Chapter 11

After going over every detail of the night at the bookstore exhaustively, Eleanor and Adam let me go and advised me to stay home and avoid being alone. They asked if there was a logbook they could check to see the customers from that day, but there wasn’t, which made it impossible for them to track down and interview the people who had entered the bookstore on the day of the crime.

It felt like a dead end because there were no witnesses, no blood, or any trace of the killer that could be tracked. For the police, it was almost certain that Andrew’s murderer would eventually make a mistake, but I wasn’t so sure. According to Adam, I would have a police escort soon.

I had just gotten out of the shower. I was exhausted, but I knew that sleeping would be a challenge that night. It was my first time alone in days, and to my surprise, the feeling wasn’t as good as I remembered. Lucy had gone home to take a shower and grab more clothes, and until she got back, I needed to find a way not to let my mind win.

The thoughts were, for the most part, very bad.

I decided to go downstairs and cook. The house was immersed in that routine, familiar silence, which, in a way, was comforting. I opened the windows and was met with a blast of cold wind and droplets of water. It was drizzling, as was tradition in… well, in any season of the year. The previous month, the city had been awarded the title of the second rainiest city in the country, second only to Mobile, Alabama. Cloudy skies and very dark nights were defining characteristics of New Hope, as well as unexpected rain.

That was one of the reasons that motivated me to live in New Hope. After my parents died, there was no reason to stay in their house in Richmond, which was huge and terribly lonely. In New Hope, I had my grandmother’s house, where I used to spend a few summers, and a new place to settle down and live the quiet life I had always longed for. If someone had told me that this city would become the stage for brutal serial murders, I never would have believed it.

I started preparing a meat pie, Lucy’s favorite meal. I wasn’t very hungry. I blended the ingredients and preheated the oven. The phone rang just as I placed the dish inside. It was rare for it to ring since only a few people had my number—just my closest contacts, meaning Lucy, Andrew, Liam, Vicky, and Mark—and, more recently, the police. Agnes, my agent, also had it, but she rarely called. I quickly picked up, worried it might be an important call.

"Hello?"

No one answered. There was a faint static in the background, as if the phone had interference.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"Good evening, Coraline."

A male voice.

"Who is this?"

He ignored the question.

"You look beautiful. Mourning suits you."

My instant reaction was anger.

"You must be a real miserable bastard to waste your time harassing someone else," I snapped. "Go to hell."

I took a deep breath and prepared to hang up, but then I heard his voice again.

"Why are you grieving for that pathetic man, Coraline?" A deep breath. "I’d love to come in and offer you some comfort, but I think you still need some time. Maybe next time, right?"

Those words sent a wave of despair through me because I could only think of one person who would say something so cruel—the killer. I looked through the large window above the sink, seeing only the darkness of the night swallowing the colors outside. From there, I had a perfect view of the forest on the other side of the road.

"Are you looking for me?"

"The police are on their way," I whispered. "You’d be an idiot to come into my house."

He laughed.

"They’re on their way?" His voice was dripping with irony. He didn’t believe me. "In that case, maybe I should come in through the forest instead of the front gate."

I hadn’t even noticed how much my hands were shaking until the phone almost slipped from my grip. I closed my eyes and, through deep breaths, tried to regain control. When I looked out the window again, I thought I was going to die because outside, beyond the fence surrounding my house, at the edge of the road, a man was watching me. The distance blurred his facial expression, and I couldn’t see much, except that he wore a hood, dressed in black clothes that eclipsed his body, and was massive. He was speaking to me from the public payphone by the highway. His body barely fit inside the small booth, forcing his back into a slight hunch, but he didn’t seem any less threatening because of it.

My hand trembled as I reached for the knife drawer in the sink and, discreetly, grabbed a knife.

"I’m calling the police," I threatened. "Leave me alone before they find you and throw you in prison."

"We both know they won’t catch me, love."

Love?

What the…

"Don’t call me that," I said through clenched teeth, before I could rationally consider the consequences. "I don’t know what your goal is with all of this, but just so you know, freaks like you have only two fates—you either get a bullet in your head, or you rot in a filthy, pathetic cell. I can’t wait for the police to catch you and give you the treatment you deserve, you know?"

"Will I be treated like Andrew was?" he asked, unfazed. "He was still alive when I cut his mouth, you know?"

"You bastard…"

"You left him nailed to those shelves and hid like a scared little kitten. What does that say about you, Coraline?" He paused. "Does fear control you so easily, or did you just not care that much about poor Andrew?"

It wasn’t the content of his words that made me snap, but his mocking tone, as if he were thoroughly enjoying all of this. The hatred overpowered the fear that had once consumed me, flooding my mind with violent images.

"When I kill you, I’m going to cut you into so many pieces that they’ll have to put together a puzzle to figure out where each part belongs."

"I’m waiting for that," he said. "Come find me before I find you, okay? I’m impatient, love."

And before I could respond, he hung up.

At that moment, I looked outside and watched his figure disappear into the trees of the forest. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this wasn’t the action of someone who would just let things go—no. His behavior on the phone practically screamed that he was just starting to have fun.