Sonia comes running into my office. She stands in the doorway, transfixed by the destruction inside.
“Oh my god, what happened?” she cries.
I already set the golf club back in its bag.
Still, there’s no hiding what I did.
“I smashed the solar model,” I say.
Sonia stares at me, horrified, tears filling her pale blue eyes.
“How could you?” she says.
“It belongs to me,” I snarl. “It’s mine to keep, or mine to destroy.”
She stares down at the thick drifts of shattered glass, the downward tilt of her head causing the tears to spill down her cheeks.
In all the time she’s worked for me, I’ve never seen Sonia cry. She’s competent and capable, and keeps her emotions securely buttoned down. That’s why we get along. I would tolerate nothing less.
I don’t blame her for the tears in this moment, however. The solar model was one of the most stunning works of art I’ve ever seen. Truly unique and irreplaceable.
I destroyed it on impulse.
Something is happening to me.
Something is taking me over—twisting me, changing me. I’ve been infected. And Mara is the disease.
“Get someone to clean that up,” I order.
I storm out of my office, heading down to the main floor. I don’t bother stopping at Mara’s studio—I know she isn’t here. She’s probably still at home, sleeping.
As I pass Janice’s desk, I see several artists crowded around her computer screen. They break apart as I approach, hurrying off in every direction except mine.
Janice tries to close her browser window, but I knock her hand aside, barking, “What are you looking at?”
“Another girl’s been killed,” Janice stammers. “It happened last night.”
I lean over her desk, unpleasantly enveloped in her sickly-sweet perfume, so I can examine the computer screen.
She’s on some trashy true crime site. The page is covered in full-color photos of the murder scene.
Alastor’s work.
His bodies are far more distinct than his paintings.
And yet . . . this is a new level of violence, even for him. I see the frenzy in the scattered body parts. This wasn’t just lust . . . it was rage.
I stand up again, my heart already returning to its steady beat.
This explains why Alastor wasn’t at the show last night. He must have gotten distracted on the way over.
He missed something he really should have seen.
Lucky for me. It buys a little more time.
I walk over to Mara’s dingy Victorian. I hammer on the door, startling her roommate Frank who opens the door after a long delay, looking high and paranoid.
“Oh,” he says, looking partly relieved and partly even more confused. “It’s you.”
“Where’s Mara?” I demand.
“I dunno,” he mumbles, running his hand through his wild curls. “Work, maybe?”
The second I get my hands on her phone I’m putting a tracker on it.
This intention becomes an absolute fixation as I unsuccessfully visit Sweet Maple and Golden Gate Park in turn, without finding her.
WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?
Several fantasies play through my mind as I search the park. The first is how I’m going to drag her into the trees and strangle her. But when I picture wrapping my hands around her throat, instead I see them sliding down her body . . . cupping her breasts . . . squeezing her tiny waist as hard as I can . . . forcing her down on my cock over and over and over . . .
Fucking her in the woods isn’t good enough.
I want her somewhere isolated, where we can be utterly alone together. Somewhere I’ll have every tool I desire at my fingertips. Somewhere I can spend all night long having my way with her . . .
I want to bring her to my house.
No one but me has stepped foot through the front door since my father died. The house has been my cave. My one place of absolute privacy.
My desire to bring Mara there shows me how far this obsession has grown. Bringing her into my house is like bringing her inside my own body. A far more intimate act than simply fucking her . . .
Where could she be?
Did she meet up with that fuckboy again?
Is she at his house right now, letting him put his hands all over her?
The thought is so enraging that I have to put my hands on my knees and lean over for a moment, breathing heavily.
No. She wouldn’t do that. She only fucked him to get back at me. Because she knew I was watching.
That’s what I want to believe. But I have to know for certain.
I pull out my phone, accessing Mara’s social media once again.
By now, I know every photograph, every caption. I have them all committed to memory. And I think . . . possibly . . . I’ve seen that guy before.
I scroll through the images, searching.
At last I find it: a post from the day Mara got the tattoo of a snake on her ribs. There he is, standing right next to her, latex gloves on his hands.
Logan hooked me up today—finally got my little hiss.
I touch my finger to his name, switching over to his profile.
Logan Mickelson, Paint It Black tattoo parlor.
Found you, motherfucker.
The parlor is only twelve blocks from the park. I walk over, instinctively avoiding any record of where I’m going. Leaving my options open to deal with Logan as I see fit.
This is the wrong time of day for an acquisition. I’d be better off coming in the evening, when he’s likely to be working alone, finishing up his last client of the day. I could pose as a walk-in. After checking the building for cameras, of course.
But I’m impatient.
I don’t want to wait until tonight.
I want to know the precise nature of this bastard’s relationship with Mara. Right now.
I wait around the back of the building. He’ll come out for a smoke. These fuckers always smoke.
Sure enough, after nearly an hour of patient watching, he shoves his way through the back door, already sparking up, hand cupped around his mouth to protect against the wind blowing gusts of dry leaves down the alleyway.
I have him up against the wall, forearm against his throat before he’s drawn a single breath of smoke into his lungs.
He goes still, not fighting, not struggling. Looking at my face with as much curiosity as fear.
“Oh, shit,” he says. “I know you.”
I’m becoming entirely too recognizable in this town.
“Then I’m sure you can guess why I’m here.”
It still takes him a second to put it together.
“Mara,” he says.
“That’s right,” I hiss. “Mara.”
“Sorry dude, I didn’t know she had a boyfriend . . .”
I could cheerfully decapitate him just for that comment.
“I’m no one’s fucking boyfriend,” I snarl. “She belongs to me, she’s my property. And you put your disgusting inky hands all over something I own. What do you think I should do about that, Logan?”
The sound of his own name is the alarm that alerts Logan to the fact that I’m not here to have a pleasant conversation. The continued existence of that name is a fine thread upon which my arm against his throat operates like a sharp set of shears.
He cuts the bullshit immediately.
“I barely know her. I don’t even have her phone number.”
“You tattooed her, though.”
“Yeah—that’s how we met. I did a grim reaper for her roommate. She asked if I’d do the snake. It was her own design—she drew it.”
“What other tattoos have you done for her?”
“None. It was just the one.”
I ease the pressure off his throat. Slightly.
He isn’t stupid enough to think that’s the end of it. He looks into my eyes, into those black pits that could never be filled by apologies alone.
“Is there . . . anything else?”
“Yeah. Where’s your tattoo gun?”
