The house was small, small enough thathe knew he was taking a risk. She could emerge at any moment from any of thethree downstairs rooms, and she would see him. He took a breath all the same.Orienting himself in the corridor, taking the knife out of the pouch he hadtucked into his waistband, feeling the ridged plastic handle made for astronger grip.
The television was on in the room on theleft. So much the better. It would keep her attention and cover any sound theymight make.
He took one more steeling breath andcharged forward, ready to grab her and make the slash.
He stumbled at the entrance to the room.It was empty. The television played to no one. She was not there.
He whirled around, a sixth sense that prickledon the back of his neck, and saw her. Standing in the doorway to her kitchen,holding a microwave meal on a plate, steam rising from it. Staring back at him,open-eyed and open-mouthed.
She did not scream, which was a blessingin itself. Nothing to explain away to the neighbors. But she dropped the plateon the floor and ran, darting out into the hall, attempting to pass him and getto the front door and out into the street before he could stop her.
He couldn’t allow that.
He lunged forward desperately, throwinghis entire body weight in her direction. Blindly. Knowing that, in this tinycorridor space, she had nowhere to go but forward. All that mattered was thathe went forward faster than she did. If he could do that—his hands latched ontoher loose hoody, soft fabric, and he pulled back on it at the same time as hismomentum continued carrying him forward. She slammed into his chest, forcingair out of his lungs.
It could have been enough. She mighthave overpowered him, knocked him down and run. But she didn’t.
She didn’t, because he hadn’t droppedthe knife before he caught hold of her.
It didn’t take much to slash itsideways, dragging it across where he knew her neck would be. It didn’t evenparticularly matter if he wasn’t accurate. Once she was on the floor, he couldfinish it up tidier.
She didn’t fall right away. She wasconnected to him, her body weight resting on his where he had thrown herbackward, and then her feet slipped on the floor. She almost knocked him downafter all. She was reaching up, making a gasping, gagging sound, and he steppedback to let her fall.
She hit the floor hard. Blood runningthick and fast over hardwood. A stain that would be hell to get out. An obviouscrime scene. It didn’t matter. The impact to the back of her head left hertwitching, lying there, staring up at the ceiling like a fish out of water, gaspingsounds still coming from the part of her neck that kept pushing up with theforce of her chest spasming in an attempt to breathe. Each gasp sending spurts.He stepped back, instinctively, avoiding the flow of the blood pool.
The sounds grew more desperate, closertogether, then softer and further apart as her body began to give up. Whethershe was looking at him or just up, seeing nothing, he couldn’t tell. His aimhad been true. Though the cut was jagged, running at a diagonal instead ofstraight, it had done the job. Slashed right through the only artery thatmattered.
He waited until she stopped moving,stopped making noises. Her head flopped to one side, the last convulsionpassing through her. She was gone. Suffocated on her own blood, or drowned, orwhatever it was. She was dead.
Another evil removed from the world.
There was one last thing to do, and hecould not stay and admire his work for long. He didn’t want to: she was ugly, amark of sin that was unfortunately necessary. He took no pleasure in ending herlife. He was just doing what needed to be done.
He needed to burn her. Destroy her bodyand everything on it, and let the house burn too. Wipe away any mark of himthat remained. Let firefighters spray water everywhere and trample the ground,until even outside there was no trace left. Make him invisible. That was whathe needed to do now.
He reached into his pocket of his longcoat to pull out a small canister of gas that had been clinking against hisleg, slowing him down this whole time. Now it would be useful. Now it wouldtake care of her.
“Naomi?”
He froze, the sound of knocking on thefront door running a spike of alarm that fell all the way down his spine. Thevoice—a man. Who was it? Was she supposed to meet someone?
“Naomi, you there? You left your storekey in my car. I figure you’ll need it tomorrow.”
The coworker! In spite of all thecareful thought he had put into this attack, in spite of the exploration of herhouse as a backup plan after his selected location fell through, he had notbargained on this. Had not thought that someone else might come.
Her phone started ringing, right therein her pocket in the corridor. Buzzing and jingling a happy little tune as herblood spread around it.
“I can hear your phone. Can you just comeand get the key? Are you in the bathroom or something?”
There was nothing to do. The coworkerwasn’t just going to leave, was he?
He had to be smart here. He had to keephis mind on what was needed. There was no time to burn the body, that much wasobvious. He had to get away, right now, before this shouting man attracted theattention of a neighbor or got suspicious and decided to call the police.
Maybe he wouldn’t do that. Maybe hewould put the key through the letterbox and leave.
That would be the logical thing, right?To assume that his friend was ignoring him and leave?
Not to call the cops—that would be anoverreaction.
Maybe he just had to wait.
He snuck back toward the back door, justin case.
No, more than that: he couldn’t be inthe house. He couldn’t. He would come back later, watch from afar and make surethat the coworker really did go away. He had snuck in once. He could sneak inagain.
Carefully and quietly like before, he easedthe back door open and slipped into the
