2
“Alright, ma’am, you’re all set.”
I flash the saleslady one of my brightest smiles and walk out of the mall, lugging my bags.
In one of them is a long white dress with blue flowers, an off-the-rack Dior dress that makes my fashion-loving heart swell.
There weren’t any luxury boutiques in the tundra, and while most of my fellow trainees complained about the food and the harsh weather conditions, the only thing I really missed were the clothes.
I hated wearing those stiff greige uniforms. Fashion is the thing that most excites me, after knives, and even though I know I have to burn the clothes I wear after crossing a name off my list, I still choose them carefully.
Just because I’m a killer, doesn’t mean I can’t have a sense of style, does it?
This dress I’m not planning to kill anyone with, though. It’s white, and I don’t want to ruin it with blood spatter. Even if I would burn it after.
This dress is for the masked ball. And I’ve chosen a rhinestone-studded cat mask to go with it.
Usually, I find rhinestones to be gauche, but I was in the mood for something sparkly after all those years spent in the bland wilderness.
In the other bag, I’ve got the biggest roll of saran wrap I could find, some masking tape, and a leather strap.
Sharpen your tools weekly.
Daddy’s rules could get quite specific, but they were always helpful.
Stick to the plan.
The plan was to go shopping, because I needed this material and I wanted a dress. I hadn’t planned on wearing it to a ball—I hadn’t known about the ball—but I was just aching for some pretty clothes.
Then, it’s on to the kill of the day.
It’s a good thing my plan for today doesn’t allow for much downtime, because it keeps me from spiraling.
Who cares about Finn? I can take him. Haven’t I killed two guys in the two days I’ve been back?
I know what Daddy would say about that. Take your time.
But some rules are just meant to be broken.
I’ve been away for years, and I’m just itching to cross every single one of those names off my list.
There are sixteen left, and I’ve decided that after I’ve crossed six off, I’ll take more time going through the rest of them.
Not because I’m worried they’ll catch me. But because I want to draw out the pleasure.
What happens at the end of those sixteen? I’ll have run out of victims. And I’m not sure what comes next.
_
It’s three o’clock in the afternoon by the time I return home, and I take a few minutes to sharpen my tools before sticking them into my backpack along with a textbook, in case I have some downtime to study.
Don’t go out alone after dark, Mr. Campbell said.
Don’t make me laugh.
I’ve never killed at night. People don’t expect a killer to show up at their door in broad daylight, and it’s a lot easier to get to someone who doesn’t expect it.
Rolling my eyes, I drive out to a small shack deep in the forest that surrounds the college. When that warehouse was torn down, it was very inconvenient. I had to spend time scouting for another place, but this tumble-down cabin is, after all, ideal. I’ve baptized it the kill shack.
I spend the next hour wrapping every last inch of the small room in plastic wrap. Another of Daddy’s rules, one which I suspect he got from Dexter. Well, whatever. It works for me.
That’s another positive of killing in broad daylight. I don’t cross a single drunk teenager on my way to the shack. People don’t usually hang out in the forest in the middle of the day; it’s too depressing.
I drive back into the heart of Astley, pick up a matcha latte at the cafe on College Road, and park my car two blocks away from the house. And then I wait.
Jud Hart used to work on the grant team at Devil, awarding fellowships and allocating research funds to promising scientists.
These days, he’s an administrator at the college, which means he should be pretty damn busy, given how classes start tomorrow.
But he’s a lazy bastard. I’ve never met him, but I know that.
He has power, and powerful people can’t be bothered to put in a day of work.
If he were less lazy, my mom would probably still be alive.
Sure enough, it’s not even 3 p.m. when I see his car pull up into the driveway.
The secretaries and badly-paid staff will probably be working until 6 or later, but he’s put in a few hours of work and called it a day.
I bet he didn’t go in that early, either.
It’s easy to draw conclusions based on his appearance: his balding head, beer belly, and the stubble on his chin.
But I have a feeling they’re the right ones.
I crush my empty cup and leave my air-conditioned car. It’s hot out for September, but I can’t get into the habit of drinking frozen beverages. The caffeine just doesn’t hit as hard. Plus, the ice cubes mean I get less matcha for my buck.
Closing the door behind me, I head leisurely for the house. I knock on the door and wait.
“Hello?” Jud Hart opens the door and blinks at me in confusion.
