When I first came to Cole’s house, I thought our confrontation with Shaw was imminent.
Instead, Cole sucks me into a cycle of long bouts of labor on our respective work, hedonistic meals to recover, and wild, experimental sex.
Cole meant what he said, that he would always be with me, always by my side. He even breaks his own routine of working in his private studio, joining the rest of us plebs in the shared building.
With all his designs and materials filling the largest studio at the end of the hall, we’re never further than a few doors down from each other.
This is to protect me from Shaw, but also to satisfy Cole’s obsessive need to know where I am and what I’m doing every moment.
It should feel suffocating, but it doesn’t. Probably because Cole is not trying to interfere with what I want to do. Quite the opposite. He wants to help me so he can increase my reliance on him.
Sometimes I wonder if he’s going to pull the rug out from under me. Will he suddenly become violent and cruel when he thinks he has me trapped?
It’s hard to believe he could still be tricking me, that he has some secret plan. I’ve seen him in too many unguarded moments.
But I may only be fooling myself.
Many people have believed they knew Cole, that he was their friend.
I don’t know if that has ever been true.
He does seem to have some real affection for Sonia. He certainly respects how good she is at her job. She accomplishes her tasks creatively and effectively, without instructions from Cole. As kind as she’s always been to me, she has an edge of ruthlessness when getting things done. I’ve heard her cut the Artists’ Guild panel down to size when they dare oppose what Cole has ordered.
I don’t believe Sonia’s warmness to me is only because Cole expects it. She regularly comes to see my work, seeming to feel real pleasure when I’m invited to participate in another show, or when another painting sells.
On one of the last weeks of November, she comes to my doorway, carrying two mugs of tea.
Sonia doesn’t ferry tea for anyone, not even herself—that’s Janice’s job. So I know she’s here for a reason.
“Cream and sweetener, right?” she says, pressing a mug into my hand.
“Thank you,” I say gratefully.
As much as I love all the bare glass in my studio, it’s difficult to keep the space warm. Even with an oversized cardigan and fingerless gloves, I’m still chilly. The air lies heavy and wet outside my window, opaque as milk. Trails of condensation run down the glass like tears.
“Cole told me he’s been working on a design for Corona Heights Park,” Sonia says.
“He has a few ideas. I don’t think he knows which he wants to submit.”
I sip the tea, which is deeply steeped and just the right temperature.
Sonia mirrors me, watching over the rim of her mug. “He’s been asked to do monumental sculpture several times before. He always refused.”
I shrug. “I guess he’s ready for it now.”
Sonia lets that sit between us for a moment, taking another slow sip of her tea.
She remarks, “He’s different since he met you. He smiles occasionally. And he hasn’t made Janice cry in weeks.”
I squeeze my mug, trying to draw warmth through the smooth ceramic.
“I don’t know that I have any great effect on him. No tree can stop a landslide.”
Sonia’s mouth quirks up, enjoying that analogy.
“I’d call him a volcano. You can survive a landslide … not a lava flow.”
I can’t tell if that’s a warning.
If it is, Sonia’s giving it from inside the volcano’s umbra. She’s not safe from Cole either.
She’s worked for him for the better part of a decade. As brilliant and observant as Sonia is, I have no doubt that she’s learned some of his secrets. Whether he intended to share them or not.
Yet she remains unusually loyal to her boss.
I set my tea down, picking up my brush once more, loading it with paint.
My new canvas perches on the easel, the shapes blocked out, but work only just beginning.
Swiping my brush gently across the virgin space I ask Sonia, “You have a son, don’t you?”
Her manicured nails tap against her mug. “Did Cole tell you that?”
“No. I saw you carrying a backpack out the other day. From the Cuphead patches and the skateboarding stickers, I guessed he’s about twelve.”
“Thirteen.” I can hear Sonia’s smile, the affection in her voice. “His name is Will. He goes to the STEM school in Laurel Heights.”
“Oh, so he’s a genius then.” I grin.
“Yes,” Sonia laughs. “And like all geniuses, absent-minded—he forgets that damn backpack in my car at least once a week.”
I dip my brush onto the palette, adding a little more navy into the silvery gray.
“Will lives with you full-time?”
Sonia wears no ring, and I’ve never heard her mention a boyfriend, let alone a husband.
“That’s right.” Sonia takes another leisurely sip of tea. She’s dressed in a tailored pant suit, no blouse beneath. The streaks of premature gray around her face look stark and bold, like she was struck with lightning in just that spot. “His father was an aerospace engineer, designing drones for military applications. That’s where Will gets his math skills. God knows it’s not from me.”
