She was only twenty- two years old. She’d probably been with, at most, ten guys in her life, and they were probably all immature, unskilled lovers like that dork Darren. Yeah, like that weasel really knew how to satisfy a woman. She’d never been with a real man before, a true Casanova, and she couldn’t get enough of him. As he built toward his own orgasm, he grunted louder and louder, until he was practically screaming, so Adam and Dana would have no doubt what was going on in their daughter’s bedroom.
Lying in bed with Marissa afterward, Johnny was waiting for her to fall asleep so he could shoot her, put his plan in motion, when she whispered, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Whenever Johnny heard that word, “love,” he wanted to laugh. Love was such bullshit. It was just a word that people said to each other because they thought they were supposed to say it, because they’d heard people in movies say it.
“Really?” Johnny said, playing along. “Don’t you think it’s too soon?”
“No,” she said. “I know how I feel. It’s different than it is with other guys. I feel really attached to you.”
Wow, Johnny was impressed- with himself. He’d really pulled this thing off perfectly. It was one thing to pick up a woman at a bar and screw her- practically any guy could do that- but how many guys could get a random girl to say “I love you” in only a week?
“I feel the same way,” he said sincerely.
“You do?” Her eyes got big.
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I feel a really strong connection with you. I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with somebody so quickly.”
He didn’t know how he was able to say all of this without throwing up. She was so excited that she started kissing him and rolling around with him on the bed, saying things like “Oh my God” and “I’m so excited.” Johnny didn’t get it, how one word, “love,” made people so happy. Sometimes he felt like he was the last sane person on the planet.
Johnny was pretty excited himself, but not for the reasons Marissa thought. He was just getting off on this whole situation- getting a girl to say she was in love with him and then killing her and her parents, ending all of their stupid, meaningless lives; it just didn’t get any better than that. The only bummer was that very soon, within an hour or two at most, it was all going to end. He’d get away with the engagement ring, other jewelry, and whatever else he could carry out of the house, but he’d put so much work into this, getting Marissa to fall for him, getting her family to fall for him, that it felt like a waste not to get more. Johnny figured Adam Bloom had to be worth millions; the house alone had to be worth at least a couple of million. It seemed crazy to just walk away.
One thing about Marissa, she loved to talk, and she was so happy and “in love” that she wouldn’t shut up. She kept yapping away about all this boring stuff, about how she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, how she loved art but she wasn’t sure she wanted to work in a gallery, yadda, yadda, yadda. She’d been thinking about moving to Prague, but now that she’d met Johnny she wasn’t so sure about that anymore. She was thinking of just applying to grad school if a job at a museum didn’t come through. Johnny acted like he was interested, occasionally giving her suggestions like “You should do whatever makes you happy” and “You have to follow your heart.”
“So what do you think of my parents?” Marissa asked.
“I think they’re great,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, they’re good people, and I love them, but it’s so hard to live here with them sometimes.”
He nodded, like he felt so sorry for her. Yeah, right.
“It was funny,” Marissa said, “when you talked about them being happy, because they’ve been so miserable lately, fighting all the time. I mean, it’s been pretty stressful, with the shooting and all the media attention, but they’re definitely not the world’s happiest couple.” Suddenly she looked like she had a big secret, and she said, “You won’t believe what I found out the other day.”
“What?” Johnny asked, looking across the room at his leather jacket, on the chair by the desk.
“My mom’s cheating on my father,” she whispered.
“Really?” Johnny said like he was surprised- yeah, right. He’d spotted her right away as the type who played around, who was always looking. Johnny Long was never wrong about a woman, ever.
Marissa told him she’d heard through a friend that Dana was cheating on Adam with this guy Tony, some trainer at her gym. So she went for the jocks. That wasn’t very surprising to Johnny either. Cheating women always went for the opposite of what they had at home.
Marissa wanted to screw again, and Johnny thought, Jesus, what was it going to take to make this girl fall asleep? Another mind- blowing orgasm seemed to do the trick. Marissa was curled up into Johnny, her head resting on his chest, starting to doze. It was almost midnight, so Johnny figured Adam and Dana were probably in their bedroom, asleep or falling asleep.
When Marissa started snoring slightly, Johnny knew he could kill them all right now. Put one in Marissa’s head, then kill her parents; it could be all over in five minutes, ten tops. But if he killed them tonight all he’d get was the money and the jewelry in the house. He had a better idea- a way to get all of Adam Bloom’s money, plus his cars, his house, and everything else.
The only downside was he wouldn’t be able to kill them all tonight. No, to make this thing work he’d have to kill them off one by one.
sixteen
Dana was in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, putting on moisturizing cream, when Adam came in and said, “Listen to them in there, it’s ridiculous.” “It’s not that bad,” Dana said.
“Oh, come on,” Adam said. “This is just more of her acting out, and I find it extremely inappropriate and passive- aggressive.”
“I don’t think you’re being fair,” Dana said.
“Really? So this is my fault?”
“It’s not her fault either. She isn’t making the noise, he is. What exactly is she doing wrong?”
Adam thought about this, then said, “What’s the matter with him anyway? Why does he have to be so loud?”
“Maybe he thinks the walls are thicker than they are, or maybe he, I don’t know, can’t control himself. But I really think you’ve been too hard on her lately. You said you wanted to meet her boyfriends before you let them sleep over, and you met her boyfriend. What more can she do?”
“There are some things a father shouldn’t have to hear,” Adam said.
“Just try to ignore it.”
“How can I ignore it when I feel like I’m in the room with them?”
Dana was rubbing cream into the deep wrinkles in her forehead, thinking she might have to give in soon and get Botox.
“She’s a beautiful twenty- two- year- old girl,” she said. “You can’t stop her from having sex.”
“Oh, yes I can.”
“Oh, really? What’re you going to do, make her wear a chastity belt?”
“I don’t have to allow her to have sex in our house anymore, that’s what I can do.”
“Listen to you, allow her. So what do you want her to do, have sex in cars? In hotel rooms?”
Xan was grunting wildly.
“This is ridiculous,” Adam said and stormed out of the bathroom.
After Dana finished up with her moisturizing, she entered the bedroom, where Adam was pacing. They could still hear Xan’s grunting and moaning.
“I feel like knocking on her door.”
“You can’t embarrass her like that.”
“So I’m just supposed to listen to this all night?”
“Sleep downstairs or turn on Jay Leno if you don’t want to hear it.”
