Chapter 4 #2
Evan Pike was first.
Evan wasn’t the worst of them. That’s what made him both unbearable and a good choice for the first kill.
He was the kind of man who can stand in a room while something terrible happens, then later convince himself that his silence is just him being neutral.
He just watched, that’s all. He didn’t really want to be involved.
Right. As if involvement is something you opt into after the fact, after you stood in a shadowy corner, jerking off as Noelle was brutalized between two other pricks…
He didn’t want to get involved? Fine. I didn’t want his brakes to work while he took the drive to last year’s Christmas party.
I’d watched the weather reports religiously and got just lucky enough that last December was a wet one.
A little sleet, a little ice, a slick road, and plenty of trees to cushion his car when the brakes failed and he lost control.
People called it a tragedy. People sent thoughts and prayers to his family.
People forgot all about him by January.
Same with my next target because Grant Ellison? That fucker was gone by New Year’s.
From all I learned researching my targets, Grant had been the sort of man who thought everything was a joke until it wasn’t. A man who believed the world owed him it all. He drank like he was invincible. He laughed like he’d never be held accountable for anything he did.
So the world let him drink.
You ask me, the world let him go too far, and then I just helped him along that New Year’s Eve.
Alcohol poisoning, they said. A party that got out of hand. Another accident dressed in celebration.
Fitting.
The first two were easy. By then, I think the others might have suspected something. I wasn’t as careful as I usually am—a need to finish Noelle’s list as close to the holidays as I could had me taking risks—and it was harder to get to them.
Harder, but not impossible.
Under the guise of another white man with dark hair and a blandly handsome face come to interview at Evergreen or, rather, a gift of vengeance since I don’t know how to be kind. I’m a problem solver. Noelle needed a solution, and I gave her one.
But nothing in this world is free. She has her revenge. I’ve crossed off every name on her list, and it’s time for her to show her gratitude.
It’s time I finally let her understand that, since that day in the coffeehouse, she’s belonged to me.
And I can’t wait to open my present.
I know Noelle. Better than she’d ever have any idea at this point, and beneath the guarded yet welcoming exterior, there’s a curiosity that I’ve purposely piqued.
Add that to how the weather’s on my side, and there’s no way she can escape me just yet…
I’m looking forward to a very merry Christmas once I drop the act and show her who I really am.
Trust me. I’m going to make sure of it.