My respect for Sonia battles against my curiosity. As someone who hates personal questions, I don’t want to pry. On the other hand, I’m sure Sonia will have no problem shutting me down if she doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Where’s his father now?”
Sonia perches on the edge of my table, her long legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankle. She looks down into her tea, swirling the mug slowly in both hands.
“It was an ugly divorce,” she says. “Will was eight, just starting third grade. His father wouldn’t agree on split custody. He worked long hours, weekends too, but he couldn’t stand the thought of me having Will even half the time. He hired a men’s rights attorney, a fucking snake, and they threw everything they could at me. Month after month, drowning me in paperwork and court hearings. Trying to intimidate me. Trying to drain our bank account to the point where I’d hand over my son just to make it stop.”
I stop painting, turning to look at her.
Her face falls into deep lines of exhaustion, remembering the ordeal.
“It was relentless. Vindictive. Irrational. He’d pretend to be willing to come to an agreement if I’d meet him for mediation, but then he’d yank the football away again. I started to worry that even if I could force him to come to terms, he’d never abide by them. He was already flouting the temporary custody agreement, refusing to bring Will back to my house, shutting off Will’s cellphone so I couldn’t call or text. He had family in Saudi Arabia and plenty of job opportunities overseas … I lived in terror that one day he’d take my son and never return.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “That’s awful.”
Sonia nods, anger still burning in her eyes. “It was.”
“Did the judge sort it out?”
Sonia snorts. “Not fucking likely. The system is a stick in the hand of the biggest bully. The lawyers get rich and everyone else gets fucked.”
“What happened, then?”
“A miracle,” Sonia says. “I had Will at home for the weekend. For once his father wasn’t calling and texting, trying to interrupt us, blowing up my phone. I remember thinking that he must be slammed at work. I certainly didn’t believe he was turning over a new leaf—I wasn’t that stupid.”
Sonia’s voice goes low and dreamy as she gazes into her tea.
“Monday morning, I drove Will back to my ex’s house. He was renting a place in Oakland, a little modern bungalow with an attached garage. I parked out front, noticing that all the lights were off in the house, even though I was right on time and he should have been expecting us. I told Will, ‘Wait in the car.’ I must have known something was off. I walked up to the front door, rang the bell, knocked. No answer.”
I swallow, my throat tight with anticipation, even though this all happened years ago.
“I heard this sound. Sort of a low rumble, coming from the garage. I couldn’t have told you what it was, and yet, deep down inside, I already knew. I felt myself walking over, wrenching up the door. Standing still while exhaust billowed out all around me.”
“He was … in the car?”
“That’s right. He had driven home late from some bar. Fell asleep in the garage. Never turned off the engine.”
I let out my breath in a long sigh.
“It was a ‘67 Camaro—his baby. I told him that car would be the death of him if he ever got in an accident on the freeway. I guess I was half right.”
“And that was the end of the custody battle.”
“That’s right.” Sonia nods. “Will came to live with me full-time. Cole even gave me a raise to pay off what I owed my lawyer.”
“He’s generous like that,” I say, my voice coming out faint and slightly strained.
“Oh yes,” Sonia says quietly, her pale blue eyes fixed on mine. “He can be very generous when it suits him.”
Sonia stands up, still holding the tea that has now gone cold in her mug. She only drank half of it.
“I’ll always be grateful to Cole for everything he did for me during that time,” she says. “It was the darkest point in my life.”
She’s walking toward the door, leaving so I can get back to work.
“That’s interesting,” I say.
Sonia pauses in the doorway, looking back at me.
“What’s interesting?”
I swirl my brush through the silvery gray, loading the horsehair with pigment. “I also met Cole on my darkest day.”
Sonia’s lips curl up, her smile enigmatic.
“That’s his gift,” she says. “He knows how to choose his moment.”
I start to paint again, thick clouds of gray, just the color of car exhaust.
“By the way,” Sonia says as she departs, “I love the new composition.”
I finished my Sinners and Saints series. There were six paintings in all, and each sold for more than the last.
Actually, seven sales occurred, because my painting of the beautiful devil has already resold for twice its original price to Betsy Voss herself.
“That’s a very good sign,” Cole told me. “Betsy has an eye, and she doesn’t make purchases just to inflate value. She really believes it’s an investment.”
The giddy trajectory of my bank account is terrifying. I try not to look at it. The numbers seem impossible.
