Very early the following morning
Justice was not always patient.
He had misjudged his entry into the house, heightened his excitement by waiting, but waited too long. The little trick to throw her off balance had amused him—especially watching the chicken run and flap after he’d severed its head. He would have gone in soon afterward, before Roche Savage was due to arrive, only a call to the clinic had confirmed Justice’s suspicions. As he’d suspected when he saw her pass a window wearing pajamas, Roche had changed his mind about coming.
He wasn’t supposed to come at all after that, damn it. Tonight, he should have been staying at the clinic. Instead he had showed up late, almost at the moment when Justice would have let himself in through the kitchen door for the second time. The first time had been with the carcass and the cat. He had scratches as mementos.
How much longer could he wait while Savage fucked Bleu’s brains out? The shrink’s first morning appointment at his place on Cotton Street was at six. The good doctor accommodated those coming off a night shift. “Such a lovely man,” an assistant had told him, Justice, on the phone. “He doesn’t like a patient to go to bed all in a muddle.”
Come on, come on. The man would have to go to Rosebank before he saw patients, wouldn’t he? Surely that had not been a miscalculation.
What if they were still at it, sweating and banging up there, the time forgotten? Once it got light, the plan would become too dangerous.
He, Justice, had learned all about Roche Savage. Dr. Savage’s history wasn’t mentioned locally. Because of one act of bravery, the town had made him a hero. They all spoke of how Roche had saved the lives of both his brother and his brother’s wife. Only a handful knew about their hero’s cruel perversion. Just one had witnessed an exhibition that revealed he could be an animal when he was with a woman. The woman in question was dead now. How convenient. Although, of course, Roche Savage had no part of that death.
But Roche had to get out of Bleu’s place now.
Come on, boy. Enough for one night. Thanks for warming her up. It’s my turn now.
He would make her beg for him. Soon enough, she’d tell him he was the best she’d ever been with. And she’d be right. Why have an enthusiastic amateur when she could have the consummate professional?
He laughed quietly, looking toward the front of the townhouse through a knothole in the carport siding. Rain hammered the roof over his head and sliced through light from that single fixture outside the townhouse front door. It would have been better to break the bulb when he’d loosened it, but he had wanted to see her jump when it came away in her hand.
She would have been so perfectly off balance if he hadn’t hung around to build the thrill.
Using the tiny beam from a laser light, he had found a storage room at the back of the carport and shut himself in. Around him were remnants of hardware left by the landlord. A step in the wrong direction could bring mismatched boards crashing around him. Tools hung by hooks from pegboard on one wall, and paint cans glinted in an uneven stack.
The aroma of dust, rust and oil from a metal drum didn’t make him any happier.
Shit. Was that…no, the sky was not lighter yet, or only very faintly. The front house light cast a brightening aura and the rain reflected its shine. That house was as dark as it had been for the last hour, since a downstairs lamp finally went out.
The carport roof leaked. Not a lot, but enough to land the occasional splat on his head, or into the big open drum beside him. More water seeped in around a badly fitting door in the back wall.
He put a hand into his pocket and massaged the soft, sleek Italian knife he loved more than he’d ever loved anything. If things went well, she’d feel the blade. Marks for all time, that’s what he’d make. Even if that time was very short.
Bleu Laveau was small. He would stab deep, again, and again. Her screams would come when she saw what he intended to do to her. The first slice would shock her into gurgling despair. The second might kill her, but why should he let that stop his fun?
How long he spent with her would be up to the sunrise.