The Most Dangerous Game (Harry Styles AU)

23

-Everly

The sound of paper being cut echoes throughout my apartment as I add another clipping to my steadily growing stack.

I have at least a dozen already, all articles relating to Meredith's death. Ones from early on when she had been reported as missing down to one printed just a couple months ago.

I place them all neatly inside the small wooden box set on my coffee table before picking up the picture of her I'd kept.

So far they hadn't missed it. When I returned the envelope to Margo, I'd pulled the picture out last minute.

I just couldn't let it go.

There was something about it, about her soft smile. Like she was asking me to help her.

I don't know why, but for some reason I felt if I solved her murder, if I could prove Carter did it.. Then I could someone guarantee I wouldn't end up just like her.

A smiling woman in a picture who'd all of a sudden disappeared. Only to be found months later along the bank of the East River.

I remember hearing about it on the news. I'd been headed to the museum, stopped off to grab a hot tea for my walk there. It was playing on the TV hanging over the counter at my favorite coffee shop.

A beautiful young heiress found dead wasn't something that happened every day in New York. It was national news.

It was months later I'd met Carter. After a few dates he told me the story of how his beloved wife never came home one summer night. How he searched for her endlessly, exhausting every resource available to him.

He played the part of a grieving widower well. So well I couldn't help but to want to comfort this gorgeous sweet man who was deeply hurting.

With all the things I know Carter has been involved in, I still didn't think he would be capable of such a thing as sentencing his own wife to death.

So when I read those words printed across the back of her picture, I was shocked.

Carter has threatened me before, but I never really thought it was any more then just that. A threat.

Something to scare me into doing exactly what he wanted. A tactic he uses on almost everyone he wants to control.

He professed to love me after all. Even if I didn't truly believe him, he was adamant about it. I naively thought that meant he wouldn't ever go so far as carrying out one of his threats.

But now, after knowing that he most likely behind his own wife's disappearance, behind her death... I realize they aren't really threats at all. They were promises.

I lay the picture of Meredith down on top of the news paper clippings, closing the lid to the box and sliding it under my couch.

Laying back against the cushions, I close my eyes and rub my temples.

From everything I'd read, Carter and Meredith had been a happy couple. Always loving towards each other at public outings, their affections never seeming forced.

Her own family insisted there was no way Carter had anything to do with her disappearance. They were adamant in their belief he could be nothing but innocent, that he had loved her dearly.

At one time maybe he did. Maybe he professed his love to her on a daily basis as he does to me.

But something changed.

Why did he need to get rid of her? What had she done? What had she not done? What had she found out?

So many questions swarm through my mind, none of them with any kind of answer. They'd all vanished with her on that August night.