I WOVE WEST ON STOCKER BOULEVARD. RAMBLING HOMES SAT HIGH ON THE HILLS. Morning joggers walked up steep sidewalks and along the hillside trails. The rains had turned the land muddy—in a week, though, poppies and wild mustard would poke through the saturated earth.
Would I get to see another LA spring?
“Daydreaming?” the monster asked.
“We’re going to Bonner Park,” I said, my body clammy-cold.
“Yes.”
The girl—Taylor—moaned until her moans became cries.
He shushed her and whispered, “It’s okay; it’s okay.”
My phone, stowed in my bag with my police radio, kept playing the Star Wars theme.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.
“I have to. Turn right.”
I accelerated onto La Cienega Boulevard.
“You’re a doctor,” I said.
“Do you think I’ve killed every patient I treated?” He snorted. “I’m not a monster. Taylor here I met at the library. She’s writing an article on Pluto for Astrology Club. Guess some scientists don’t consider Pluto a planet anymore. Taylor was gonna prove them wrong. Such a smart, brave girl.”
“The girls you take,” I said, “they’re—”
“Exceptional?” he finished. “Yes. Chanita, Allayna, Tawanna, and Bethany. I don’t hate them. I like them. I love them. I wish I didn’t, because then I wouldn’t have thought about them all the time. I would’ve looked somewhere else. But they stand out. And they, like the Muses of old, resent those who don’t see how special, how wonderfully supreme they are. And as their big brother, it is my duty to solve everyone’s problem.”
Apollo—the god of healing. Son of Zeus. Olympus, where the gods … Shit. I knew this.
“When I read about your sister and where you came from?” He clapped once, then sighed. “I had to have you. You’re my Moby Dick. But, unlike Ahab, I caught you and survived.”
I didn’t speak.
He poked my skull with the Beretta. “Kill. Heal. Kill. Heal. That’s what I do. Sometimes, in the end, they’re the same thing.” He chuckled, then sighed. “You’ve killed.”
“No,” I whispered, a lump in my throat.
He cocked his head. “It’s okay—you’re uncomfortable in your role. You hold the knife but refuse to use it. But, see, I’m not scared. I fix it. Balance it all. I rescue the sick. Reward the gifted. Balance the bad with good.”
I glared at the road ahead, at the city sparkling before me. The first day of sunshine in weeks, and here I was, on my way to someone’s death. Mine.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Dahmer. Right? Am I right? I’m not crazy. Shouldn’t compare me to him.”
A fat tear tumbled down my cheek. “Why did you keep Trina alive for so long?”
“My poet needed to compose an elegy before we all returned home. She came up with something but …” He shrugged. “I’ve read her prior poems—she could do better than what she wrote about all of this. So I gave her time to get over her … writer’s block.”
I cocked my head. “You’ve read her other …?”
“Why are you so surprised?” he asked. “We talk a lot. They tell me so much. Share so much. No one ever listens to them. They seek me out all the time. Chanita and Allayna? They both came in after they’d been jumped. And Trina … Well, see, her daddy died over in Afghanistan, and we talked about that.
“And I wondered, What have they done to deserve living in the ghetto, around people who don’t care, who don’t see? Hopeless. A waste. I made it better for them. And now they will be remembered.
“I wanted Trina’s poem to capture all of this, but … well …” His voice sounded wet and shaky.
Was he crying?
“I talk with them as they lay dying,” he continued. “I find great comfort in that. They do, too. They find great comfort in my being there beside them. That I won’t use a gun or a knife or … Tea is calming. Civilized. See how I’m talking to you right now? And in the coffee shop … You can’t say that I’m not a great listener.” He glanced down at Taylor. “Don’t worry. We’re almost there.”
Almost where? “You said you’d let her go,” I whispered.
“And I will.”
“You’ll let her go in this world?”
He smiled. “Ha. Yes.” He caught my gaze in the rearview mirror. “I thought more people would’ve come to Chanita’s funeral. Maybe Allayna’s service—”
“You were there, at Mount Saint John’s.”
He smirked. “I told you I was. Even spoke to the escort and limo driver.”
My grip weakened around the steering wheel. So close. He had been so close.
“In Pakistan last year,” he said, “more than nine hundred females were murdered. Honor killings. On the other side of the world, almost six hundred aboriginal women and girls in Canada were either missing or were murdered over the last ten years. Maybe more.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
We reached the entrance to Bonner Park. No one sat in the kiosk.
He nudged the gun. “Keep driving. As I was saying: almost two hundred million girls are missing in the world, and you’re going balls-out and using all your superpowers to avenge eight?”
Bile burned in my throat. Eight? He’s killed eight? There are nine Muses. Who’s next? Taylor? Me?
He sighed. “This really makes no sense, Elouise. You’re upset with me, but you give that son of a whore Moriaga all the freedom in the world to do as he wants.”
My eyes met his in the rearview mirror. “Moriaga?”
