Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,51

yet. She’d even been toting a freaking cheeseboard when she arrived, just after four in the afternoon.

I’d only been up a handful of hours.

After my little visitor last night, I was keyed. Not shaken at having the parent of a slain girl spouting ugliness at me; no, I was inspired by his grief. His pain. It invigorated me like a fucking vampire after draining a human.

Which was what I was, really. A cold-blooded predator, preying on the vulnerable.

Because I wrote. I wrote, fueled by the man’s utter horror. His life.

His daughter’s death.

I had lied about using Emily’s murder. To him. Mostly to myself. I’d told myself I’d not bought this house because I wanted to write about the murder. It was because I wanted to soak up the negative energy, the death.

I’d pitched a story about a bunch of teenage girls summoning the devil, fucking him and gaining powers from him. Kind of like a fucked-up version of The Craft.

Obviously, my agent and publishers had loved it. I’d gotten a mockup of the cover days ago. I hadn’t opened that email. Told myself it was because I didn’t want it affecting my flow. I wanted to be switched off. Needed to be. I didn’t need someone else’s interpretation of my story messing with me. And the publishers always fucked up my covers. It made me fuming mad I spent weeks having arguments over email, the phone and text until I got exactly what I wanted. It was usually because the book was finished, fully formed by then.

But this time, I didn’t open it because I knew I wasn’t going to be writing the book I’d pitched them.

That’s why I hadn’t looked too hard at the patchwork of paragraphs lurking on my computer. Because if I looked too hard, they’d tell me the truth about what I was writing.

Emily’s story.

A version of it, at least.

That was why I had printouts of crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, notes of conversations I’d had with cops, medical examiners, anyone I could use my influence to get in touch with. Everything was tacked to the walls of my makeshift office. This was not how I worked, like some fucking cliché private investigator or ex-cop trying to solve a murder to redeem themselves or some shit.

No.

My office in New York had been large. Bigger than my bedroom. Had a white slip couch, covered in hundred-dollar pillows and hand-stitched throws, and had two matching armchairs facing each other. It had a view of the park. Every wall was covered in bookshelves. Tattered copies of my favorite books. An entire wall of my own books. Not for any other reason but because sometimes, during moments of self-doubt, I needed to look up and remember I could write a book. That I’d done it, many times.

My desk itself was small. Expensive, tasteful, of course. Not cluttered. A Tiffany lamp. A marble coaster. A desktop computer. A luxe chair. I didn’t know what good it did, since I never really wrote there. I was usually sprawled out on the sofa. An armchair. The floor. The desk was for answering emails, for research, for the photos when Vogue came to do a profile on me.

This office was nothing like that. It was a small guest room I’d taken the bed out of—who would I get to stay the night?—and had a desk shipped in. The same luxe chair I’d had.

But nothing else of mine.

There were stacks of my books piled around, in no order, just put there so I could have their energy.

This room was decorated like the rest of the house. Bohemian glam. Vintage rugs. Cluttered, mismatched frames on the walls. I’d taken a lot of them down so I could decorate with murder.

Even though I hadn’t been writing, I’d been doing things, telling myself it was a hobby, curiosity, but it was research.

Not so I could solve the murders. I was far too selfish for that. I wanted to know Emily. The manner of her murder.

Because this wasn’t just Emily. Or even the other women who were killed.

This was about him.

I was guessing it was a man because women were very rarely serial killers, and if they were, they didn’t have this kind of M.O.

So, I was thinking it was a man. A monster inside of one. I wanted to know him. Because I wanted to write this as him. I wanted to write a monster. I wanted everyone to be forced to accompany one in the story. Be