Dear Killer (10 page)

When class was over and we left the room, everything was silence. Neither Michael nor Dr. Marcell said anything to me, even though I knew both of them had things to say. Everyone kept their eyes down and moved quickly, even the uninvolved, as if even they could taste something nervous in the air. The only sound, until we got out into the hallway, was our own footsteps.

Once I got out of the classroom I stopped. I watched Michael’s retreating back as it wove between the people in the hallway. He looked so quiet and unassuming, when he was seen like this, from a distance. Almost forgettable.

I smiled a sharp smile, a smile with many emotions in it. Anger. Fear. Sadness.

They would all remember him soon enough.

Chapter 11

A
fter school the hallways were quiet.

I spent two and a half hours in the library, and then I walked through them, meandering toward my destination. Lazily wandering up stairs, hands trailing along the banisters, making my way up to the third floor, where he waited.

I knew he would be there.

Waiting inside the third-floor girls’ bathroom, looking uncomfortable, arms crossed—oh, I could just picture it. Despite my anxiety, the image made me smile.

I walked along the third-floor hallway. My steps echoed. The fabric of my skirt whispered, my hair silently bounced around my shoulders. The sun came through the window and cast a shadow against the wall beside me. My shadow and I walked together toward the end of the hall.

I would be corrupted. My rules—gone. My way of life—deserted. And somehow I was ready.

Yes, after so long, I was ready.

The door to the bathroom hung slightly ajar. Within, it was quiet. I paused outside. My canvas backpack was slung over one shoulder. Casually, I swung it around so I could get into it. From a zipped side pocket I quietly took a pair of latex gloves. I always had some with me, just in case. Lucky that I did.

The teachers had gone home. It was nearly six o’clock now. I had made up an excuse for myself—I was sure Michael had one too, though I wasn’t sure what it was or how he was spending his time before the main event. I had a large project due tomorrow for which I had to use the library. I hadn’t done it in school, during my free period, like I had planned to—and so I had to stay after school. It was just Michael and me now, and the headmaster in the far corner of the school, where he couldn’t hear.

It was the perfect stage.

The actors were in place, the scene ready to be played—the red curtain opened.

I put the gloves on and walked into the bathroom. I looked around, across the green tiles and into the open metal stalls. He wasn’t there.

My breath quickened, and I became wary. He had to be there. I knew he would be there. I
knew
it.

But the bathroom was empty—where was he?

My eyes flickered around the room, watching, waiting, my murderer’s senses on edge. I listened to the air-conditioning and the quieter sounds. The sound of my breathing, the sound of the breeze outside the window.

And then footsteps.

Behind me, quick, quiet, urgent.

I started to turn, inhaling sharply, heart pounding. But I was too slow. Before I could whirl to face him, his arm was wrapped around my neck and crushing my windpipe. I gasped for air, clawing at his arm, but he didn’t let go. He must have been hiding—in a nearby classroom, perhaps, or maybe just in shadow.

“Let go,” I choked out, as if that would do any good. He laughed. It was Michael’s laugh, of course.

“For someone so cocky, you’re careless,” he said into my ear as I struggled against him. I had to get away. If I didn’t, his arm would leave bruises around my neck, and the fact that we’d been fighting would become obvious. I didn’t want that. I wanted no traces of my fight left behind.

I didn’t have time for this shit.

I swung my arm down and slammed it into his groin.

He moaned and let go of me, sinking to the ground weakly like the slime he was. He rocked back and forth, pained, in a ball on the floor. I looked down at him with disgust. His hair flopped into his face, obscuring his sight—he was so vulnerable. I could kill him so easily, with just a knee to the face or a punch to the back of his exposed neck.

But I wanted him to know why he died. I didn’t want it to be unexpected. I wanted him to see it coming and be afraid.

I walked past him and closed the bathroom door, locking it quietly.

“Michael,” I said.

He muttered obscenities and stayed where he was, curled up on the floor in pain. His back was to me, his eyes downturned, staring at the floor of the third-floor girls’ bathroom.

“Michael,” I said again, louder this time.

“What do you
want
?” he spat at me, finally looking up to meet my eyes. Usually when people met my eyes as they were about to die, they looked afraid, or at least uncertain. I don’t think he understood yet. Even with my note, he didn’t understand yet.

I knelt down to his eye level, reached out, and grabbed his hair, forcing his head upward so he could not look away from my eyes. I held it there, eyes like iron, neither one of us giving way.