“The pervert that you cops have let rape and disfigure how many girls now? But have you even thanked me yet?”
“Thank you? For what?”
He cocked his chin. “I reported him to your friend’s little newspaper when he cornered that girl at the park. Even took a picture of him to prove that he hasn’t changed. That he still continued to be a threat to the community. That it was only a matter of time before he raped another one.”
Sweat prickled my underarms, and my vision started to fade. “You’re no different from Moriaga. You both lurk in the shadows—”
The Beretta jammed into my neck. “I’ve never forced myself on a child. Never. They wanted to be with me. If we’d had more time, you’d want to be with me, too. Not once did I force them. Not once. Take it back. Take. It. Back.”
Tears burned my eyes. “You don’t hear yourself. You don’t see how—”
“Is that pity? Are you pitying me?” He sighed again as I slowly drove up the narrow road. “So peaceful and beautiful here—I can see this park from my house, you know.”
Bursts of sunlight cut through the trees. Bobcat excavators and tractors for clearing poststorm brush sat on the side of the road like sleeping heavy-metal dinosaurs.
“Pull over here,” he said, “but don’t stop the car.”
I tapped the brake: 25 miles per hour … 15 … 10 …
He leaned over and opened the back right passenger door.
I glanced back. “What are you—?”
He remained in the backseat as he pushed Taylor out of the car. “Bye, sweetie.” He closed the door, lifted the Beretta, and aimed it at my right temple. “Shall we?”
Taylor had found her feet and was now running back down the hill.
I watched the girl’s reflection in the rearview mirror until the tears in my eyes blurred my vision. I’m the ninth Muse.
“Let’s go,” the monster said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, then eased the RAV4 past the muddy tractors.
“Those storms created a few landslides,” he said. “I couldn’t get up here as much as I needed. Guess they’re cleaning up now. Our tax dollars at work. Oh, what wondrous prizes they’ll find.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. Syeeda: we hadn’t made up. Sam: we hadn’t talked about us. Mom: I hadn’t told her about my talk with Victor Starr. Greg: the real estate agent. Shit. I hadn’t resolved so many things in my life, and now …
Would they miss me? Yes, they would. But then they’d move on. Mom had lost a daughter, lost a husband. The worst of the worst she’d survived … and she had still moved on.
A sob pushed against my chest, but I tamped it down. Still, it burned and bubbled there, gaining mass and heat.
“Why are you upset?” Zach Fletcher asked. “I kept my promise. And now you’re a hero. Maybe you’ll get a Purple Heart after the dust clears. A six-gun salute or whatever it’s called. A junior high school named after you.”
He placed his mouth against my ear, and his breath warmed my neck. “I was planning to leave you alone, especially after our coffee date on Saturday, even though you’re it for me. The Muse that avenges the deaths of all God’s children. A true goddess.” He slowly exhaled. “But you tried to stop me from doing the thing I love the most.”
I tapped the gas pedal just … so … then considered his reflection in the rearview mirror. “You can stop this.”
He grinned and met my eyes in the mirror. “But I don’t want to. Not anymore. I like it here. In the dark. And I’m not sure there’s a cure for my … habit.”
The Motorola radio pinched my sweaty side, and I prayed that the line had remained open, that Colin could hear this conversation, that—
“There will always be dead girls, Detective Elouise Norton,” Zach Fletcher said. “There will always be lost girls. Good and bad. Rich and poor. Smart and … You can’t save all of them.”
My stomach twisted. “I know that.”
“I’m leaving Los Angeles. Finding a new spring, new Muses. They’re everywhere. Maybe I’ll go to the suburbs. Maybe—”
Swerving came out of nowhere—part of a hillside had tumbled onto the narrow road.
“Shit.” He hung on to the back of the driver’s headrest.
I came out of the curve and avoided veering off the road and down the steep hillside.
He jammed the gun at my neck. “Do it again.”
Less than a mile ahead, I spotted another herd of machinery and orange pickup trucks. “Why this park?” I asked. “Eight in one park—that’s a lot.”
He chuckled. “You mean nine. And I’m not worried. You’re tall, but you won’t take up much space.”
I pressed the gas pedal.
The RAV4 accelerated.
“Slow down, Elouise,” he warned. “You’ll crash and die. Do you want to meet your end on a park road and not in a beautiful glen that’s been chosen just for you?”
Lightness came over me. “Streets of gold. Pearly gates. A crown?” I met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I’m ready to be where someone loves me best of all. Are you?”
He lifted the gun. “Lou—”
“Checkmate, you sick son of a—” I stomped the gas pedal, and the Toyota’s motor roared. I jerked the wheel to the left. At sixty miles per hour, I raced toward the orange pickup that sat on the side of the road.
Zach Fletcher screamed, “Stop!”
I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop.
Metal smashed against metal.
Glass exploded all around the cabin.
I smelled baby powder … rubber …
And then I saw … blackness.