Page 120 of Noctis

“And then?”

“She stopped breathing. I didn’t call an ambulance because I…” I nearly made Tyler describe himself as a piece-of-shit coward but stopped myself. “I feared what might happen to me, so I put her body in her car, drove to the river, and dumped her in the water.”

The second detective gestured toward the evidence bag on the table. “And the ring?”

“I took it from her finger. I intended to sell it, but when the police announced it was missing, I hid it instead.”

“Did anyone force you to come here to make this confession?”

Yes.

“No. I just couldn’t live with the guilt anymore.”

“You’re speaking voluntarily?”

“Yes.”

No. No. No. No.

They had enough now. They had the ring, and a recorded confession containing details only someone who was there could know. I loosened my hold.

Tyler lunged for control, our knee striking the table as I tore myself free and spilled unseen into the corner of the room. He drew in a breath and stared wildly at the detectives.

“Wait. None of that was true.”

Both detectives frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t kill her. I wasn’t involved in her death. Something was inside me, making me say those things.”

“Something?”

“A monster. Rowan summoned it, or maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. He denied performing any satanic rituals. I don’t know the details, only that Rowan sent the monster to possess me.” Tyler shoved his chair back. “It was an accident. I never meant for her to hit her head.”

Silence descended.

Tyler seemed to realize what he’d said. “No. That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened to her.”

Satisfied that everything had gone according to plan, I left while the recording light continued to glow.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Rowan

I spent most of the next week painting. What appeared on the canvas didn’t matter, and if I was truthful, barely registered. All that mattered was having something to escape into. While I was thinking about the thickness of paint and whether I’d chosen the right shade, I didn’t have to think about how happy I was that Tyler was still in custody and had been refused bail. I didn’t have to replay the phone call from Remy after he heard the news where he’d ranted about having slept with a killer before realizing that a) reminding me of that fact probably wasn’t the best idea, b) I’d spent two years with Tyler, so he had nothing on me, and c) the victim in question was my mother.

In other circumstances, the amount of backtracking Remy had done might have been amusing, but I seemed to have left my sense of humor elsewhere. Probably at the house where Tyler had been staying, during that god-awful conversation when I’d discovered what he was capable of.

The phone calls had been incessant over the past week. First came the police. Pretending they were telling me everything for the first time made that call interesting. Then came well-meaning friends, who knew they ought to say something but struggled to know what. I coudn’t say I blamed them. I would have been the same if our positions were reversed.

When Donald Wentworth called to offer his condolences, there was a note of relief in his voice―presumably because he was no longer under suspicion for having been the last person to see my mother alive. Except he hadn’t been; Tyler had been the last person. Even my father called. Our conversation was as stilted as ever, but at least he’d called, and I was grateful for that.

Painting until my hand was sore and I had backache from standing also kept me from dwelling on how easily I’d gone from lecturing Caligo about not killing people to begging him to snap Tyler’s neck. I was glad he hadn’t listened to me. At least, I thought I was. On the nights I couldn’t sleep, I wasn’t so sure.

The one thing I couldn’t paint my way out of thinking about was what Laura had said about my future with Caligo. Mainly because she was right. How could a relationship work when one half of it could never be seen? We couldn’t go to the cinema together, take a walk through the park, or visit a museum. If we got a dog, I’d have to be the one to walk it. If ‘we’ needed milk, I’d have to get it.

None of those things seemed particularly important on their own. Together, they amounted to a life I struggled to picture. The thought grew harder to ignore with every passing day, until talking to Caligo about it became a burning need.

That was how I found myself sitting across from him at the kitchen table with no idea how to corral the chaotic thoughts in my head into anything approaching sense, and even less idea how he’d react if I managed it. I’d once asked him what would happen if I rejected him, and he’d said it wouldn’t happen.