Page 112 of My Killer Blind Date

My friend was a serial killer who was murdering women under my very nose and I had no idea and she almost killed me and now she’s dead.

I bow my head and sit with that for a minute. It’s weird, because I’ve thought she was dead for months. I organized a freaking memorial service. But now she’s really dead. I saw it happen with my own two eyes. Saw her disappear into the retort and take her own life.

I’ve spent the last half a year trying to put the puzzle together, trying to find the truth. Now I have the truth. And the truth is terrible. I relax my head on the pillow again and breathe. Fuck.

It’s hard to imagine everything that was actually going on while we were living together. While Zoe and I were crossing paths in the apartment, sharing a few hurried meals of frozen this or that, she was killing, cremating and painting the first two victims into her series.

Zoe had a semi-personal connection with Kayleigh and Crystal – but what about Brooke? Did they ever meet? Or did Zoe just find her on Insta and decide, you have to die? Maybe I’ll ask Brooke one day, if she even knows. Or maybe it’s better to let that go.

Suddenly I remember the toxic roommate story Zoe told Bill. A total lie, to cover the fact that she probably spent that night at the funeral home reducing one of her victims’ feet to ashes downstairs. And as usual, she pulled the victim card. Why did I never see the toxicity of that pattern before? My friends saw it. But I was too close. Zoe was my ride or die – the whole point was to accept each other one hundred per cent.

I rub my hands over my face, feeling the pain in my arms, a twinge in my shoulder and a nerve in my back that feels messed up.

I think of Liam, launching himself off the gurney to save my life and body slamming Zoe. George, blazing in at the last possible minute. Elsie’s voice saying, I found them. The look in Zoe’s eyes right before she leapt into the fire.

She was a killer. But also my friend. I loved her, and I have no doubt that she loved me. We had good times together. Great times. And she did unforgivable things. How am I supposed to hold those contradictions? I almost wish that she was just a monster. That would be easier.

It hits me that this is the pain of being alive – this coexistence of the precious and the horrible – and that I’d better start figuring out how to live with it.

I exhale.

At least I won’t be figuring it out alone.

*

The cops just left, and I’m sitting upright in bed, picking at a truly terrible lunch. All I can say is, this nasty-ass hospital ‘chicken’ on ‘rice’ makes my frozen lasagna look gourmet. I wonder if Liam is eating the same thing. They haven’t let me see him yet.

Barnett and his partner just spent over two hours with me. I told them as much as I could and answered so many questions that my tongue feels tired. Not to mention my heart. I wish there was a shortcut through this, but I already know there isn’t.

They showed me pictures of some of the evidence they had collected from Devin’s house, such as Zoe’s work-in-progress, which I confirmed was a portrait of Brooke. Barnett also filled in some of the missing pieces for me, like how George and Elsie managed to be first on the scene. My call to get Devin’s address freaked Elsie out, but she didn’t feel like there was enough info to call the cops, so she called my emergency contact. George. Trouble is, George was at the spa. The second she got her phone back, she and Elsie connected, became instant besties – my words, not Barnett’s – and decided to head to Devin’s together. They were just driving up when they saw Devin’s van tear away. George and Elsie followed us back to the funeral home. The rest is history.

Brooke, it turns out, survived by the skin of her teeth. Zoe had pumped her with drugs and left her for dead, but medics arrived on the scene just in time and were able to save her life.

After the cops left, I took a nap, and when I woke up, they brought me lunch.

I’m just lifting a forkful of something pale and stringy-looking when there’s a knock at the door.

‘You have a visitor,’ says a cheerful voice.

‘Come in,’ I call out.

The door opens. My heart leaps, because it’s Liam, in a wheelchair pushed by a hospital transport person. I take him in – a hospital gown, one eye blackened and mostly closed, his arm in a sling. But alive.

The fork clatters down and I burst into tears immediately.

The transport person wheels him around to my bedside, and Liam awkwardly reaches up from his wheelchair, and I awkwardly reach down from the bed, almost knocking over my water, in the most pathetic hug known to history.

But being touched by him right now is everything I need. As we embrace and deep sobs roll up from the depths of my soul, he rubs my shoulder – it hurts but I don’t say anything because I don’t want him to stop – and I rub his, letting all my feelings crash out on him.

Once his hospital gown is thoroughly wet and my energy is spent, I sniff and try to get back upright in bed without toppling over.

‘I’m a mess,’ I say, blowing my nose in a napkin.

‘Too bad, since I’m looking like James Bond,’ he says wryly.

I laugh, he laughs, and I can tell he’s in as much pain as I am, or more.

We sit in silence for a minute, studying each other. I’m sure he’s taking inventory of my injuries, just as I’m taking inventory of his.