He’ll just need to be smart. After Katie… after being locked up, listening to the wisdom of those beside him in jail—it is better to be safe. It is probably, from this point on, too risky to leave a girl alive. But the look in her eyes will help him make that decision. The lost, blank look is best. Those you can leave without worry; they aren’t coming back. They’ll bump around in their life until they kill themselves or get adopted. The ones who spit fire till the end… those are the ones you have to kill. They don’t appreciate the attention and never learn respect, even when beaten and broken. They’re the ones who come back and bite you in the ass. Katie had been that girl. Katie he should have ended. He frowns, all experiences with Jess Reilly exhibiting her fire, showing nothing of the submissive innocent on her website’s videos. If only he had an additional tool. A child or a parent to threaten, break her with. He needs more information than the simple address the tech asshole provided.

He checks the GPS. Seven hours more. Then he’ll be at her address. An estimated 10:30 p.m. arrival. A late hour, but not unthinkable. She’ll be up whoring. He’ll try knocking first, the dignified approach. If that fails, he’ll resort to his tools.

If two decades in real estate and two years in jail had taught him anything, it was how to pick a lock.

CHAPTER 54

10:22 p.m.

SIMON HAS NOT locked the door. I sit on the floor and stare at the metal door before me. Count the scratches on its surface for the third time. Again I reach the number forty-seven. They are scratches of my own making, from nights when I went mad and tried to rip my way to freedom. Three years of insanity shown on that surface, should someone pay enough attention to look.

Simon has not locked the door. I noticed the oversight at 9:50, leaving a chat midsession, my feet bringing me to standing, my naked body heaving as I stared at the door, my eyes trailing down the thin crack between door and jamb and failing to see the thin view of dead-bolt lock. I ended the chat, leaving a fifty-year-old husband in Nevada hanging with his junk in his hand. I’d gingerly walked to the door, not touching its surface, not doing anything but looking. Verifying, my eyes close to the crack, that I was, in fact, unsecured.

10:23 p.m. It does not escape my attention that this is the precise time of night, roughly five years ago, that my mother was halfway through killing my family. That’s not why I am shaking; this is not necessarily my genetic hour of killing. For me, the killing is not restricted to night—my last kill occurred at the time of day when most individuals were diving into a bowl of Cheerios. But night is my weakest; night is my most vulnerable time. Hence my mandate that Simon lock me in.

Simon has not locked the door. He might be on the way now. Realizing, in whatever drug stupor that’s claimed his body, that he is late. Flooring his Kia’s gas pedal, not wanting to anger his source of pharmaceutical assistance. I move closer to the door, my bare feet sliding out, gripping concrete floor, my ass dragging across the cool surface as it plays catch-up with my heels. Closer now. Close enough that I see a dried line of blood, no doubt shed in a past attempt to break down my door and kill someone.

It hasn’t been long since I’ve had blood on my hands. Too short, really. Too short for me to want it like this. I had hoped, some twisted form of hope, that by killing, I would pacify the bloodthirstiness of my soul. That’s how it works in books. The serial killer kills every once in a while, and that death tides him over until the next psychological breakdown. But I only got a few days of solace, a few days where my mental state was so ruined that I could only sleep. Sleep and lie with Jeremy and let him take care of me. He had been so caring, so worried. I wonder if he’d have been so nurturing had he known what I had done.

I let the sharp blade sink into Ralph’s skin and yank left, cutting the throat as I have, through books and videos, been taught, the blade jerking in a wet sweep across his neck until it breaks loose of the skin.

I close my eyes and savor the memory. Wrap my arms tightly around my knees and rock back and forth, focusing on the images in my head, the way his blood pooled in the dirt, the look in his eyes, the steal of death across his features. The power. The rush. This is what Dr. Derek has taught me, this is what I know. When the urges get too strong, I am to contain myself and let the fantasies run wild. But I am not contained, my door is unlocked, and I can’t focus on anything but the opportunity before me. Time is wasting. Any minute I could hear the scrape of metal on metal and my opportunity will be gone. I bounce to my feet and stand, my breath quickening as I fight what I want with what I know. I know I shouldn’t. But I am weak. My hands shake. My heart pounds. I step forward and wrap my hand around the knob. Mentally prepare myself as—very faintly—my brain screams at me to stop.