Chapter Thirteen

KATE

Anne and Stanley were kind enough to send over a girl named Sophia. I liked her so much initially that after interviewing her I hired her on the spot. I think you will be proud of my efforts this time. I printed off a list of questions from the internet having read an article entitled ‘how to hire a nanny,’ and we got through most of them. Although really, my mind was made up when she told me she cooks, combined with the fact that Brady took right to her. I’ve been worried that after the whole thing with our last nanny that starting over would be a bad idea. But he and I, we had a talk about it, and he said he understood that Mommy has to go to work, ridding the world of men and women who do bad things to children—things like locking them in dark closets overnight, or really any time they refuse to listen. But, also, things he’s too young yet to understand.

I haven’t told you about Monique and what she did. And I won’t, not yet, because I know you’ll only blame me for hiring help in the first place. I’ve asked Brady why he didn’t tell me, and he said she told him that Olivia would have to go in the closet too, if he told anybody and that’s the problem with you and our son. You’re both pretty bad about taking people at face value.

Already, four hours into having Sophia around, the house is somehow magically spic and span, your father has been fed, we have groceries, and I swear it’s like one of those fairy godmothers appeared and sprinkled fairy dust all over the place. She’s amazing, this girl. Which helps, because you don’t know it yet, but you and I, we have plans tonight. Your mark, the one from the bar, the one who isn’t into women but enjoys getting sloshed and taking innocent families out with his car. Well— I can tell you what he is into— and it just so happens to be picking up random men in bars. Not that I’m surprised. You probably won’t be either. As a general rule people who engage in risky behavior typically don’t segregate it to one area of their lives. But then, I’m sure you knew that.

I surprise you when I tell you it’s date night. You’re not sure about leaving the kids, or your father, but you also don’t want me going alone, and so in the end, after extra precautions are taken, you agree.

I drive you to the bar, the one on 4 th that you swear is a dump. Little do you know you’re about to find out. It’s actually not so bad after all.

“Uh-uh,” you say, looking at me as we pull up to the curb and I motion for you to get out. You read me instantly. You know exactly what I have planned and you’re having none of it.

“Oh— so it was okay for me?”

“I’m not picking up a man in a bar, Kate,” you say, shaking your head. “It’s just not happening.”

I laugh, and this only pisses you off more. But I can’t help myself.

“Fine,” I tell you once I’ve gotten it together. You study my face, wondering, and I can tell you’re slightly interested in what I have up my sleeve. “But it’s easy, I promise.”

You look at me and slowly shake your head. Sometimes you just need a bit of nudging, and deep down I get the sense that you like my plans.

I grab a slip of paper from the console. “Go in, sit next to him, and slip him this piece of paper. Easy as pie.”

I watch as you unfold the note. You recognize the address written on it, and you look up at me and you narrow your eyes. “You think he’s just going to meet us there?”

I smile. I was expecting a bit of pushback. “That depends on whether or not he finds you attractive or not—”

“Funny,” you say, and you glance toward the bar.

I shrug. “I guess we’d better hope you’re his type…”

You look over and you shake your head, but I know you secretly like it when I toy with you. Eventually you sigh and then I watch as you get out of the car and head for the bar.

I’d like to follow. But I won’t. You got this.

“Do you think he’ll come?” I ask on the drive over. You’re staring out the window, you’re planning, running through everything in your mind, and I know you know the answer.

“I’m not sure,” you say. “Maybe.”

We pull into the lot adjacent to the dilapidated warehouse where the mark will hopefully be meeting us, if you’ve done your job properly. I stare up at the sky—it’s humid out tonight, and cloudy, and something in the air makes it hard to breathe. Usually, I’m buzzing when I’m about to make a kill, but for some reason tonight feels different. I wonder for a moment if it’s PMS, but no, it can’t be, it’s too soon for that. I’ve already been here once today to drop supplies and scope the place out, and I can’t help but notice how different it looks in the dark. I tell you as much, and you seem amused that I’m so prepared—so amused that you pull me into the back seat, tear off my pants and show me your appreciation. I like making up this way. I like your enthusiasm. But I don’t tell you that. Mostly because I’m trying hard not to remember that filthy cop, and the way his hands roamed my body, and you’re rather handsy tonight and it isn’t helping. I feel bad when I have to mentally check out, and it makes me sick to think of another man with you inside me, but if it makes you feel any better, you should know I was plotting his murder all the while. And I promise you one thing, it will be slow and painful and nothing at all like what we’ve just done in the backseat of your car.

Our guy shows up early, and we lost track of time, which means we have to backtrack our way into the building. In the end, it’s all good. I sneak up on him, and I’m happy, because this means I get to try out my new stun gun—that asshole cop has inspired me, and what do you know, it actually works. You hang back, but I feel your eyes on me, and this time I don’t want to let you down. I want to give you a show. I want to make it worth your while.

