“You mean do I have a job? No, except for part-time work as a food server. I go to school at NYU. After… what happened, I went into a kind of bad period, then I got my GED and started my life again.”
“Have any of the three of you noticed anything unusual lately in your lives?” Nell asked. “Anything worth remarking on? Don’t hesitate or dismiss anything as too trivial. We never know what’s going to be important.”
All three seemed to think about it. Greta and Lloyd shook their heads no. Gina said, “The Justice Killer. I keep hoping he’ll broaden his range of victims and get around to Bradley Aimes.”
“I wouldn’t wish that, Gina,” Lloyd said wearily.
“I don’t see why not.”
“It wouldn’t bring Genelle back.”
“But we’d all be able to sleep better, wouldn’t we?”
Lloyd sighed. “Yes, we would.”
“Lloyd!” Greta said, in the same tone she’d used to admonish Gina. “Let’s leave retribution up to God. Agreed? Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Lloyd said. “I was only spouting off, getting rid of my anger. They-these detectives-brought it all back, the night we heard about Gina.”
“I’m sorry,” Nell said.
“We both are,” Looper told the Dixons. “Sometimes our job isn’t so pleasant.”
“Thank you,” Greta said. “We understand. Gina?”
“Yeah, sure, I understand.”
“Gina?”
Gina looked at her mother. “What? I said I understood.”
“About retribution being up to God,” Greta said. “I didn’t hear you agree.”
“I agree,” Gina said. But nothing in her expression suggested that she meant it.
The piano started up again. Same tune.
When the detectives were gone, Gina returned to her room, where she’d been playing Castle Strike on her computer, a game wherein a futuristic Delta Force patrol invades a medieval castle and slays various armored knights with high-tech weapons. Glittering pieces of polished steel and various body parts flew in all directions from fiery explosions. It was a colorful game.
After only about fifteen minutes, she left the computer and stretched out on the bed with her eyes closed.
The detectives’ visit had opened wounds never fully healed, and triggered more and darker thoughts of Bradley Aimes. He was one of the evil knights-no, every knight-she’d slain in the castle. As insensitive and self- involved as a vicious animal, Aimes wouldn’t be suffering as she and the rest of her family were right now. Probably he wouldn’t be thinking of Genelle at all, since he’d been exonerated of her murder. People like Aimes lived in castles impossible to haunt.
But he’d murdered Genelle.
Like all those people who’d responded to endless media polls, Gina was positive of his guilt. Aimes had murdered her twin. Her other self.
And hadn’t paid for it.
Gina had paid and was still paying, and what a dear price it was. And Gina still hated Bradley Aimes. Not only was he the reason Genelle was dead, he was the reason for all of Gina’s nightmares. Twins were not like other people. The pain of her sister’s death was still a powerful force in Gina’s life. What Aimes had done meant to Gina a grief that became part of a soul no longer whole, difficult sessions with an analyst, medication, and nights that presented horrible dreams of a dead Genelle who lingered like a specter in the daylight.
Gina knew a sad truth she’d heard from other unfortunate twins: when one twin dies, it’s almost as if the other also dies, only without stoppage of breathing or heartbeat. Gina was left alive in the conversational sense of the word, but part of her was missing, glimpsed in agonized memory only in shadows or unexpected reflections in mirrors or shop windows.
The part of her that remained craved vengeance the way an addict craved a drug.
Her need to avenge her twin’s death might have been the reason Gina read all the true crime literature she could find, and had followed the Justice Killer investigation so carefully in the news. She knew that a copycat killer was briefly suspected in the murder of one of JK’s victims. The concept of a copycat killer more and more fascinated her. She’d researched such killers thoroughly, who they were, why they killed. It was surprising, in widely publicized cases, how often they killed. Surprising to most people, anyway, but not to the police.
Might a copycat killer murder the killer of her twin? Her other self? Fair and just. Double double.
There was no reason a copycat killer had to be motivated only by the unreasonable compulsions Gina read about in the crime literature she so tirelessly consumed. It wasn’t as if there was a law. Injured ego, feelings of inferiority, and a powerful lust for attention didn’t have to be the reasons a copycat killed.
Vengeance would do just fine.
As in most crimes of daring, an alibi would be necessary. Gina thought about Eunie Royce, her coworker and friend at the Middle World Restaurant in Tribeca, where Gina waited tables part time. Gina had lied for Eunie more than once, so Eunie wouldn’t be caught cheating on her husband Ray. Gina had marked restaurant checks with Eunie’s initials so she could prove to Ray she’d been working as she claimed.
If Gina asked, Eunie would forge her initials on some tabs, establishing Gina’s presence at work at the time of…say, a murder. Eunie would never admit she’d done such a thing, mainly because she wouldn’t believe for a moment that Gina had stalked and killed someone, even if the someone was Bradley Aimes. Not until it was too late and she couldn’t admit to a lie without implicating herself.
If it ever came to that.
The Justice Killer was widening his qualifications for victims. Bradley Aimes would seem a logical choice. Especially if an exonerated guilty defendant like him were to be killed by the real Justice Killer.
Then a copycat killer would probably get away with claiming another JK victim. If the Justice Killer were killed rather than arrested, no one would ever know or even suspect. If the police arrested him and he stood trial, who would believe anything he said?
Gina opened her eyes and saw nothing but the swirling maelstrom of her own thoughts. Her own desires.
A copycat murdering the killer of a twin. Double double. Such an intriguing idea.
Mom and Dad would approve, though they surely wouldn’t say so.
They didn’t have to know. The secret would be forever held between Gina and Bradley Aimes, and Genelle.
Well, something to think about.
Gina scooted sideways on the bed, then stood up and returned to sit at her computer, where Castle Strike waited.
The battle was rejoined.
John Lutz
Chill of Night
31
The creme brulee was delicious.
Nell wore her good navy blue dress, pleased that it still fit so well, along with a cream-colored light jacket and navy high-heeled shoes. A string of white pearls completed the simple but-she thought with some surprise when she looked in her full-length mirror-fetching outfit.
Fetching. A strange description. Yet a man like Jack Selig probably could convince some women to fetch for him. He looked like something off the cover of a romance novel, with his chiseled good looks, his flawless grooming, his casual beige sport jacket with just the right amount of gold flashing when he raised an arm to expose a cufflink or wristwatch. This guy was every mother’s dream, but not for her daughter.
“Did I mention that you look stunningly beautiful?” he asked.
