Felicity had a tiny studio apartment in a blue, wood-paneled building on Pacific Avenue in Venice, two blocks from the ocean. It was on the ground floor with a small garden front and back, and she was there when I arrived, greeting me without makeup. She wore a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt and looked even more attractive than I remembered.
“I’m sorry to ask,” I said. “You don’t even know me.”
“I’ve developed a pretty good spidey sense,” she replied. “Hazard of the job. You don’t seem dangerous to me.”
I didn’t think I was, but right now, the families of my victims and LAPD would disagree with both of us.
“I’m harmless,” I said.
She smiled as I stepped inside.
Her living room had a hardwood floor, a cream couch, and bold botanical prints that spoke to a love of nature.
“It’s been a rough night,” I said. “A rough few years in truth.”
“Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about it?” She gestured at the couch. “Can I get you a drink? Something to calm the nerves?”
“Water,” I said firmly, determined to make some changes.
A few minutes later, we were on the couch, me with my hands curled around a cool glass of water, her trying to conceal her fatigue.
I told her everything. I started with the accident and the death of Freya Persico, because that was the event that derailed me. I told her about the time I served, the beatings I took in prison, the hard life I endured inside, the divorce, the mess I made when I was released, falling into drugs and alcoholism. The longer I spoke, the more I struggled to believe the disaster my life had become.
It was off the scale.
Then came the offer and the murders. She listened intently, and her face hardened when I spoke of Walter Glaze, Farah Younis, and Richard Gibson. I didn’t lie or downplay what I’d done. I was honest about my willingness to kill for money, a willingness born from desperation and because I had been manipulated into believing my victims were evil.
If Felicity judged me harshly, she didn’t show it. If she was afraid, she didn’t show that either. She sat silently. There was no hint of tiredness anymore. She was too engrossed, and we’d pushed through the veil of night to the dawn.
I told her about discovering I’d been manipulated and recounted the abduction of Alice Polmar and the events that led me to her place.
When I finally fell silent, she said nothing. She simply looked at me, her face shining in the dawn light, her eyes cold. I braced for a slap. At the very least, I expected to be told to leave.
Instead, after a pause that seemed to last an age, she took my hands.
“It’s okay,” she said, and her eyes softened.
Kindness.
I wasn’t prepared for kindness, and tears of relief came to my eyes.
“I wondered what connected us when we met,” she said. “It’s the eyes. When you take a life, I think a part of you dies, and you can see the loss in a person’s eyes. I didn’t register it before, but I see it now. Part of you is gone.”
That’s exactly how it felt to me, that a piece of me had died with each victim. I was so grateful and relieved to have found someone who understood me, I could hardly speak.
“It’s okay, Peyton,” she assured me. “It really is.”
“But I’ve done terrible things.” I almost choked on the words. “You don’t understand what it’s like to live with the guilt.”
Her eyes started to shimmer. “I do. I told you I don’t judge people. You can only truly understand someone if you’ve shared their pain. I’ve shared yours.”
She hesitated, and the stillness weighed heavily upon me.
“I was in New York. A guy, turns out he was an off-duty cop, started getting rough with me. I was pretty sure…”
Her voice broke as the first tears rolled down her cheeks.
“He was going to kill me. We struggled. I shot him with his gun. The cops didn’t believe me. He was a family man with four kids. They said I’d tried to rob him. If it hadn’t been for two other women coming forward saying he’d tried to strangle them during sex, the cops would never have bothered investigating. They tied him to the murders of three working girls. He’d assaulted many more. He knew most people don’t care about us, and he was cunning, good at covering his tracks.”
She looked at my hands, and I watched her eyelashes flicker as they shed more tears. She was being kind to me. We weren’t the same. She’d killed to save herself. I’d done it because I’d been drunk and thoughtless the first time, desperate and greedy for the last three. But she’d made her point; few people would understand us as well as we might understand each other.
“I felt guilt for a long time, especially when I saw his wife and kids on the news. But then I thought of the girls he’d killed and the ones he’d hurt, and I knew he’d never be able to do that again. And it felt good to have stopped someone else’s pain and given the ghosts of those dead girls some justice.”
Who will give us justice? Walter’s ghost asked. You need to suffer for what you’ve done.
Felicity must have seen pain in my eyes, because she reached out and stroked my face. “It’s okay.”
I wanted to make her feel better, to protect her from all the wrong in the world. She brought out emotions I’d long forgotten, and I saw what she’d been talking about. There was something in her eyes that went beyond sadness, as though some part of her was dead. Something was missing in both of us, taken by the deaths we’d caused. Maybe we could fill the gap for each other?
I can’t undo what I’ve done, I told Walter’s ghost, but I can be a better person and atone for my mistakes. Remorse. Real change. Redemption, guided by the memories of the people I’ve wronged.
I wanted a better life. Not up in the billboards. Something more meaningful. Felicity had rekindled a sense of ambition that was real and practical, something that wasn’t rooted in destroying myself or others, or reaching for a fake world that would always be beyond my grasp.
“Life isn’t fair, Peyton,” she said. “We like to believe it is, but that’s just a comforting lie that’s designed to stop people tearing each other apart with the unfairness of it all. The lie holds back anarchy, but the rich, those who know the truth, they can get away with murder. This patron put you up to those killings, but whoever they are, they’re invisible and untouchable. You did wrong, but I understand why. I don’t condone them, but I understand them. What you did makes sense when seen through the lens of your life. And that means you’re not a monster, because monsters walk alone.”
It was as close to absolution as a deadbeat like me could have hoped for.
“What do you need?” she asked.
Death had brought us closer than life ever could.
I don’t know whether it was exhaustion or our profound connection, but I answered honestly.
“You.”
“I know,” she said, before kissing me.