The plan is to subdue him, and then put a bullet in his head, but you know me, I’ve always enjoyed a little spontaneity.

“Help me get him to the chair,” I say, and I can hear the reservation in your breathing.

But you need not worry. I don’t like it in here. The place smells of piss and stale air and something I can’t name. “I’ll be quick,” I promise, and I’m pleased that you do as you’re asked. It must have been the quickie. Sex makes you more pliable, it always has.

You help me tie him to the chair, and the poor bastard is begging—pleading for his life in a way that his victims never got the chance to. I find his whining annoying, and so I dig into the supplies I left earlier, just in case. I rip off a piece of duct tape and slap it over his mouth. Silence is better. And I know how much you like it. Then, because I don’t want him to be too comfortable, I place a clothespin on his nose. His eyes bulge out of his head and I don’t know why he can’t find gratitude in his heart. He should consider himself lucky that he can’t smell anything, because now I realize what it is I smell, and he should be glad he doesn’t have to inhale the rat-infested air in this place.

You watch me suspiciously, toying with your gun. You’re waiting for me to slip up, but I won’t. You won’t be disappointed. I’m making a comeback. On the other hand, our guy isn’t so sure. His eyes are wide, and he shakes his head wildly from side to side as though this is all a bad dream, one in which he might wake up from if only he shakes hard enough. I stun him once more, this time placing the device directly to his neck, and this gives a whole new meaning to the electric chair. The voltage is not enough to kill, however, which is really too bad.

It does the job though, so I can’t complain. Also, I can’t help but notice the way his head just hangs there and I watch as just below the tape a trail of saliva escapes.

“You know,” I say looking at you and then back at this asshole. “I think I have to agree…you’re right. We live in a nation of pussies and the punishment really should fit the crime. And, yet, it almost never does.”

I watch his face as I speak and he has calmed, he’s interested in learning of his fate. I take a deep breath in and I let it out. I always did enjoy a bit of suspense. “If it did— you know—if things were different… if drinking yourself into oblivion and then getting behind the wheel of a car earned one more than a slap on the wrist… then I’d be willing to bet that woman and her unborn baby would still be around.”

You watch me as you empty your gun and reload it and I know you. It’s all for show. You hate that I like to drag these things out. You don’t think it makes any difference when the ending is all the same and that is where we differ, you and I.

“Anyway,” I go on, ignoring your unspoken demands that I get on with it. “If the punishment fit the crime…then you wouldn’t have to spend so much time away from your own family hunting down bad guys like this piece of shit.”

You look up at me then. “That’s probably true.”

Now that I have your full attention, I stick my finger in his eye, I give it a good poke. I want him to feel something and because there’s nothing he can do about it, his hands are tied and there’s no pain like eye pain. It’s not satisfying enough though, and I remove the knife from my pocket. I flip open the blade, and he shakes his head. He moans against the tape. “An eye for an eye,” I say, and it feels good putting my silent rage to good use.

I walk around him once, and I can see that he’s close to hyperventilating. He’s reached the point where he no longer cares what I have to say. Now, he’s looking for a way out. Only there isn’t one. Not for him. Of course, he already knows this, but survival instinct is a powerful thing. It’s the same reason he drinks.

I clear my throat; I’m ready to deliver. “But alas, we do not live in a society that values justice,” I say, and you meet my gaze and you offer me the same look you give when we’re shopping and you’re ready to go. “And therefore it’s a good thing there are people like us…”

He starts moaning now and he wants to speak and so I rip off the tape slowly and then at once. He gasps for air for what feels like forever. You cross your arms. I wait.

“Please,” he begs once he’s gotten his fill of oxygen.

“Please,” I exhale, throwing up my hands. I meet the eye he has left. “Now that’s an interesting word, please.”

“I’ll do—” he starts, but he reeks of alcohol and desperation and so I cut him off. If he’d had even an ounce of that kind of self-control before, we wouldn’t be here now.

“I bet the man—the one whose wife and baby you killed—I bet he knows that word well. Please.”

He’s not sure where I’m going, and I find it’s always the best way.

“Just put a bullet in him and be done with it,” you order, and it comes out as it should. It’s a warning. Your patience is wearing thinner by the minute.

“Wait,” he says. “I remember you. You’re that woman, the one from the bar,” he exclaims as recognition takes over. He pauses for a moment, and he’s putting it all together. “Is this because I’m gay?”

I nearly choke on my laugh. “Are you kidding? I love gay people,” I say, once I backhand him. I am many things, but a bigot isn’t one of them. Also, he needs some sense smacked into him. “On the other hand, what I don’t love are drunks who get behind the wheel of their vehicles and kill people because they’re too selfish to kick back and enjoy a six-pack at home.”

