CHAPTER 99

THE FIRST STAB is difficult, both of my hands needed when the blade pierces his chest. His reaction is immediate, his body bucking beneath me, his eyes wide, breath wheezing as he jerks, my knees tight on him, enjoying the ride, my euphoria mounting with each buck.

Again.

I yank the knife out, the effort strong, blood pumping out of the hole in quick rivulets, ones that splatter as he jerks. Again I raise the knife, his eyes following the movement, fear in them, my eyes narrowing down on my next target as I slam down the blade.

Again. I hit his neck, the sensation completely different, a sticky crack of connection.

Again. A stomach hit. His movements are less, his eyes still open, still on me as I smile at him, his blood splatter painting my face, the taste of rust on my lips when I wet them.

Again. The final blow, his chest this time, and I fight to mentally describe the stab, try to cement this moment in my memory and hope that it will last me the rest of my life. The best comparison? The moment when a dental pick sticks in a weak spot of tooth, and the hygienist has to work a bit to get it out. I twist the knife as I yank it out, my chest heaving with exertion, and I watch his chest as it stops. Watch his eyes as the hate leaves them and they close. My nose flares as I roll my neck and lean my head back, wanting to bellow. Wanting to scream my awesomeness to the entire building. I have taken, I have conquered, I have killed. I lean back, my legs loose and rubbery, collapsing until I fall backward, lying flat on the floor, my arms spreading out and flopping to a stop on the wet plastic stretched beneath us on the floor. I close my eyes, my heart pounding out a furious rhythm, one that slows as I take measured breaths, the post-kill high orgasmic in its release of every fantasy I have harbored, every need I have controlled, every want I have denied myself. Then, a smile on my face, my dark soul happy, I fall asleep.

CHAPTER 100

MIKE SHOULDN’T REOPEN the screen. He knows that she is safe from harm, there is no need for further spying. But he does. He lasts fifteen minutes before logging back in, fingers tapping impatiently as the screen loads with maddening pauses for processing. It appears that Deanna, Internet minx who has fake-sucked his dick to countless orgasms, has fallen asleep, her body sprawled out over the man she has just stabbed to death, in a manner that seems wholly unconcerned with his demise. More than unconcerned, she seems blissful, her ear-to-ear grin visible from the webcam’s eye more than ten feet away. Mike opens a second window, taking a moment to follow the money trail—for no purpose other than to know if his own life is also in danger. If the money was moved, divvied up and sent out into the world, then his might be the next dead body Dee lays atop of. A pent-up breath whooshes from his chest when he see what he wants to see, $1.3 million, safely in the business money market account of RDC Enterprises. Not a cent touched. His fingers get to work, moving the money back, scattering it over thirty different transfers, to ghost accounts, accounts they barely touch green foot in, skipping it across the world, occasionally joining forces only to separate again, the process long and tedious, any oversight meaning that thousands might be overlooked. When it is all back, settling in and making its home in her account, he relaxes. Turns off the feeds to her cams. Sinks back into a pile of pillows, his shoulder still stiff, an unbandaged hand finding a bottle of painkillers, washing them down with a Bud that is a good half hour away from cold. He swallows the pills and relaxes, leaning his head back, a drug- and exhaustion-fueled sleep seconds away.

He is so confused by her.

CHAPTER 101

I WAKE AT some point. Drag myself off of my mystery guest and stumble to my feet. Give myself a moment to wake up while staring down at his body. Realize, while awakening, that I don’t know what to do with his body. A hundred and fifty pounds of pain-in-my-ass.

It was easier with my other kills. I did the deed and walked out. Left their bodies for others to handle. I don’t have that choice now. I can’t leave him here—he’ll smell. Put out an aroma that will raise curiosities until cops show up. Plus, there’s Jeremy to consider. I’d have to break up with him just to keep him out of the apartment long enough for FingerCutter to decompose. For all of my planning, this was one big oversight.

I am clueless in how to dispose of a body. I haven’t watched television in… years. My recreational reading is more of the erotica genre, less true crime. I don’t have a tub I can fill with acid, don’t have a chainsaw I can use to hack up and bag his body, wouldn’t know how to operate it if I did have one.

My houseguest is, in the light of my kitchen light, fairly fucked up. Face swollen, his eyes puffy, like he’s had an allergic reaction of the anaphylactic shock variety. His neck is split, the cut unnecessarily deep, the puckered cut hanging open like a stuffed bag’s zipper. Decorated with wounds, his chest is eerily reminiscent of my father’s, the resemblance causing a shudder to pass through me. But there the comparisons stop. FingerCutter’s chest is still wet with blood, each stab of my knife bleeding his body, the thin tarp beneath my feet wet, rivers of red running and collecting in the creases and dips of plastic. My father’s wounds were dry, a likely effect from the fact that his heart had already stopped, the shotgun blast to the neck ending his life minutes before a knife ever broke the surface of his skin.