“You look pretty, but you’re just a little bitch,” he breathed.

I smiled.

“That’s right,” I hissed in reply.

“But you don’t mean it. You talk big and you even hit hard, but in the end you got nothing. You’re not like me. You’re afraid. You won’t do anything.”

I stared at him.

“Michael,” I said calmly, “what did my note say?”

“It was a bunch of bullshit.”

I grabbed his hair tighter, fingernails scraping against his scalp, and smiled grimly as he winced.

“
What
did my
note
say?” I asked once more. This time he would give me an answer.

He clenched his teeth and looked for a moment like he wouldn’t reply—but then he did, angrily and resentfully.

“It said to come here, now, so we could settle the score.”

I sighed and stood with a little smile.

“Yes, that’s right. And I’m not stupid, Michael. I know that there can be no more talking between us. That will solve nothing. Neither of us are rational people, Michael. We can no longer pretend to be civilized, or even mildly humane. The score will be settled now. You have violated what is mine. You have threatened Maggie. You have gone too far, Michael. And you’re going to regret it.”

He knelt, looking up at me.

“You’re all bullshit and no action,” he said without a trace of doubt in his voice.

“No,” I said, “I’m not.”

“You think you’re all fancy, with your prissy little haircut and—and—your smug little voice. Maggie’s yours? Are you psycho? She’s
mine
. She’ll always be mine. I bet you never even punched anyone before you hit me.”

I laughed instantly. He was so naive.

For the first time, he looked surprised—and then doubtful.

I tapped my foot a few times and then aimlessly wandered to the other side of the bathroom. There was a small window there, thin and high, letting in a wavering sliver of early-evening sunset that lit up a rectangle of light between Michael and me.

I looked out the window. From where I stood, I could see the school’s stone statue of an angel standing silhouetted against the sun, wings outstretched triumphantly and a peaceful smile on its androgynous face.

“Michael, what’s my name?” I asked quietly.

“Kit.”

“Wrong,” I breathed.

I turned to him.

And like every time before, I met his eyes and readied myself and something changed within me. Like a clock striking midnight. Something darker filled the air—something dangerous, something wild, something strong and beautiful. Like lust, or arrogance. I breathed it in, and I became someone new, someone I liked better than Kit, someone truly amazing.

“My name is Diana,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Michael said accusingly. “Your name is Kit, it’s not Diana.”

I shook my head. “It’s Diana now. You see . . . it’s tradition.”

Slowly, I began to walk toward him. Step by step, echoing over the tiles.

“I think you’ve got me wrong, Michael.”

Step. His eyes were angry, determined.

“You think I’m all bullshit and no action. You think I’m normal, when it really comes down to it.”

Step. He bit his tongue.

“That’s just a mask I wear.”

Step. He bit so hard that he drew blood.

“I hit you. I assumed you had seen it then. I suppose not.”

Step. His eyes wavered.

“You still don’t understand. Silly boy.”

I stopped in front of him and knelt again.

“You see,” I murmured, “I’m the Perfect Killer.”

He was at last afraid.

I smiled a terrible, exquisite smile, lifted one hand up toward my forehead like Scarlett O’Hara, made a fist, and swung it down toward his temple. I felt my knuckle crack against the artery—

And Michael fell to the floor like a broken plate, the blood vessel shattering, his eyes wide open and afraid. He hadn’t even had time to consider running.

He would harass Maggie no longer. He deserved death. That was my judgment. Nothing is right and nothing is wrong, but there are some things that need to be done. He would have had an unhappy life, had he lived. Tormented, plagued by insanity. His death was mercy, almost.

Almost.

“Was it worth it?” I whispered to the empty body.

A cloud passed over the sun, and the rectangle of light faded away into shadow.

I took off my gloves and checked his pulse—it was gone, of course. I wiped away my fingerprint with my sponge, hid it inside my bag again within a secret pocket, and began to search his body. In one of his pockets I found the note I had left him, the note that could incriminate me. I took that and flushed it down the nearest toilet. This murder had been a bloodless one, save for the blood that was now seeping out of Michael’s mouth because of the trauma to his skull and his bitten tongue. I was clean. There was no evidence to pin me to the death.

Another perfect murder.

I backed away a few steps, took off my gloves, and hid them carefully inside the waistband of my jeans. They were the most dangerous piece of evidence against me. They had to be hidden where no one would look.

