Page 49 of Her Gluttony
A stitch in my chest, because I want that too. I want the love where it’s us and not me against the world. And instead of finding that, I am married to my job, kissing a woman who gets on my last nerve.
My email program alerts me of the incoming mail.
I stare at the profile.
Scoring high on antisocial behavior, belief of entitlement, and grandiose behavior. There is not much new from what I already know.
I open my own notes from university.
Grandiose narcissistic behavior. Detached behavior. Father was a charming man who scored high on all the dark triad traits during his interviews after he was caught.
I find a note with a single word on it.
Psychopathy??
The closer I get to her, the more I believe it to be true. She is emotionless and careless, but there are moments when she does feel something. I don’t know what’s behind it, but there is something she cares about, something that touches her.
When I caught her, she was obsessed with that hat; she showed an emotion for just one brief second. And the running after last night?—
Maybe she does feel, but her past made her dissociate emotions?
Her words still linger with me.
“Did it ever occur to you that all of it might be a way for me to protect myself?”
She said she is selfish, but what if she’s not? What if she’s doing everything for a reason?
“Stop it,” I tell myself in my mind, because I register what is happening. My mind is trying to make a human out of her, tryingto validate that kissing her wasn’t the greatest mistake I could’ve ever made—and I won’t go down that road.
She is a thief.
A con artist.
A liar.
A manipulator.
And I will not let myself be seduced by her.
What I will do is watch her closely. I will watch her and find that Rossi person. She has to communicate and meet with him somehow, and I will get to him, even if others haven’t.
“What do you think?” I ask Rachel, as we sit back in the car, to drive from the FCI Danbury back to Manhattan a week later. I have my own train of thought, but I want to hear Rachel’s first. She is extremely good at reading people.
“You might not like to hear it, but I don’t think they worked together. If Susie is telling the truth, and with everything she gave us, I believe she did, it would make her husband look very guilty, which means Avery did nothing more than the shipping.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Telling lies about a complex story like this isn’t easy. Unless you know the truth. I also think she’d snitch on Avery after what we told her.”
I had the same thought, even though I had to admit it. I had such high hopes of getting Avery with Susie, but apparently, I was wrong.
Maybe she had nothing to do with the bracelet,says a voice in me. A voice I don’t listen to.
“We’re gonna have to look into Fullerton again,” I say. “We’re building a case of insurance fraud. If he committed the fraud,that bracelet will be somewhere in his mansion. If not, we know Avery got to it somehow.”
I groan because looking into Fullerton is like stepping in dog poop. He is arrogant, wealthy, well-connected, and has a lawyer who is a bigger asshole than Avery.
Wonderful, really, really wonderful.
