Ella barely lets me enter the apartment before her mouth is on mine. It reminds me of the night we met at Lava—how Ella knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t going to be denied.
I would have preferred to talk first. After all, I’m here for information, not to get laid. But she literally pulls me into her bedroom. The room is so dark that I can barely see her face as she reaches for my pants. I decide to give her what she wants—then I’ll get what I’m after.
Dylan understands that I’m not interested in foreplay. It’s only a matter of seconds before he’s inside me.
From the first thrust, I’m cast into another dimension. In no time at all, I’m over the edge. Seconds later, I’m there for a second time.
Left to my own devices, I would have taken things more slowly, but Ella’s on her own timetable. She pulls me on top of her. A moment later, she lets out a shudder. Her head rolls back and her arms flay to the side, tightly gripping the sheets.
Charlotte was extremely vocal during sex. At times, it felt almost like she was narrating. Ella is her opposite in that regard. Almost mute. If I didn’t know better, I might think that she’s just going through the motions to get things over with. But I do know better. I can feel each of her orgasms, until they start coming in waves that won’t stop.
When it’s over, we lie there in a heap. The thick scent leaves no doubt what’s just occurred. My sheets are soaking wet.
“Jesus,” he says.
I laugh. “I’m sorry for taking such advantage of you. I don’t know what came over me.”
He gives me a sideways glance. “I don’t think you’re really sorry.”
He’s right, and I tell him so. “Not even a little bit. In fact, I’m actually more thankful than sorry.”
“I’m going to get some water,” he says. “Do you want any?”
“If you’re getting it. Sure.”
He climbs out of the bed and I watch his perfectly formed ass walk away.
I don’t even bother to try finding my underwear in the dark. Instead, I stroll out of the bedroom as naked as the day I was born.
The contrast between Ella’s darkened bedroom and the brightly lit living room is so stark that I’m initially blinded. It takes a moment for my pupils to adjust. When my eyes can focus, they catch sight of a yellow legal pad on the dining-room table.
It takes me only a second to scan the page.
Tumi suitcase
East River
Missing since Tuesday
Tall, black hair, handsome
Banker
Patek Philippe watch
Art gallery/topless out-of-focus photo
Married
Scar/initial/hip
I know immediately what I’ve just read. Ella has written down clues about Charlotte’s murderer.
How does Ella know I own a Patek Philippe? I’ve never worn it around her, as it doesn’t seem to be the kind of accessory an altruistic doctor would possess. And why on earth does she think that Charlotte’s killer owned one?
Tumi suitcase. The cops found it, apparently. But if they could trace it back to me, I would have already been visited by a swarm of New York City’s finest. It must be a dead end, just as I’d thought. The police seemingly also know that she went missing Tuesday, not Wednesday. McDouche must have changed his story to pass the polygraph.
But why has Ella concluded Charlotte was killed by a married banker? Only the banker part applies to me. And what does art gallery/topless out-of-focus photo mean? That isn’t me. I never took a photo of Charlotte topless, and we never went to an art gallery—or anywhere in public—together.
It’s the last entry—scar/initial/hip—that stops me cold. Somehow, Ella knows that Charlotte’s killer has a scar in the shape of his initial, and yet her phrasing indicates that she doesn’t know the letter it forms, which means she still doesn’t know the killer’s name. How could she know that? Maybe Charlotte told her . . . but then wouldn’t she also have shared the name that goes with the initial?
Relax, I tell myself. Even though the police have a lot more than I thought, neither they nor Ella know the one thing that matters—that I killed Charlotte.
But is that right? Is it possible that she hasn’t realized that I have a scar on my hip in the shape of a C? Even though she thinks my name is Dylan, if she notices a scar in the place she believes Charlotte’s murderer was so marked, that certainly would be too much of a coincidence for her to overlook.
This is the second time I’ve been naked before her. Both times, it was in her dark bedroom. Clearly, she hasn’t noticed. After Lava she was drunk and, just now, we went at it so fast and furious that I’m certain she didn’t see it.
But maybe that’s not right. Could it be that she didn’t know after our first session, but this time she’s seen it?
“Hey, did you get lost out there?” Ella calls from the bedroom.
“Just a second,” I shout back.
Dylan returns to the bedroom a minute later with two glasses of water, one in each hand. He holds one in front of his genitals, as if he’s embarrassed. He has nothing to be shy about, however. Far from it. A point that’s driven home by the fact that a highball glass doesn’t remotely cover him.
But then I feel a sharp pain in my brain. I now understand why Dylan’s suddenly become so modest.
I can see it through the glass. On his hip is a scar. It’s smooth, almost as if it were created with a scalpel. It’s in the shape of the letter C.
It’s like a bolt of lightning has struck me. Paul didn’t kill Charlotte. The naked man in front of me is my sister’s murderer.
Dylan matches the physical description of Matthew Harrison and now shares Charlotte’s fictional lover’s most defining feature—a scar on his hip. What Gabriel surmised must be right. Charlotte used the meeting with Paul in her book, but there can be only one explanation for why she decided to give Matthew a scar on his hip: She knew Dylan. More than just knew. She’d seem him naked.
Dylan Perry does not have a cyber footprint. Everything I know about him—including his name and his occupation—is based solely on what he’s told me himself. I think about what Gabriel said—how sociopaths like to stay close to the investigation. What better way to do that than to get close to me?
I’m instantly consumed by rage. All I want to do is leap out at Dylan and strangle him with my bare hands. Or grab the lamp on my nightstand and crack his skull. Instead, I suppress all impulses to attack—not because of my more charitable instincts, but for the least Christian reason of all. I’m concerned that I’ll fail.