"Hold up," said Charlene. "I'm still pretty messed up in the head over what happened, but I'm not cursing your existence or anything like that."

"Thank you. That means a lot."

"Also, you looked ridiculous in that wig."

Gertie laughed. "I agree."

"Okay, now you can get back to work."

* * *

Ken's day at work was driving him absolutely batshit insane. That was par for the course, but today was even worse, because he couldn't get those women from the news out of his mind.

How dare they? It would be different if they were cops. He didn't mind that, even the female ones—they were just doing their jobs.

But he didn't care if it was her (long-dead) cousin. It infuriated him that they thought they could trap him like that. What were those tiny girls going to do to him? Overpower him? Shoot him? If they shot him, they'd never find her cousin's body—he was good at covering his tracks, which is why Darrell trusted him to rent the house for them.

He didn't even care if he got to put them in cages. A strangulation, like the kind Vivian thought he did, would be fine. Squeeze their necks until their eyeballs popped out. Maybe he'd slash their throats. Maybe he'd get into Darrell's stash of S&M gear and whip their backs until they were a mess of blood.

Damn, he was so angry that his hands were trembling. Made it difficult to work on this spreadsheet.

He hated this job. A waste of forty hours a week, not counting the commute and his unpaid lunch break. Without this job, he could be spending all day every weekday in the basement. He'd used a couple of vacation days for that purpose, but he obviously couldn't quit. Vivian would notice if he stopped getting paychecks, and though she didn't track his vacation time, she'd question if he came up short when they wanted to actually go somewhere.

So he was stuck here, staring at these numbers all day.

He wondered what those girls were doing right now.

Laughing at him?

High-fiving each other for their amazing victory in getting the dad to shoot himself in the face?

Getting bombarded with lucrative offers for the movie and book rights to their story?

The rights to their story would be far more valuable after their bodies were discovered, though of course they wouldn't be able to enjoy the money themselves.

He wouldn't go after them right away. Unless they were complete idiots, they'd be on high alert. He'd give their lives a chance to calm down before he entered it.

But if they wanted to meet him, he was happy to oblige. On his terms.

* * *

Olivia tried to refuse water.