“Now explain you.”
Butcher stood in front of me.
I said nothing.
Horseman’s breathing filled the room. He sat on the floor beside the coffee table, holding the wrist Butcher had twisted. The empty handgun lay nearby.
Nobody reached for it.
I stopped looking at it too.
Sweat crawled down my temple beneath the fox mask.
“You knew about the lipstick,” Butcher said.
“I told you that.”
“You knew the towel stayed in the bathroom.”
“I told you that too.”
“You knew the bedroom drawer stuck.”
I looked at him. “Want me to start over?”
“No.”
He pulled out a chair and sat across from me.
No gun between us now.
He didn’t need one.
“I want to know how you know those things.”
I kept my filtered voice level.
“Because I was there.”
“The night Lena died?”
“Yes.”
“Before she died or after?”
My heart stalled for one beat.
One beat can be too long.
“Trying to catch me like you caught Horseman?”
“Maybe.”
I leaned back. “Then keep asking.”
He didn’t.
He just watched me.
I hate people who know how to use silence. You can answer a question. Silence makes you answer yourself.
Horseman laughed weakly from the floor.
“Now the fox gets skinned.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“You think you beat me?”
“I wasn’t playing with you.”
He braced a hand against the floor and started to rise.
“That woman deserved what happened. If I’d really killed her—”
Butcher turned his head.
Slowly.
Horseman didn’t notice in time.
“—I wouldn’t have regretted it. Married and still—”
Butcher stood.
No warning.
He crossed the space between them, grabbed Horseman by the hair, and hit him.
The sound was smaller than movies make it.
Horseman went sideways into the couch.
“What the hell—”
Butcher pulled him up and hit him again.
Blood appeared at the corner of Horseman’s mouth.
I stayed where I was.
Butcher had used force before to control him.
This was different.
This wasn’t necessary.
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
His voice was so low the filter almost disappeared.
Horseman breathed hard. “What was she to you?”
Butcher didn’t answer.
But I heard what I needed in the silence.
From the beginning, he had been the calm one.
Horseman bragged. Butcher questioned.
Fox tensed. Butcher watched.
I lied to his face. Butcher waited.
Even the gun had been planned.
But one insult aimed at Lena Tran and he lost control.
Not principle.
Not disgust.
Personal.
Butcher zip-tied Horseman’s wrists behind him and pushed him against the couch.
“Stay there.”
Then he came back to me.
There was blood across one knuckle. He took a tissue from the table and wiped each finger slowly.
For several strange seconds, the room became almost peaceful.
Air-conditioning.
A wall clock advancing one minute.
A car passing outside and disappearing down the road.
I realized I was waiting for him to explode again.
Instead he became calm.
That frightened me more.
“Continue,” he said.
“I’ve said everything.”
“No. How did you get into Lena’s condo?”
I considered the answer.
“Door.”
“Locked?”
“Don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember getting into a place where you supposedly killed someone?”
“Some things aren’t worth remembering.”
“But the stuck drawer is.”
I didn’t answer.
He stepped closer.
“The more you talk, the stranger this gets.”
“How?”
“You remember the apartment better than you remember the murder.”
My hands went cold.
He was right.
Because the apartment was real.
The murder story I’d just told was not.
I needed him looking somewhere else.
“You care about this case a lot.”
He stopped.
“You’ve asked more questions than anyone here. You knew the writing wasn’t blood. You knew Horseman was wrong before I said it. And the gun was a test.”
I tilted my head.
“So what is tonight really about?”
Horseman looked up from the floor.
Butcher kept his face turned toward me.
“This isn’t a killers’ meetup,” I said. “You’re looking for someone.”
The room tightened.
I knew I’d hit something.
Before I could push further, Butcher bent and picked up the handgun.
He didn’t point it at me. He dropped the empty magazine, then tucked the weapon into his waistband.
The motion pulled his collar aside.
Just enough.
A piece of tattoo showed on his left shoulder.
I stopped breathing.
Nothing dramatic. A black curve. Two narrow lines crossing below it.
Only part of the design.
I’d seen it before.
Not tonight.
Not in this house.
In Lena Tran’s bedroom.
The beach photo on the nightstand.
I remembered it because the frame had sat beside an expensive watch. I’d picked up both and weighed which one was worth taking.
Lena stood barefoot in the sand, sandals dangling from one hand, hair blown across her cheek. Her smile pulled slightly to one side, like the photographer had caught her between laughing and complaining about the wind.
A man stood beside her with his arm around her shoulders.
Tank top.
Left shoulder exposed.
The same tattoo.
I looked away from Butcher.
Too much attention and he’d notice.
I lowered my eyes to the blood-stained tissue on the table.
The photograph came back in full.
Lena’s crooked smile.
The sandals in her hand.
The tall man beside her.
At the time, it had meant nothing to me.
A family photo has no resale value.
Now I knew who I’d been looking at.
Lena Tran’s husband.
Horseman spoke from the floor.
“You knew her, didn’t you?”
Butcher turned toward him. “Quiet.”
Horseman gave a painful laugh. “I knew it.”
Butcher took one step.
Horseman shut up.
I looked again at Butcher’s shoulder. His collar had fallen back into place, hiding the tattoo.
It didn’t matter.
Everything rearranged itself.
The questions about the lipstick, the cord, the timeline.
The private board.
The locked house.
The unloaded gun.
His reaction to Lena’s name.
Butcher hadn’t brought people here to swap stories.
He had built tonight to find the person who killed his wife.
Horseman had just proved he wasn’t that person.
Which left me – the only person in the room who had just announced:
I killed Lena Tran.
My stomach tightened.
I’d told a lot of lies tonight.
This might have been the most dangerous one.
Not because it was false.
Because of the man I’d chosen to tell it to.
Butcher turned back.
“Something wrong?”
“No.”
“You’ve gone quiet.”
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
For the first time that night, I wasn’t thinking about the door. Or the hammer. Or Fox tied up in the bathroom.
I was thinking about one thing.
If Butcher really was Lena’s husband, he didn’t need to prove I was lying.
He only needed to believe me.
That was worse.
2 thoughts on “CHAPTER 5 – BUTCHER”