“Please,” he pleads again.

“Do you know what the man whose family you murdered said when he found out they were gone? I do.” I swallow. “I read the psych reports. Have you?

He looks at me, and he’s not sure what to say.

“I didn’t think so,” I tell him. “Let me fill you in…”

“I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Okay, then, well—this is what he said…He said, ‘please don’t let it be true. Please don’t take her. Take me instead. Please don’t let my baby die. Please. Please. Please.’ He said that over and over and over. Until they had to medicate him. And you know what else? I’d be willing to bet he still takes that medication to help him sleep at night. Whereas you— you seem to have no problem.”

“I swear I’ll—”

I backhand him once again, because he doesn’t deserve to get to beg after he’s taken so much. I grab a fistful of his hair, and I yank his head backward toward me.

“Kate,” you say, and you’re telling me to pull the trigger, but I won’t. Not yet.

“Please. It didn’t work for him. Did you really think it would work for you?” I ask, dropping his head. He lets it hang, probably because he knows he’s lost the battle. Some people fight to the very end, but you’d be surprised by how many don’t. I take the roll of tape, rip off a piece and place it over his mouth.

“Do you have children?” I ask. He doesn’t respond to my question which is ok because I already know the answer. He lives with his mother; she’s likely the only person who’ll miss him when he’s gone. Or maybe she’ll be glad to be rid of him—even if she’d never admit it, and you never know, it could go either way.

“The people you killed. That baby—his name was Samuel. His mother’s name was Marie. The man, the one who lived, but not really…his name is Adam. You took a man and stripped his whole life away…”

Blood drips from the hollow cavity in his head where his eye used to be. His expression is pitiful. His lip quivers, tears spill out onto his face, but they’re not the kind I want. They’re not signs of guilt, but of self-preservation, and monsters like him who hide in plain sight are the worst kind.

He made a choice, and it’s clear he hasn’t learned his lesson. That family he killed—it could be ours. Sociopaths like him don’t deserve a quick death, and that’s exactly why I go against your order to put a bullet in him, and slit his throat instead.

You’re on my ass in a matter of seconds prying the knife from my hands. You eye his severed neck and then me. “Jesus, Kate. What the fuck have you done?”

I study the blood splatter and it is amazing. It’s so vibrant and so messy just like all those emotions he brought out in me.

“This isn’t very well going to go over as a suicide now…” you say as you motion toward his corpse, and I can see you’re wracking your brain as to what to do about it. It’s not that you didn’t know all along. You knew almost from the beginning, and you certainly knew when his eye came out. I think you just wanted to see how far I’d go, and now you have your answer. I can go further. Just wait and see.

I shrug and I admit, though not out loud, that I’ve been so busy I hadn’t quite thought the disposal part through. Or much cared. Dead bodies have a way of taking care of themselves, if you give them enough time. It’s the bones that give you away. Bones tell stories. But you know this.

I consider you for a minute or two, but mostly I stare at all that blood. It’s funny what makes up a person. Eventually, I shrug. “So we take him with us…”

You deadpan. “I don’t want to take him with us.”

“Fine,” I tell you, and then I hastily gather my belongings. “Suit yourself.”

You surprise me when you don’t load the body. You don’t agree with me, and you don’t ask for my help. You leave him there, and I don’t know what your plan is, but it had better be good.

At four in the morning I am awakened when you slip out of bed. If I weren’t so tired, if you weren’t still angry with me, and if it weren’t Olivia’s first day of kindergarten, I would follow. But all of those things apply in this situation, and it isn’t until later over breakfast, as you tell the kids about the three alarm fire over in the warehouse district, that I realize how good at planning you are.

You’re still not speaking to me when we walk Olivia into her first day of school, but we go hand in hand, and we look so perfect it’s irrefutable.

“Jude, Kate,” one of the other moms calls after us on our way out. We turn and we smile, and I watch as her face lights up when she looks at you. “You two are coming, right?”

I look to you. You’re already looking at me. “Coming?”

“To Anne and Stanley’s…they’re hosting brunch for all the kinder parents in the neighborhood,” she professes, and her face is surprised, almost taken aback. Like this is something we should have known.

Her eyes remain steady on you. “Anne said she told you.”

You act surprised, but your memory isn’t that bad and distracted. I’m trying to figure whose mother, whose wife she is, but I can’t put my finger on it. “Oh. Right. It must have slipped my mind,” you say to her, and then you look at me.

“But not mine,” I confess and I make sure my face lights up like a Christmas tree when I look over at you. “Of course we’re coming,” I tell her. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

You squeeze my hand so tight it turns blue.