Chapter 14: Gwen - Hunter or Hunted

A Week Later

Why did funerals always smell like this?

Some sickly cross between an old home with mildew in the basement and mothballs in the closets, but with the pungent edge of chemicals like you would encounter in a hospital. The décor was never any better. Dim sconces cast the most god-awful light onto the red and brown checkered carpet underfoot. Deep beige walls, almost brown, with cheap artwork. Always landscapes. A tree-covered hill. A snow-doused mountain. A beach before sunset. Every single mass-produced painting looked different, but always fit into those same parameters.

I understood the goal. Create a soft, relaxing environment. And a hundred years ago, sure, this vibe reminded people of their own homes in the evening. These days, most people kept their homes bright and airy—light walls, neutral flooring, and pops of color through plants and funky furniture.

Places like this weren’t calm and relaxing anymore. It didn’t feel like home. It felt like the dark and dreary place you came to mourn.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the goal was for it to feel dark and dreary.

Sebastian’s elbow rammed into mine. I shot him a look just as he murmured, “Sorry,” before returning to his collar. The black dress shirt went all the way to his neck. He kept yanking at it. Face turning red, he hooked his fingers beneath it and tugged.

“What’s the matter with you?” I whispered, doing my best not to disturb the others in line.

Half a dozen or so of us stood before a man at a pulpit. The funeral director, I assumed. In a hushed tone, he told the others to sign the book and then told them which direction to go. We’d already been here for ten minutes, and the line had barely moved. More people stood behind us.

“Damn button-up,” Sebastian said under his breath, holding on to his collar to give his Adam’s apple some room. “I can’t breathe in this thing.”

For a guy who wore scrubs at work, then T-shirts and flannels when he was finished, I couldn’t say I was surprised. “Just loosen a button or two.”

“I don’t want my chest hair hanging out.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to soothe his posture. “Fabio isn’t the vibe for a funeral.”

I swallowed a laugh. The people in front of me took a step forward. I followed. “You didn’t wear an undershirt?”

“Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.” Hazel eyes shifting around the room, he blew out another slow, even breath. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

And yet, I had never seen his cheeks so pink. “Are you?”

“I hate funerals.” A cherry pocket door on our left—a viewing room—rolled open. At the far end, an old lady lay inside a casket. Sebastian shuddered and looked away. “All the dead people everywhere. I don’t know, it just creeps me out.”

Playing that over in my mind, I blinked hard at him. “You see the irony in that, don’t you?”

“It’s different.” The people ahead of us took another step, and we did too. “When someone deserves it, it’s different. You know what I mean.”

Honestly, I didn’t. I still didn’t understand Sebastian’s moral compass. But hopefully I would have a better understanding of it by the time we left here.

The people ahead of us stepped away from the pulpit, thanking the funeral director for his time. As we came closer, the man gave us a sad, warm smile. “Hi there. Who are you here to see?”

“D–Allison,” I said. “Allison Kennedy.”

Any of the joy in his smile drizzled away. Frowning, he passed us a couple obituary cards. “Her ceremony is at the end of this hall on the left-hand side.”

“Thanks,” I said, starting in that direction.

* * *

I stood just before another one of those big pocket doors, Sebastian at my side, staring at the pink casket. A few people stood around, but I couldn’t look at them. All I could see was Delilah.

Even from here, I could tell it was her. The bouncy blonde curls. The little ski slope nose.

But my feet were cemented to the ground.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sebastian asked, trailing a hand over my back.

No. Yes. I didn’t know.

But it wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about what needed done.

“I have to,” I murmured.

His hand on my back moved to my hand, laying limp at my side. His fingers threaded through mine. Giving a gentle squeeze, he stroked his thumb over my tense knuckle.

The deep breath I pulled in cracked that stone around my legs. Moving them still felt like lifting weights. Some way or another, though, they carried me to the casket.

Breath collapsed into my lungs, and a door shut behind it. If I forced it open, a desperate, pathetic wail would slither out.

She looked wrong. It was Delilah, but it wasn’t Delilah.

She never would’ve worn her makeup so thick. If she could, she would run to the bathroom and wash it off, complaining about how cakey it made her look.

The color of her lips was off too. She liked a bold, Marilyn Monroe kind of red. This was too pink, too girly. She always wanted to look older, more mature. No matter what, she always looked like a little girl, but she tried to look womanly. To be taken seriously.

