(Maya)
I find Chloe in the break room at her marketing firm, hunched over a cup of coffee that's gone cold. Her mascara has streaked down her cheeks, and she looks like she hasn't slept in days.
"Maya." She stands up so fast her chair rolls backward. "Thank god you're here."
I wrap her in a hug, and she immediately starts sobbing again. Over her shoulder, I can see her coworkers pretending not to stare while they grab their morning coffee and shuffle past us.
"Tell me what happened," I say when she finally pulls back.
"The police called me this morning. They found my business card in his wallet from when I gave him your number." She wipes her nose with a tissue that is already falling apart. "They wanted to know about his recent contacts, so I had to tell them about the coffee date."
My stomach drops. "What did you tell them?"
"Just that I set you two up, and you went for coffee yesterday afternoon. They're going to want to talk to you, Maya."
I nod, trying to process this. It's only logical that the police are going to want to know about my date with a murder victim. But then again, should I explain that I lied about sleeping with him to make another man jealous, and I think that man had harmed him? How do I do that without any of this, without sounding completely insane?
"How did he…" I can't finish the question.
"Stabbed," Chloe whispers. "Multiple times. It happened in his apartment building's stairwell around midnight. A neighbor found him this morning when they were leaving for work."
The room spins. I grab the back of a chair to steady myself, fighting the urge to throw up.
"The police don't have any leads yet," Chloe continues. "There were no witnesses or cameras in that part of the building. They think it might have been a robbery gone wrong, but his wallet was still there. His phone, too."
It wasn't a robbery then. This was personal.
"Maya, are you okay? You look like you're going to pass out."
"I'm fine. Just shocked." I force myself to meet her eyes. "Jake seemed like such a nice guy."
"He was. That's what makes this so horrible. Who would want to hurt him?"
I stayed with Chloe for another hour, letting her cry and talking through memories of Jake that she had collected from their work relationship. Jake was kind to his coworkers, stayed late to help with projects, and brought coffee for the receptionist every Friday. He was a saint.
By the time I get to the venue for the next show, load-in is almost finished. The crew moves around me with their usual energy, but there's an undercurrent of tension that wasn't there yesterday.
I spot Kai near the catering table, talking to Marcus in low, urgent tones. He's wearing dark jeans and a black T-shirt, his hair still damp from a shower. Apart from the angry look on his face, he looks perfectly normal and perfectly composed.
But then, he won't look at me.
When I walk past carrying a box of mics, his eyes slide away like I'm not even there. When I'm setting up the VIP meet-and-greet area, he converses with Rebecca three feet away from me without glancing in my direction.
It's like yesterday never happened; Like that kiss was just something I imagined, except I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my skin and taste him when I run my tongue across my bottom lip.
"Maya, you're staring," Jerry says, appearing beside me with a cable coil over his shoulder.
"No, I'm not."
"He has been avoiding you all morning. What did you do to piss him off this time?"
I kissed him back like my life depended on it, then ran away like a coward.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Jerry gives me a look that says he's not buying it, but doesn't push. Which is good, because I'm not sure I could explain it even if I wanted to.
The afternoon drags by in a haze, and I get through most of it on autopilot. Every time I see Kai, my mind goes to the same dark place. The timing is too convenient. Jake dies the same night Kai disappears from his own concert. The same night that Jake texted me about being followed.
But murder? Could Kai be capable of that?
The boy I knew wouldn't hurt a fly. He once cried when his neighbor's cat got hit by a car, even though he swore with his life that it was dust that had entered his eye. He would also refuse to kill spiders, carrying them outside instead of squashing them.
But that was seven years ago. If there's anything meeting Kai again has taught me, it is that people change.
And the way he looked at me like he wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands when I talked about Jake... That wasn't the look of someone who wouldn't hurt a fly.
I'm restocking the green room mini-fridge when I hear footsteps behind me. I don't have to turn around to know who it is. Only one person in this arena has such an electric presence.
"How was it?"
I freeze with a bottle of water halfway to the shelf.
"Excuse me?"
"Your date. You said you were going back home to him. How did it go?"
I turn around slowly. Kai is standing in the doorway, one shoulder leaning against the frame, looking for all the world like he's making polite conversation. But his eyes are cold and calculating.
"Why do you care?"
"Just curious. You seemed pretty excited about it yesterday."
There's something in his tone that makes my skin crawl. It's almost as if he already knows the answer and is waiting to see if I'll lie again.
"It was fine."
"Just fine? That's not what you told me yesterday."
My heart starts pounding. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You were very detailed about how great it was. Very… descriptive."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He steps into the room, and suddenly the space feels too small. "Sure you do. You remember. That whole story about fucking him in the bathroom."
"Stop."
"Made you come twice, didn't he? Before you even got to the good part?"
"I said stop."
"Must have been disappointing when it was over so quickly."
The words hit me like a slap. He knows. Somehow, he knows that Jake is dead and he's taunting me with it.
"You son of a bitch."
"What?"
"You killed him." The words come out as an angry whisper.
Kai's face goes blank. "What did you just say?"
"You heard me. You killed Jake."
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
"Am I? You disappear in the middle of your show. Jake gets murdered. And now you're standing here asking me about my date like some psychopath."
"Maya—"
"How did you even find him? Did you follow us? Have us followed?"
"I don't even know what the guy looks like."
"Bullshit."
"I'm serious. I have no idea who this Jake person is or what happened to him."
"You liar!"
Kai opens his mouth, then closes it again. For the first time since this conversation started, he looks genuinely confused.
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't pretend you don't know."
"I don't know. I swear to god, Maya, I had no idea he … he died."
"Right. This is all just a big coincidence."
"It is a coincidence. I was asking about your date because—" He stops himself.
"Because what?"
"Never mind. But I didn't kill anyone."
I stare at him, trying to read his face. Either he's telling the truth, or he's the best actor I've ever seen.
"I don't believe you."
"Maya—"
"Stay away from me. And if you hurt anyone else because of me, I'll kill you myself."
I push past him and walk out, leaving him standing alone in the green room, but as I head toward the exit, I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something.
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my mind racing. The police still haven't called, which probably means they're still processing the scene and gathering evidence. Chloe texted earlier to say she's staying with her sister tonight because she doesn't want to be alone.
I don't blame her. I'm starting to think being alone isn't safe for any of us.
I'm scrolling through social media in an attempt to distract myself, when I see it. There was a video that has been shared hundreds of times in the last few hours, tagged with Kai's name and location markers from yesterday.
The caption reads: "OMG, you guys, I was just making a random video yesterday and who's in the background!!! Is this really him???"
I click play, and my blood turns to ice.
It's a shaky phone footage taken by someone walking down a busy street. In the foreground, a teenage girl is talking to her camera about her day, but that's not what makes my hands shake. In the background, barely visible but unmistakably there, is a figure in a dark green hoodie walking about twenty feet behind her. The hood is up, but when he turns his head slightly, I glimpse his profile.
It's Kai.
I pause the video and check the timestamp. It was yesterday at 4:47 PM, about the same time we started looking for Kai. I checked the location tag. It's three blocks from Jake's office building, along the path Jake probably took when he said he was followed home.
And the hoodie was just like Jake described in his text.
I watched the video five more times, hoping I'm wrong. I hope it's just someone who looks like Kai, that the timestamp is off, or that this is all some horrible coincidence, but the more I watch it, the more certain I become.
Kai was there at the exact time Jake would have been getting off work, which means either he's the luckiest man alive or he lied through his teeth about not knowing what Jake looks like.
And if he has been lying about that, what else has he been lying about?