Her Every Fear - Peter Swanson Page 0,101

at his forearm in the bar the day before. Hives, he’d said, something about springtime. Only they hadn’t looked like allergic hives to him, and Alan suddenly realized what they were, and what that meant. A dizziness coursed through his body at the thought, and he felt an alarm go off that Kate was in terrible danger. He didn’t know why, exactly. It was just a feeling, but a feeling as real as anything he’d ever felt.

He exited the bathroom, turning into the living room just as the young agent was crossing the room toward him. She was removing her gloves. Behind her, in the alcove kitchen, he could see the other cop bagging one of his kitchen knives. Alan began to speak, although he was not entirely sure what he was going to say. He stopped when he saw the agent remove her handcuffs from under her jacket. “Alan Cherney,” she said, her eyes expressionless, “I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Audrey Marshall . . .”

She read him his rights as she cuffed his hands behind his back.

Part II

An Even Split

Chapter 30

The friendship—or whatever you wanted to call it—with Corbin Dell had been special. Henry Wood, for the first time in his life, imagined that he felt what normal people felt when they fell in love, or looked at a parent, or brought a new puppy home to live with them. Then the friendship ended—Henry getting the call from Corbin after they’d both murdered the insignificance that was Linda Alcheri—and Henry felt deeply hurt, another new emotional experience. Not just hurt, but shocked. After all, Henry had introduced Corbin to a new and better world. He’d taken him from Kansas to Oz, and now Corbin, for some reason, wanted to go back to Kansas.

Had Corbin not realized that what had happened in the Boddington Cemetery was something beautiful? And that what had happened on Eel River Pond could have been even more beautiful?

That was how Henry thought of it, especially their shared moment in London with Claire Brennan. Some of it was probably the heightened nostalgia of college memories, but, no, he had felt the incredible beauty at the time, as well. For the short time after the murder that Henry was in London, and then all during that incredible summer in New York, the world was composed of new colors. Henry, every night as he fell asleep, replayed every detail of what had happened between Corbin and Claire and him on that wet Wednesday afternoon. It had been a spontaneous dance in which each participant knew their dance moves without having practiced them before. That was how he remembered it. Claire’s death was the climax, and her spilled blood was shared, in perfect equal measures, by Corbin and him. Even the rain, coming when it did, had added to the beauty, washing the blood away, cleaning the air.

Occasionally, Henry altered what had happened, tweaked it to make it a little bit better. For instance, he always took away that awkward moment when he’d slipped on the slick ground and fallen to one knee, the knife slipping from his fingers. He also always reduced the amount of time it had taken to dig the grave, Corbin beginning to panic that someone would come along. And sometimes he allowed himself to add a scene, one in which they’d slice Claire’s body down the middle before burying it. One half for Corbin, and one half for me, Henry thought. An even split. It would have been a way to memorialize why Claire had died; that she’d foolishly shared her love and paid the price. But it would also have memorialized what had happened between Henry and Corbin.

Of course, Henry found out, after Linda Alcheri, that Corbin didn’t really understand, and never would really understand. Cutting Linda had been a present that Corbin didn’t appreciate.

Still, when the phone call came—Corbin telling him that their friendship was over—Henry was shocked.

And then he got angry.

What did Corbin think? Did he think that after what they’d done together, he could just somehow stop? Did he think he was going to go back to a normal life? Did he want to get married? Have children? Did he actually think he’d be happy back in Kansas, living in a world drained of all color? And Henry decided that, if nothing else, he would make sure that none of that ever happened. That was not how the world worked. Corbin was like him. He could

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