“Hi, there.” I give him a wide grin. “I’m Cass Henley. I think you knew my mom. Dora Miller. I don’t use her last name, because I was adopted later, but she was my mom, alright.”
“Ah.” He hesitates for a whole minute before settling on a welcoming, albeit confused, smile. “Come… in?”
It’s just a little too easy for him to overcome whatever emotions the name of my mother elicited in him. I know it was more than twenty years ago, but he did contribute to killing a woman. Doesn’t he feel any guilt at all?
I mean, I guess I won’t feel guilty about stabbing him. Still, he’s not like me. I can tell that. He’s normal—relatively. He offers me a chair to sit in after a minute or so of us standing staring at each other, while he comes to terms with the fact that I have no plans to leave soon.
“Can I… get you something to drink?”
“Sure. I’ll have a shot of vodka.”
“Uh, okay. Let me see if I, uhm… have some.”
He looks more confused than ever as he goes to hunt in his liquor cabinet. I know he has a half-full bottle. I know pretty much everything there is to know.
“Sorry, nothing like that around. How about some water?”
Liar. “Fine.”
I watch him fill a glass from the tap then hand it to me. I take a small sip while he sits across from me, his hand nervously drumming on his knee.
He’s not nervous for the right reasons, though. I can tell. He’s nervous because he’s awkward, and he has no clue what I want or how to get rid of me.
He doesn’t realize that with every tick of the clock, he’s got a little less time to live.
“Nice house.”
“Uh… thanks. So… what can I do for you?”
“Well, I wanted to chat a little about my mom.” I give him a sweet smile. “You knew her.”
“Yes. Well, know is a big word. I think I spoke to her once, twenty-six years ago or so. How’s she doing?”
I set my glass down on the table. Have the decency to lie a little better. If all he’d done was chat with her, he wouldn’t remember her twenty years later. The guy is guilty as sin. I don’t need his lie to confirm it, but it irks me. At least put some effort into it.
“She’s dead.”
“Ah.” He tries to act surprised. “Sorry about that.”
“I know that before she died, she sent you a research project she’d been working on. She was hoping to get a grant.”
“Right.” He gives me a tight-lipped smile. “She was a very bright young scientist. Unfortunately, we had no need for her research. We, uhm, were already developing something along those very same lines.”
“Uh huh. Funny story, she was injected with the two products she was developing—Synaptrex and Valeron. I don’t think she would have injected them of her own accord. There were some pretty nasty side effects to that interaction.”
“Right.” He clears his throat. “Well, who knows what happened? It was so long ago…”
“Do you know what the side effects are?”
“I, er…” He drags a grubby finger between his collar and his flabby neck, and I can tell its folds are shiny with sweat. “Er, now that you mention it… well, no…”
“Oh. I thought you were developing something along those very same lines,” I quote, flipping a strand of hair back.
“Right, well… we never had the chance to test them together. Where’s this all going?” He lets out a nervous chuckle.
“I just wanted to tell you about those nasty side effects.” I give him my best, wide-eyed innocent look.
“Hyper-fixation and violence. Apparently, you get fixated on the last thing you see before you’re injected.
The last thing Mom saw was a bus-load of people.
She was injected right in that bus. Funny, huh? ”
“Uh…” He brings his finger up to swipe at the sweat shining on his temples.
“It was a Greyhound bus, traveling from New York to Washington D.C. It never reached its destination. Within seven hours, every single person on that bus was dead. Thirty-six people. One of them killed her in self-defense before biting the dust. And funnier still, my mom was pregnant when she died. With me.”
“Really?” The nervousness suddenly increases tenfold. “So… so… what does that… mean…”
“Daddy blamed those drugs on the way I am. He always said , “Some killers are born. Others are made.” I don’t know which category I fall into. But I’d like to think it’s the former.”
By now, he’s edging back on his chair, eyeing me with undisguised panic. “What is this, April Fool’s?”
I reach into my Birkin bag, grabbing the syringe I’ve slipped inside.
It’s a roomy bag, not exactly ideal when you need to find something quickly.
But, I mean, it’s a Birkin. I managed to snag one just before leaving for the tundra, and there’s no way I’m going to be leaving the house without it for the foreseeable future.
“Oh, fuck,” he gasps, his eyes glued to it. “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck…”
“Daddy always said you shouldn’t swear,” I scold him.
And then I plunge the syringe into his flabby neck.