The eyes were perfect though. A neutral dust across them, a pop of glittery white at the corner and beneath her brow, and thick yet wispy black lashes. She would’ve liked the nail polish too. Pale, baby pink.

She wouldn’t have worn the clothes either.

It hugged her frame closely. A tweed sort of texture, but thinner, in pale pink. Like the color of a hydrangea. She would’ve been proud of me for remembering that—it was one of her favorites.

But the color and the texture marked the problems. She wouldn’t have minded those.

It was the cut. Or rather, the lack thereof.

Turtleneck.

With clarity, I remembered her hating them. She’d spilled some spaghetti on her shirt when we ate at my house one time, and I offered her a sweater. She refused to wear it though, sporting the spaghetti stain instead, because she hated turtlenecks. Like Sebastian and his high-collared button-up, she hated anything too tight around her neck. It made her feel like she was suffocating.

And that’s when the door fluttered open. Acid burned across my irises. No amount of blinking eased the sting. I managed to swallow the sobs that wrapped around my vocal cords, but I had to press a hand over my mouth to keep it all contained.

The only reason they would’ve put her in a turtleneck, knowing how much she hated them, was if something was wrong with her neck. Something they didn’t want everyone to be reminded of when they said their goodbyes.

It was better than I imagined. All those images in my mind of a bullet slicing through her skull, blowing out the back in a violent spray. This was better, and somehow worse.

She hanged.

That explained why they ruled it a suicide. No one shot her. She dangled from a tree by a rope around her neck. Swaying in the cold wind like a bulb off a Christmas tree. Snow must’ve gathered on top of her, like it had that day she came to my cabin. She’d only been walking for an hour or so that night. It must’ve taken many more before anyone found her there, dangling from the tree. No wonder she had so much makeup on. Her skin had to have been bluer than the sky by the time they got her down.

How could anyone have hung her without leaving obvious marks? To get her up there, to tie her around a tree, wouldn’t there have been signs of foul play? Bruises on her hands, or her arms, or something? If someone had hanged her, they couldn’t have done so easily. She would’ve fought back, and there would’ve been marks, and…

Could I have been wrong?

Was it possible that they were right? Had she killed herself?

“She doesn’t look real, does she?” A voice on my left made me jump.

I jolted again when I looked her way.

Familiar, bouncy blonde curls. A ski slope nose.

Delilah. Delilah stood beside me, and Delilah lay in the casket.

No. No, not Delilah. A few hard blinks revealed the differences. This girl’s cheeks were fuller, younger. Her lips, though similar in shape, were just the slightest bit denser. She stood shorter as well, somewhere around five feet. A pair of thick rimmed black glasses covered her eyes.

The girl reached out and draped her hand over Delilah’s. She wrapped her hand around the flesh-wrapped, frozen bones. “Like a doll. A pretty, porcelain doll.”

Swallowing a couple times, I wiped the corners of my eyes. It took clearing my throat for words to come out. “She always kinda looked like a pretty porcelain doll to me.”

The young girl smiled, staring into the casket. Her nostrils flared as she eased a deep breath through them. “Yeah, I always wanted to be as pretty as her.” She released Delilah’s hand, and her eyes found mine. “I’m sorry, I don’t know if we’ve met. How did you know Allie?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. Not until Sebastian gave my hand another one of those comforting squeezes. “I’m—I’m Zoey.” That was the fake name I had decided on this morning. “And Allie—we were working together. Up until this, anyway.”

Brows raising, her mouth fell further open. “Like, a couple of weeks ago? You know where she was. Where she’s been these past few months.”

Oh, shit.

She had no idea Delilah had been living in a domestic violence shelter.

A sob sounded near the doors we had come in from. So loud it made me jump. A deep, masculine noise. Somehow similar to the choir of obnoxious laughter from a group of frat boys and the grief-stricken sob of a mother who’d just learned of her child’s death.

My gaze followed the young girl’s in that direction. And the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew.

He was tall, taller than me, taller than Sebastian. At least 6′4″. Maybe taller. His shoulders took up half the doorway, like the quarterback on an NFL team. He had one of those trendy fades with blonde hair a few inches long, swaying to his ears, resting over the buzzed sides. A five o’clock shadow lined his strong, diamond-shaped jaw.

“Aw, I’ve gotta go talk to Evan,” the young girl said. “I’m Ava, by the way. But don’t go far, alright? I’d really love if you could tell me more about what the last couple months have been like for my sister.”