It takes several weeks for the rumors of Carl Danvers’ disappearance to begin swirling around the art world.
I’m sure the Siren office reported his failure to arrive at work.
Maybe the cops even visited his pretentious apartment in Pacific Heights. They won’t find anything there.
I’ve already heard whispers that he was deeply in debt, that he was depressed, that he once made a joke about throwing himself off a bridge.
Nobody’s saying the word “dead.”
That’s the thing about murder: no body, no crime.
It’s devilishly difficult to prove that someone is dead if they simply disappear.
I’ve made every trace of Danvers vanish.
The last of him resides in the industrial bin I brought out to the mine. I doused it all in bleach. Not just any bleach—highly concentrated oxygen-producing detergent. It causes hemoglobin to degrade, destroying the ability to harvest DNA.
I dropped the bin down a three-hundred-foot deep shaft, hidden inside a cave. There are 47,000 abandoned mines in California, nine hundred just in the Bay Area.
I doubt my dumping ground will ever be discovered. If it is, the remains I’ve deposited are unlikely to be identified, and impossible to link to me.
The bones within Fragile Ego are, of course, a different story.
Creating the sculpture was an action of uncharacteristic flagrancy. Accepting the purchase offer tonight was even more hubristic.
But there is no art without sacrifice, without risk.
The fact that Danvers’s bones will be displayed in the lobby of a tech firm gives me even greater pleasure than removing his annoying existence from my life.
I felt deeply peaceful as the bin disappeared down the shaft.
I’m hollowed out, cleansed, ready to rest.
The night is misty and cold. I’ve never seen another soul within a dozen miles of this place. The bare ground looks blue and ink-soaked, like an alien planet.
Not alien to me. I know every foot of ground, which is why the bundle deposited on the path catches my attention like a flaming neon sign.
There was no bundle when I walked this way before. No cars parked anywhere along the road leading up to the trail.
Instantly my eyes dilate, my nostrils flare. I listen for the slightest sound of movement, of someone close by. Every blade of grass, every pebble, stands out in acute detail.
The only thing I see is the bundle itself.
It’s not a bundle at all, but a girl, contorted and bound.
I can smell her coppery blood in the damp air.
I know at once who left her here: Alastor-fucking-Shaw.
Fury consumes me like a pyre.
How dare he follow me here.
He crossed a serious fucking line between us, encroaching on my ground, disrupting my process.
He’ll pay for this.
The fact that he left a woman behind incenses me all the more. I know exactly what he’s doing.
I draw closer, expecting to find her already dead.
Instead, as she hears my footsteps approaching, she turns her head.
I see the silvery band of the tape over her mouth, above which a pair of wide eyes search frantically before fixing on my face.
I recognize her.
It’s the girl from the showcase. The one Alastor thought had sparked my interest.
She’s not wearing a dress now. Alastor has her wrapped up in some ludicrous S&M outfit, all leather straps and steel grommets. He’s forced her feet into too-small nine-inch heels. The leather harness encircles her breasts without covering them. A glint on her bare breasts tells me that he’s even pierced her nipples—unless she had those rings already.
The girl squirms against the brutal hog-tie, her back painfully arched, the bonds cutting into her swollen flesh. She’s not fighting very hard anymore. The reason is plain: Alastor has cut her wrists, leaving her to bleed out on the cold ground.
It’s working. The earth is soaked and dark. I bet the soil would be warm to the touch if I were to lay my palm down upon it.
Her struggles cast splashes of purplish blood across her blanched skin. The patterns are not unlike the ones she made on her dress with wine—pretty in the moonlight.
Her body, skinnier than what I like, looks far more sensually curved with her bare breasts thrust forward and her arms pulled back. Her vulnerability overwhelms me—a gift, wrapped in ribbon and set before me. Tender and delicate. In so much pain . . .
The girl makes weak pleading sounds from behind the tape.
She’s begging for help . . . from the one person who won’t give it to her.
I see the confusion in her eyes.
Then, as I stand there watching, hands tucked in my pockets . . . deep disappointment.
I know what Alastor is trying to do.
I cut him too deep when I insulted him, when I called him undisciplined. He’s trying to humiliate me in return. Trying to prove that I’m no better.
He knows that his lust weakens him. He thinks this girl will tempt me in the same way.
I don’t kill on impulse. I prepare my location. And I never lose control.
He hopes I’ll break all three rules.
I’ll admit, this girl is a hundred times more appealing to me in this moment than she was at the show. She looks delicate and luminous, her flesh so tender that it would bruise at the slightest touch. The clean lines of her naked limbs, twisted and bound, call out for rearrangement . . .
I’ve never killed a woman. I assumed I would at some point, but not some skinny girl, and not in some frenzy of fucking and stabbing like that ghoul Shaw.
I don’t even torture my subjects like this. Meticulous preparation has always been the foreplay for me.
Now an endless flow of possibilities pass through my mind, like a new door just opened inside my brain.
What I could do to her . . .
What I could make her feel . . .
Blood rushes through my veins, every nerve sparking to life.
For a moment Alastor’s plan succeeds. I am tempted . . .
Then I slam that door shut.
I’m not killing this girl.
Even if I dispatched her in the most dispassionate manner possible, it would still create a perverse bond between Alastor and me, something I’ve continuously refused.
I won’t give Alastor what he wants. Not after he intruded on my sacred space.
He’ll be punished, not rewarded.
Which leaves only two options.
I could play the hero, save the girl.
That would cause all kinds of unwanted complications. She’s seen my face—and who knows what she’s seen of Shaw. She could lead the cops back here.
The other option is to simply . . . walk right by.
Alastor slashed her deep, and the night is cold. We’re miles from civilization. She’ll bleed to death on the path. Then it’s up to Alastor to pick up his own trash.
I don’t like the loose ends. If someone finds her body, if the police come poking around, we’re only a mile from my dumping ground.
But the mine is well hidden, not marked on any map.
The only way to win this particular game is to refuse to play. That’s what will enrage Shaw the most.
So I take one last glance at the girl’s beautifully tortured body.
Then I step over her and carry on my way.
