“Sweetie,” I say, mimicking her tone, “just what do you think happens to a fridge full of food for three months, in this heat, after the power company has turned off the juice?” I watch as seconds tick by, and my words slowly begin to sink in. Then Autumn whirls around and looks at me with eyes like dinner plates.

“Is that what that smell is?” she demands. “Oh. My. GOD.”

Laughter bubbles up from inside me so fast I can’t stop it, I just collapse back against the siding of the house and try to catch my breath. Looking up through my tangled hair I see Autumn flapping her hands, disgusted, and I realize she must be picturing what could be growing in the refrigerator and she can’t stand it.

From his position on the porch steps, Roth clears his throat and we both turn to look at him. “I think that we may have to find an alternate method of dealing with the refrigerator, if that’s the case,” he says, and pulls his phone out of his pocket and begins scrolling through it. “I’ll make a few calls. Excuse me.”

I sink down onto the porch, giggles still bubbling every time I take a breath, made even worse by the way Autumn is glaring at me. As I reach over and snag my water bottle off the porch railing and uncap it, Roth disappears around the side of the house, and Ash turns to look at me. “Uh . . . where is he going?” he asks, eyes wide.

Reaching up, I wipe tears from my eyes and grin at him, my cheeks staring to ache. He’s not the first one to try and fail to figure out the mystery that is Rothwell Harvey, and he won’t be the last. “Honestly?” I ask before taking a sip of water. “I have absolutely no idea.”

It really is a load off my shoulders, having them here.

Especially since, when I get up the next morning, the refrigerator’s gone. And, judging by the way Ash is side-eyeing Roth at every opportunity, he’s trying to figure out if he’s in the mob. It’s hilarious.

But honestly? It wouldn’t surprise me.

Not one bit.

Ash

You’re being an idiot, a part of my brain tells me, but it’s drowned out by the louder, much more fucking insistent part of my mind that’s going, He made an entire rotted-out fridge disappear like it never even existed. You think he couldn’t do that with a body?

One thing’s for certain. Star’s friend Roth? Creepy. As. Fuck. The guy looks like he’s in the running for the next Hannibal Lecter. The thought of hanging out with him doesn’t really appeal. I don’t know how Star does it.

And it must show on my face, because Star’s brow furrows when she looks up from the box of stuff she’s sorting through to look at me.

“What?” she asks.

I want to play it off, to act tough and like there’s nothing bothering me, because I’m probably just imagining things. But this isn’t just about me. If there’s something fucked up about Star’s buddy, then she has the right to know.

Grow some balls, I tell myself. It’s time to be a man.

“Not gonna lie . . . ” I say, trying to choose my words carefully. It’s not like I have a real shot with this girl, but I don’t want her to hate me, either. “Your friend kind of freaks me out a little.” There. That wasn’t so bad.

But she just tosses her head back, all long hair and gorgeous skin, and laughs. “Who, Roth?” she asks. “Why?”

I groan, and suddenly it’s all coming out like word puke. I can’t stop myself. “He doesn’t blink!” I say, gesturing to my own face with the dust cloth I’m clutching. “It’s like he’s one of those old-timey paintings. The creepy ones with the eyes that follow you wherever you go.”

“That’s what makes me so good at my job,” a voice says behind me.

Fuck.

I spin around and see Roth standing in the open doorway behind me. Creeper. He’s just standing there, staring at me with those freaky eyes, dunking the teabag in his mug over and over, like he’s some kind of Bond villain petting a cat. Then, without blinking once, he turns and walks away.

“Holy shit,” I say, and clutch my hand to my chest. My heart feels like it’s trying to beat its way out of there. “Holy shit.” Some things deserve repeating. This is one of them. “What the fuck is his job? Cutting people into little pieces and hiding them in the walls?” The dude is a psychopath.

But Star just laughs. “You get used to it,” she says. “He’s a Resident Advisor. He was in charge of our floor last year. It freaked everyone out so bad. No one on the floor dared do anything where he could see. Guy’s got feet like a cat. Autumn and I tried putting a bell on him last Christmas. It didn’t go well.”

Now I’m picturing probably-a-seriel-killer-Roth with a Santa hat and murder in his eyes. It’s scarring. “Oh god,” I say, scrubbing my hands over my face. “How are the two of you still alive?”

“They have nothing to worry about,” a voice says from behind me, and I just about keel over to see Roth standing behind me. Again. Jesus Christ. But he just calmly takes a sip from his mug and stares at me from above the rim.

“Uh, okay,” I say. “Can I ask why?” Just for my own self-preservation.

“Serial killers generally don’t kill outside their own sexual-preference group,” he says. “Therefore, Autumn and Star would be quite safe, if I had such urges.” He hasn’t blinked once during the entire time he’s been standing there. What the hell is wrong with this guy? My eyes burn as I try to keep an eye on him, but I, unlike Roth, have the urge to blink. Because I’m human. But luckily, before it gets too bad, he takes one last sip of tea and leaves the room. Distantly, I hear him talking to Autumn, and then there’s the sound of the screen door in the front swinging open and then slamming closed again. The metallic rattle echoes through the house, and then Roth’s words finally catch up to me.

I whip around to look at Star, but she’s already laughing. “What. The. Fuck?” I demand.

She just shakes her head, sending her dark hair tumbling around her bare shoulders. Great. Now I’m terrified and turned on at the same time. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“Autumn and I aren’t really Roth’s type. If you know what I mean . . . ” She waggles her eyebrows at me. It takes me a shameful amount of time to realize what she’s trying to communicate here.

“You mean . . . ?” I say, and my hands make a weird gesture on their own before I can stop them, my face burning. Fuck. I don’t think I’ve blushed this much since I was a little kid and my friend Johnny told Katie Jenkins that I wanted to kiss her. Which, whatever. It was true. She was adorable. Didn’t want to give me the time of day, though, much to my shame. It sucked being the short kid.

Still kinda does, especially when Star’s friend the BTK killer has a good six inches and probably twenty pounds on me. It’s a little intimidating. I’m man enough to admit that.

But she just smiles at me. “Gay as Christmas,” she confirms, and turns back to the box she was working on, grabbing the flaps and folding them one over the other, so that the box is sealed closed.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.” I turn back to what I’m supposed to be doing, gathering up obvious trash and stuffing it in one of the bajillion garbage bags that are hanging around the house. When I first saw how many she’d bought, I’d laughed, thinking we’d be using them ’til Judgment Day. Now I’m just hoping we have enough. We’ve already been getting dirty looks from people when we go into town. I don’t think that buying out every box of garbage bags in the place is going to endear us to them any further. But as I gather stuff up and shove it into the bag, her words play over and over in my mind, like a record with a skip. I’m missing something. I know I am.

All at once it hits me.

“Wait!” I cry out, louder than I intended to. “How does that help me?” If what Mr. Psychopath said about serial killers is true . . .