her body feeling as if it carried a hundred extra pounds, she ran as fast as she could to the street where she parked her SUV, trying to keep the vomit down that threatened to explode from her lips.
Her hands shook on the drive home.
They didn’t have any blood on them. Her leather gloves did. Winter in Missouri was the only thing that stopped her from leaving prints everywhere. The rest of her body was equally wrapped up, her hair tightly braided then tucked into her black beanie.
Orion had put a lot of thought into it, even the stalking, which was what that was meant to be. She had planned everything to a T. Their case was everywhere, wildfire across news and social media alike. He’d known that they were alive, that they were in his hospital, yet he still roamed the halls without fear, without shame. That said something about his arrogance. About his power. It told Orion what she already had suspected, even then. If she’d gone to the cops with no evidence but a memory, nothing would’ve been done. And she would’ve lost her chance to kill him because she would’ve tied herself to him. It wouldn’t have taken them long to look at Orion as the lead suspect. She’d done the right thing.
Tonight, she’d made one of the stupidest decisions since she decided to bike home alone that evening ten years ago.
Someone would find the body, that much was obvious. There would be publicity, not just because of the grisly, messy way she had killed him. This doctor was someone important. She’d learned that by watching him, researching him. He was well-known, well-respected. Business meetings and golf outings. Cigar rooms and happy hours. But there was the other side too. The side that frequented strip clubs routinely, staying for hours on end. That would certainly work to her benefit, and raise questions about his character, and what kind of people he was mixed up with.
Regardless, his family, his buddies, and his colleagues would all want his killer brought to justice. They would fight to catch the monster who took the life of a beloved doctor, father, and family man.
They would never know what a monster he truly was.
But that wasn’t Orion’s goal. She had no grand plans of exposing him to the world. She didn’t need the world to condemn him, and she knew such a thing was too hard if not impossible. She had done her research—she knew how easily rich white men got away with sexual assault, how many victims were made into liars. Jeffrey Epstein got thirteen months. She had read all about it. All the accusations, all the reports. The evidence was damning. And yet, he spent thirteen months in a county jail, thirteen hours of work release, six days a week. That was not justice. That was white male privilege. That was the rich living under a vastly different set of standards. And it was unacceptable. Orion wasn’t going to leave it up to a judge and jury. She wanted him to pay. She wanted him dead. And though the killing filled her with an intense, visceral fear, it also gave her a jolt of adrenaline, a rush unlike anything she’d felt since she made Thing Two bleed.
She felt alive.
But everything was wrong. It was too quick. Too messy.
She had cleaned the blood from her face with some makeup wipes in the car—she’d tossed the gloves under the seat. If, for some reason, she was pulled over, on the surface, it wouldn’t seem like she’d just brutally murdered someone.
If the cop was the least bit suspicious, he’d find it. The evidence. The blood. The murder weapon tucked into her boots.
She’d be done.
She hadn’t slept.
Not a wink.
The entire rest of the night was spent destroying evidence. Washing her clothes. She wanted to burn them, toss them in a dumpster. Have them out of her house, out of her life. Gone. But that was far too suspicious. Most people who committed crimes of passion and tried to get away with it thought getting rid of everything was the right idea. It wasn’t. If anything, it was a huge fucking neon sign of premeditation to the police.
So, Orion kept the clothes. The gloves too. She washed those with bleach, even though that ruined the fucking leather. Maybe she was keeping them as a trophy. A reminder of her stupidity. Then there was the car. Her shoes. Everything she touched after the murder. The knife.