Dead Famous

DAY TWENTY-SIX. 8.00 a.m.

“The bitch Kelly still number one. Don’t worry my darling. I will protect you from the cocksucking whore.”

Dervla reached forward to the mirror and angrily rubbed out the words. She had come to dread brushing her teeth in the morning. The messages had been getting steadily angrier and uglier, but she could say nothing about it for fear of revealing her own complicity in the communication. Of course, she no longer encouraged him, she no longer spoke to the mirror, and had wracked her brains to think of a way of telling the man on the other side to stop. The only idea that she had had was singing songs with vaguely relevant lyrics.

“I don’t wanna to talk about it.” “Return to sender.” “Please release me, let me go.”

But the messages kept coming. Each one uglier than the last. “I swear to you my precious, I’d kill her for you if I could.”