Read I Kill in Peace for Free Online Page A

front page crammed with stories on the weather and the strange virus that had hit several major cities. Were the people who had the virus getting strange messages and killing bad people too?
    No, they were just sick, plain and simple. Sick and dying, not sick and murderous. News like this would have raised my blood pressure considerably, but I had something else on my mind.
    It wasn’t until page five when I saw an article about the man I’d killed yesterday. It said there was a sketch of the murderer on page two.
    Oh God, this is where my life ends.
    My finger swiped to the next page. What I saw nearly made me fall off my chair.
    The man in the sketch wasn’t me at all!
    A burly Hispanic man wearing a baseball cap glowered at me. He had a small scar under his right eye.
    How the hell had the kid come up with that? I was a skinny white guy with a well-kept beard. That man couldn’t be more opposite me.
    And the more I looked at him, the more familiar he became to me.
    My hand flew to my mouth.
    I’d seen that man before. He worked in the produce section at the supermarket. He’d once opened a new box of Bartlett pears for me to make sure I got the freshest ones.
    What the fuck was going on here?
    On the one hand, I was relieved that my door wasn’t in danger of being broken down by the police. On the other, heavier hand, I was a two-time murderer and now an innocent man was getting framed for one of my crimes.
    Pushing back from the table so hard I almost knocked my chair down, I stormed into the living room and found my phone. I went back to the kitchen.
    â€œWhere the hell are you now, AO?” I hissed, checking for new texts.
    I not only didn’t find new texts—all of AO’s previous texts were gone. Wiped clean, as if they’d never happened. The same with my email account.
    I ran to the sink to throw up.
    â€œWhat if I’ve been imagining everything?” I said between hot gouts of bile.
    I cleaned up fast, grabbed my coat, and left the house. The streetlights were still on and there were no signs of the sun coming up any time soon. Good. I didn’t exactly want my neighbors to see me traipsing around the streets in my pajamas with flecks of vomit on my mouth.
    The Mustang was gone too. A new, white Honda was parked in the space where I’d left it. Collapsing on the sidewalk, I pressed my face into my palms.
    Losing my job had caused a psychotic break. I’d been normal up to that point. Maybe the messages I’d received before I went into Marcellus’s office was just a convenient lie I’d told myself so I wouldn’t think what I was thinking now.
    And despite my insanity, I’d committed two crimes and gotten away with them.
    â€œI have to turn myself in.”
    My ass was soaked from sitting in the morning dew.
    First, I had to tell Candy. She had to know why I was going to the police station, why I had to distance myself from her and Katie.
    If I had convinced myself that someone called AO made me kill those two men, it wasn’t safe for me to be around my own family.
    * * * * *
    Katie slept past six a.m. for the first time I could ever remember. That meant Candy was also asleep. I paced around downstairs, watching the local news, feeling parts of my soul dissipate with every report of the murder.
    Finally, just after eight, I heard my daughter’s light footsteps tip-tap into my bedroom, followed by the sound of Candy laughing.
    They’d come down in a couple of minutes. I’d have to fake being normal for Katie and find a way to get Candy alone. My heart’s rhythm went so out of whack, I found it hard to breathe, my lungs hitching like a world-class stutterer.
    â€œDaddy!” Katie yelped when she saw me, her pony in tow. I knelt down so I could catch her as she threw herself at me.
    â€œGood morning, lazy bones,” I said. “You slept late today.”
    â€œI did?”
    I kissed her cheeks and the tip of