I grabbed the phone from the driver’s seat.

What the hell’s going on here? Why is Yar a’ s phone…

Fuck. I know.

A picture slowly formed in my mind. It all made sense now. I was too distracted, too obsessed with Yara to see it properly.

She lied to me. It was all a lie. She’s K.Y. Wolff, and she killed my brother.