They would not be wrong, those people. I think about that now, too. I have killed serially: one after the other. I have taken lives. I don’t know how many now. I don’t count or keep a record or anything like that. It is more people than would fit on a bus, I know that. And none of them breathe. Not now.
I wonder if I have not considered it that way before because of the money. There is no emotion for me with killing. And certainly no pleasure. It is a job. And if the thought of taking a life for money might distress me, the fact that someone else would surely do it if I do not adds some comfort. These are not random, violent acts. And I am a professional. I put thought into what I do, and the deaths are always humane. Many times, the people I’ve been paid to hit transition from alive to dead with no awareness on their part. I’ve watched their faces at times, so I know.
I look again at the face on the screen.
No emotion, until now.
I think again of my lover, my host.
No emotion until now.
I close my eyes tightly. Push back the flood of feeling that threatens. I’ve held it off this long. So long. It has been years now. I know I can do it again.
I turn my attention back to the screen. The clipped Canadian accent is describing William Atwater’s heinous acts. The announcer is mixing gun control into the conversation baldly, something that would let me know I’m not in the U.S. now, even if her accent had not. And the fact that she is passionless about it. Matter-of-fact. There are statistics that all add up to what she states as fact: gun deaths and the detail that people kill people with guns. She points out calmly that, in the United States, more people die by gun than dogs die in the street in other countries. Equating street dogs with human citizens seems like a stretch to me; still the point is driven home. And she has statistics, though the numbers are so horrendous one tunes them out. They are like random, unrelated numbers. They seem to make no sense.
“But these were not gun deaths,” says another talking head. He is white. Apparently tall. Something paternal or maybe patronizing in his tone and delivery. His is the voice of reason. You can tell he feels that is the case; that he believes in his oh-so-reasonable voice and all that it intones.
“That’s not the point, John,” the original speaker says calmly. She is confident of her position. It is apparent in the arc of her back, the tilt of her head. “The point is violence. And a culture so steeped in it, senseless acts like this one are possible.”
They go on in this vein, but now we are seeing images on the screen, as well; hearing the voices only. They are mostly images I have seen before. The thread of Atwater’s victims, one by one. They make a tapestry of stilled voices. A small playground that will never be.
Now we see select parents, mostly so choked with emotion they are all but immobilized. Their faces are all different, as are their places in life, but I recognize them. It’s like I’m looking in a mirror. They are me. Or, at least, they are the me that was. And I am them. She of the commuting. Of coffee in the morning. Of the Pebble Tec pool. She of the two dishwashers and the hopeful life that made sense.
The abductions and murders happened over time. The interviews we see now reflect that, and we are seeing these parents at different stages in their grief. The parents of the child lost most recently are so staggered by their anguish that they can barely walk—they are almost unable to stand erect. Wiped out. And there are deep shadows in their eyes and under them. I can’t stop looking at their eyes.
But the killings have been going on for several years. The parents of earlier victims have moved on somewhat. They are able to stand. Because that is what we do, we humans. We stand. We move forward. We move on. Sometimes the movement nearly kills us for a while, but eventually, we move on. Make new lives. Lives without holes.
I think again of my dead garden, filled now with the green of hardy weeds. I close my eyes, put fingertips to my temples, blink back unexpected tears from a source I don’t recognize. And then I take a deep breath. Open my eyes. Move on.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SO DEEPLY IMMERSED am I in these thoughts that when my phone rings it causes a physical reaction in me. I jump, startled.
“What are you doing?” His voice is firm and warm. It sounds just as it does in my ear. I suddenly want him there. Very badly. To feel the firm, real length of him. To feel his strength. His warmth. And, yes, his desire and his humanity.
“I’m watching television, if you can believe it.” I am surprised at how even my voice sounds. How normal. Like watching his TV is the most natural thing in the world.
“Good! You figured it out. Bright girl. I often have trouble with it myself.”
“Why are you calling? Did you want to check to see what I’ve stolen so far?”
His laugh is deep and real. It is balm. I feel I could listen to it all day.
“Not at all. But if you do steal something, can you please take the sculpture by the ottoman in
