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Jon and Seiji’s Monstrously Macabre Predicament

Page 15

by A.J. Sherwood

Borrowman’s brows twisted up in doubt. “Really? You didn’t even think to ask a question if it was safe to eat—”

“I’ve been eating human flesh for years, nothing’s ever happened to me, I didn’t think I had to ask!” Carrington blurted out, vibrating in place he was so upset. “You! You’re making that up about the disease!”

“I’m really not. Have your attorney look it up.”

The attorney took out phone, tapping into it, and frowned a little. “Spelled k-u-r-u?”

“Correct.” I paused, letting the bait fully set itself.

Carrington leaned sideways to look at the screen, eyes moving rapidly as he read, and then went very pale. When he sat back, he wasn’t the cocky man anymore, he was someone betrayed. At least to his mind, this counted as a betrayal.

I hid an internal smirk. Got you. “Did you do something to piss your friend off? Why would he feed you brains, knowing it would eventually kill you?”

“That rotten bastard,” he breathed, looking truly sick to his stomach. “I gave him so much help, covered for him, even gave him full access to the house and he does this to me?”

Really, his friend probably didn’t think much of it. Those brains on the shelves looked like food storage, in a way, I’ll bet the man just liked the taste. As horrible as that sounded in my own head.

Now, interestingly, the knowledge he’d just gained was somehow linking emotionally to his wife? Not sure what’s going on there. But seemed a good button to push. I did so without compunction. “Was the first sample just to show you how good they were before you ate your wife’s brains?”

His eyes snapped to me. His breathing was harsh, eyes a little wild, but a psychopath and control freak like him didn’t handle it well when he felt he’d been betrayed. “How the fuck do you know that? You can’t read that off of me!”

“Eh, I wouldn’t be sure on that,” Borrowman countered with a snort. “I’ve been working with this man for years, it always amazes me what he can see. There’s arguably no better Reader in the world. Now, you weren’t really going to eat your wife’s brains, were you?”

His attorney stared at him with growing horror, his lines suggesting he had just mentally decided he would not be involving himself in this any further. Carrington wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t paying any attention, his focus on me. Which was a crucial mistake as he opened his mouth and it all came tumbling out.

“That stuck up bitch I’m married to honestly thought she could divorce me and take most of my wealth! All because we hadn’t been intimate in a year! Like she’s not cheating herself. I had every right to do whatever I wanted to her!”

She hadn’t been cheating, that wasn’t anywhere in her lines, but I let him keep talking. Egging him on was the surest way to get information. “A full year of no intimacy with my husband would make me look for a divorce, too, if there wasn’t a medical issue involved.”

“Shut up, that’s not a good enough reason! Do you realize what a divorce would have done to me? How badly that would have reflected on me?”

Ah, as expected, it was all optics. His ego was the thing hurting, nothing else. I kept pushing this handy button I’d found. “So you sold her on the idea of coming down here for a long weekend to talk, but you intended to kill and eat her? What kind of story did you intend to tell family and friends to explain her death?”

“I had that planned, Char—” He abruptly snapped his mouth shut, looking sick to his stomach. “I had it planned. We were going to burn the house after we were done feasting on her. Destroy all the evidence.”

He’d almost said a name there. Charles? Charlie? Something, and it might give us the right clue if we can get something out of his phone. I almost followed up on that, but I saw an interesting little spark, a line that connected to somewhere else. “Oh, because you had the second location already set up?”

His eyes flared so wide they damn near consumed his face, and he started truly looking sick to his stomach. “How the fuck do you know about that?”

I tapped the corner of my right eye. “I really can see all. How long have you had the second location? Oh, only three months? It’s not one of your properties, who does it belong to?”

His hands were shaking and true fear entered him at that point. “You can’t see that.”

“I really can.” I tilted my head a little to Borrowman. “He can tell you, trying to keep secrets from me is pointless. I’m thankful my husband doesn’t give a fuck, otherwise it would spark many a fight, trust me. Now, that new location, was that your friend’s? Charlie, was it?”

Carrington sharply turned towards his attorney and demanded, “Shut him up! Do your job!”

The attorney at that point stood, pocketing cell phone again, hand on his briefcase. “Mr. Carrington, I’m returning my retainer’s fee. I refuse to represent a man who would murder and eat his own wife.”

With that said, he stalked out of the room.

Carrington stared after him in this dazed disbelief, like he couldn’t believe the man would walk out. I wasn’t as surprised. The attorney was a decent guy, of course he wouldn’t stomach representing a cannibal.

Borrowman glanced that way as the door slammed shut before turning back to Carrington. “This will go over better if you just talk, man. No attorney’s going to help you stay out of prison, that’s not possible at this point.”

He abruptly stood, hands shaking, and he was clearly spiraling as he lost control of the situation. “I want another lawyer. I WANT ANOTHER LAWYER!”

Nothing we could do now, he had the right to remain silent until he had representation. But honestly, I wasn’t sure how much more I could weasel out of him anyway. He was too much in his own head, it would take a deeper prying to pull information out of him. I refused to go deeper than a surface reading on this man, no way in hell did I want any part of my psyche exposed to his.