I hardly need to access it anyway, living at Cole’s house. I don’t need more clothes. And I’d prefer not to spend the money in case it evaporates as quickly as it came.
I do withdraw $1000 each for Frank and Joanna, who lent me money in my most desperate moments.
Cole drives me back to the old Victorian, waiting at the curb while I climb the uneven steps to the front door.
The house already looks smaller and infinitely shabbier. I feel ashamed, not of its ugliness, but that I’m now perceiving it. Judging it. I loved this house—I felt at home here.
I knock at the door like a stranger. The flutter in my stomach when Joanna answers tells me that I was hoping it would be Frank instead, or even Melody.
Her dark eyes are unsmiling. She doesn’t say hello—just waits for me to speak.
“I brought you some money,” I say awkwardly, trying to put both envelopes in her hand. “You and Frank. For the times you gave me slack …”
Joanna looks at the envelopes, unmoving.
“You always paid me back,” she says.
I don’t know how to make her take them.
Her eyes flick down to the Tesla pulled up to the curb. Cole sitting behind the wheel.
“He give you that money?” she says.
“No. I sold some paintings.”
“Congratulations.”
There’s no warmth to the word. We might have only met this morning.
I helped her clean out her grandfather’s house after he died, stopping regularly to hug her while she cried. Joanna sublet her studio to me, over all our other roommates who would have jumped at the chance.
Friendship feels so real, until it pops like a soap bubble.
Her coldness doesn’t stem from jealousy or the belief that Cole is giving me an unfair advantage.
This is about Erin.
Joanna doesn’t know what happened, but she knows it’s my fault.
I’m the one who drew the evil eye upon us. I was attacked first. And I didn’t finish the fight—instead, I began to change.
I didn’t want to be the old Mara—the loser, the unlucky one, the victim.
Cole appeared in my life like a dark genie, offering me everything I ever wanted: money, fame, success.
I took his offer before I even knew the terms of the contract. Before I knew the price.
I shed my old life like a molted skin. And I left Erin to die in my place, in my bed.
For that, I feel as guilty as Joanna could wish.
I just don’t know what to do about it.
I have no evidence against Shaw. No way of fighting back against him, of getting justice for Erin.
Cole wants to kill him. That would break my vow to always keep swimming to the surface, never sinking to the bottom, becoming more vicious than the monsters trying to devour me.
My worst fear is to become like my mother. When I catch myself doing anything her way, I want to slap my own face. I won’t do it. I refuse.
“If you don’t want the money, will you give it to Frank?” I ask.
Now Joanna does consent to take the envelopes. I have no doubt she’ll give them both to Frank. Joanna’s principles are as iron-hard as her posture. I always respected that about her.
“Thank you again,” I say. “If you ever need anything—”
“I won’t.”
She closes the door, not slamming it in my face, but certainly not waiting for my response.
Making the long descent back to the car, I can tell Cole has followed the conversation as closely as if he could hear it.
“She’s still upset about Erin,” he guesses.
“So am I,” I tell him. “What are we going to do about Shaw? Why has he been so quiet?”
“He usually goes dark after three kills. This time it was four—but the third was a prop, to trap me. He meant the real climax to be you.”
Cole’s intimate understanding of Shaw’s process unnerves me.
Stomach clenching, I ask him, “How do you know that? How did you find out what Shaw does? And how did he find out about you? Were you friends?”
Cole sits tall in the driver’s seat, seeming to fill the whole space of the car. Seeming to loom over me.
Asking him questions is terrifying.
“You want me to tell you information that could put me in prison, while you refuse to share any of your secrets with me.”
I flush. “It’s not the same.”
“No. What you ask is more dangerous … for both of us.”
I take several shallow breaths, no oxygen in the car. My brain races faster than my heart.
I don’t talk about my past with anyone.
And Cole is no therapist—he’ll use whatever I tell him to manipulate me. To gain even greater control.
On the other hand, we’re equally curious about each other. I want to know his history as badly as he wants to know mine.
Tit for tat. Pay to play. That’s how the world works.
Sighing, I say, “I’ll tell you what you want to know. But you have to tell me something first.”
Cole’s fingertips give one restless tap on the woolen thigh of his trousers. He weighs the offer.
“You can ask one question,” he says. “Not about Shaw.”
The devil always counters.
“Fine,” I say, so quickly that he narrows his eyes at me.
The silence stretches between us as I consider what he might answer fully and truthfully. And what I most want to know.
Finally, I ask:
“Who was the first person you killed?”
