“This whole ‘look but don’t touch’ thing is really working for you,” Whitney said, curled up on our couch studying, watching me rush around our small apartment as I got ready.

I had my biggest purse out and I was squirreling useful items away in it: a package of peanuts, a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front from high school, and a picture I’d printed off the internet of goldfish in a bowl. It had taken the last of my printer’s color ink, so the bottom fish looked ghosty, which was, perhaps, appropriate.

“Mace?” I asked her.

“Top drawer!” she said, casually pointing to her own room down the hall, and I jogged back that way to get it from her dresser.

I was wearing tight dark jeans and a black turtleneck, and had my hair up in a rather severe bun—all the better so no one could grab it—with my stabby-cat-keychain at the ready, and now also Whitney’s mace.

“You got a time you’re coming back by, Cinderella?” Whitney teased, and it stopped me in my tracks.

However long it took to find out if Byron was a killer? And maybe to get him to confess, or stop him from killing again. Or, just enough time to figure out if he just had a hella guilty conscience. Surely I had enough props to provoke some kind of response.

“I’ll text you every hour on the hour.”

Whitney looked up from her textbook. “Yeah, you never did define ‘bad decision’ for me.”

“He’s just not my usual type.”

“That’s because you don’t have a type,” she said bluntly, and then there was a knock at the door. “Come in!” she shouted, and Chance opened the door.

He took one look at me and made a face. “Are you cosplaying a Silicon Valley entrepreneur?”

“No, she’s going on a date,” Whitney told him. I gave her a look over his shoulder as he gawked at me, and she shrugged. “Chance came over because while I made it through Abnormal, Statistics kicked my ass, and I needed a study buddy.”

“How’d you meet this guy? The internet?” Chance asked, frowning.

I winced a little. Other people get meet-cutes, and I get meet-murderers. “I almost tripped in front of a bus,” I confessed. “Something like that! Bye!” And I practically ran for the door.

**

I’d been planning to bring like three other things, but Chance’s arrival had set me off my game—and then, when I made it to Mr. Z’s by six-fifty-five, I felt silly. Byron was probably going to stand me up, anyway; after all, he had Important Homicides to do.

I killed time by cruising other people’s words—there was a FOOTBALL FANATIC chatting up a CAT LOVER, and I had no idea how that was going to go—and then the door opened with a jingle and Byron was there. He spotted me and smiled, weaving through the tables to my side. He was wearing black slacks and a dark linen shirt with the top button open—low-key business casual, in colors that would easily hide blood.

“Did you want to stay here, or can I take you out?” he asked.

Said the spider to the fly…. “Out’s good,” I told him, and let him lead me to his car.

**

I kept my purse in my lap, with my fingers wrapped around Whitney’s mace, and my free hand nervously tapping the charm on my necklace, underneath my shirt. “Where are we going?”

“This Italian place a few blocks up. Assuming that’s okay?” he asked, giving me a glance. I nodded, and took a break from being on guard to look around.

“So like, is your uncle a used car salesman?” Because tonight’s vehicle was a 1997 Chevy Cavalier; it said so on the dashboard.

Byron grinned and changed lanes. “No. He just keeps a lot of cars around.”

“He runs a junkyard?” I seemed to recall those coming up on crime shows fairly regularly.

“No, but he’ll be amused you asked that when I tell him.”

I looked around the ancient, but well-kept, vehicle. “Will he be able to hear you? Because if this is his car, isn’t he like a thousand years old?” I usually kept my snark dialed back when meeting strangers, but seeing as Byron was a KILLER, it didn’t feel like there was any point in not being my most authentic self.

If I was going to die tonight, I was going down sarcastically.

Byron laughed. “God, if I tell him that, I’ll need to bring him burn cream,” he said, pulling into another parking lot. “We’re here.”

A waitress spotted us the second we were inside the restaurant. We instantly got taken to a table—and I knew that Byron must’ve made reservations, the cocky bastard.

It didn’t really make sense, though—would you really want to eat a homestyle Italian dinner and then murder someone? It felt like murdering should have rules, like swimming. You should wait at least a half an hour after eating to do it, right?

We ordered and then Byron eyed me. “So, about this matchmaking thing….”

“Yes,” I said, eagerly reaching for my purse. “Okay, so, if you want to be on my roster—I don’t care what your sign is, or your bank account. I’m just going to show you some things and you’re going to tell me what first comes to mind, okay?”

Byron nodded, grinning, as I pulled out the first prop: the packet of peanuts.

I watched him inhale, and then deflate in apparent confusion. “Really?”

“Really.” I held the corners of the packet up and made it dance between us. “Does it remind you of anything?”

Like, say, that time you accidentally killed another kid in elementary school by sharing your peanut butter sandwich?

I’d only vaguely paid attention in class today because most of my brain had been occupied with ways that Byron might merely have a guilty conscience. Hopefully, having him reveal a deep, dark, tortured secret would explain away his word.

“That…I don’t like flying very much?” he offered.

“Why?” I pressed.

“Too many other people, and small seats. The tiniest snacks.”

I huffed. “Nothing else?”

“Nope,” he said. “Does this really work?” he lightly teased.

“Yes,” I said, and nodded, then thought quickly. “It’s—just think of it like a Rorschach test. The ink blots, you know? I’m using the objects to determine your inner psyche.”

“Objects? Does that mean there’s more of them?” he asked, his eyebrows going up.

Our dinners arrived before I could answer. I’d gotten the eggplant, whereas he’d gotten some sort of steak, which he lifted his plate to show me, while squinting. “It kind of looks like a rabbit, don’t you think? Which is odd, because it used to be a cow.”

“Fuck you,” I groaned, and he outright laughed.