He knows someone was there. He’s going to find the cookies. Read the note. See the jacket hanging crooked in his closet.
He’s going to know it was me.
Oh God. Oh GOD.
My heart is slamming. My hands are shaking.
And I’m so turned on I might actually die.
The adrenaline, the fear, the fact that I was this close to getting caught wearing his jacket in his bedroom.
My body doesn’t know the difference between terror and arousal and it’s chosen both.
I look down.
The tie is peeking out of my pocket.
I pull it out slowly.
It’s real. This is real. I actually did this.
I stole his pen last week.
Now I’ve stolen his tie.
I’m assembling a collection. A shrine. Saint Dario, Patron of Witness Protection Failures. I’m one lock of hair away from a serial killer documentary.
Coming up next on Dateline: The Witness Who Couldn’t Stay Away. She testified against him. Came for him. Then she baked him cookies. Then she broke into his house and smelled his clothes. Keith Morrison has thoughts.
I press the tie against my face.
It still smells like cedar and bergamot and felonies.
I should throw it out the window right now and drive home and never do anything this stupid again.
I fold it carefully instead. Set it on my lap.
The drive home takes forever. Four and a half hours of highway and replaying what just happened on an endless loop of humiliation and arousal and something that might be pride?
I broke into his house.
Felony.
I tried on his clothes.
Creepy.
I stole his tie.
Theft.
I left him cookies with a note.
Unhinged romantic gesture.
Saul said I’m going to be okay. He didn’t say I’d be okayin a healthy way.
I should be planning my escape route, figuring out how to disappear before Dario tracks me down and has me killed for breaking into his house and stealing his accessories.
