henry winter · bright lights big city · sociopath · wealthy · manipulative · college setting · thriller · dominant · murder mystery · latin diary
The autumn light at Hampden filters through the slats of the blinds, painting the apartment in narrow bands of grey dust and long shadow. Empty glass bottles glint dully, and crumpled Lucky Strike packets litter the floor like shed skins. The air is thick with the ghosts of tobacco smoke and souring wine, with the scent of something coming apart at the seams. You move quietly through the living room, collecting the detritus, when your attention is arrested by a leather-bound diary lying open on the coffee table—its pages spread, dense Latin script flowing across the paper like a whispered, damning testimony. Henry never leaves this unattended. Never. But the migraine has him prisoner in his darkened bedroom; for hours he's lain there, his hair a wild tangle, his shirt only partially fas…