I positioned myself by the door, took a deep breath, and screamed.

Chapter 12

A
lex cradled me in his arms, and I pretended to cry.

I had no actual tears to cry, but I had to put on a good show or else I would be immediately suspected. Though there was no physical evidence against me, all the circumstantial evidence pointed toward me. Though, of course, I was a teenage girl. People were much more likely to pin murders on tall men than on teenage girls.

This murder was not being treated as a Perfect Killer murder. Of course—there had been no letter. I could have figured that out myself, had I thought about it. But it still felt strange to have committed a murder that was not grouped with the rest.

It was a bit dangerous. My serial murders had gotten to a point where all but a few had given up even trying to solve them. This individual murder would be approached with more enthusiasm. I was sure I had left no trace of myself behind. But I was still unusually nervous.

There were other feelings stirring too, other than fear. But I didn’t allow myself to think about those, not yet. I had other things to deal with first.

Alex let me pretend to cry into his chest. I felt the movement of his breathing, the comfortable warmth of his hands; I clenched myself closer to him than he was holding me and realized that he smelled like peppermint. He whispered things into my ear that I couldn’t hear over the sound of my own wailing. The hallway was crawling with police officers, and he was the only one sitting still.

And here, in the hallway, despite the darkness of the situation, emotions began to float up in my chest again, accentuated and amplified by the physical closeness between Alex and me, and again I pushed them back. No, no, no, I told myself once more. There’s no use in that. Those feelings can’t lead to anything. I’m a murderer, and he’s hunting me. There’s no use at all.

And yet I felt my heartbeat quicken.

“Shh,” he whispered as he rocked me back and forth. “Shh, it’s all right, it’ll be all right.”

“It’s not all right. It’s not—he’s dead—I hit him, I hit him, but I never wanted this, no, never, oh God—” I moaned. “Oh God, he’s dead, he’s dead. . . .”

“Kit, it’s all right. Your mom is coming, she’ll be here soon, we’ll get you away, it’ll be okay,” he said. I cried louder, clenching his shirt desperately between my fingers.

“He’s dead,” I yowled, the sound momentarily filling the hallway, making everyone pause. The police officers were unsettled. I could feel it. Good. I was convincing.

“Shh,” Alex said forcefully, as kindly as he could. I let my screams slowly fade away into anguished sobs, shuddering. I closed my eyes. I sat there, very still, for a few minutes, occasionally crying, as if I were close to falling into restless sleep against him.

I barely knew him, but something about him made me feel safer, bit by bit, though paranoia and emotional turmoil still gripped me tight. I think it might have been his demeanor that helped me feel this growing safety—his chin-up, stubborn everything-must-be-just-fine attitude. I was grateful for it.

It was late. After I had screamed and the headmaster had found me, I had kept up this act for hours on end. It was nearly ten o’clock now. I actually was tired.

I tried to keep my mind blank. I tried so hard. But even as I struggled to keep myself from thinking, every time I lost a shred of concentration, the same question appeared in my mind, filling me up and making me feel cold.

Why had I done it?

Nothing was right, nothing was wrong, so why had I passed judgment on him? I wasn’t God. I wasn’t supposed to have my opinions. I was an assassin. I followed the will of others, not my own. I worked the way my mother had taught me, according to her rules. Our moral nihilism had kept us sane. And now I had broken that tradition, stepped into something dangerous and new.

I had judged for myself who was right and who was wrong.

At some point I realized I actually was crying. Slowly, quietly, tears falling down my face and soaking through Alex’s shirt. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he looked uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to do with me.

That made two of us.

Eight o’clock, nine o’clock, ten—my mom hadn’t come. She wouldn’t come until the last possible hour. Someone would have called her, of course—but she would have come up with a clever excuse as to why she couldn’t come immediately. She was a coward. She would have realized, of course, that the murder was mine. And she would have realized as well that I had taken a risk. And she would be afraid to associate herself with me, though she had no choice.

I fell asleep as the police officers worked and Alex held me and the metallic scent of blood spread insidiously through the air.

Some time later Alex shook me awake. I opened my eyes regretfully and yawned. I felt spent. It was midnight, according to a clock across the hall. Absently, I looked at Alex and studied the flecks of blue in his eyes.

“Wake up,” he said gently. “I’m sorry . . . someone wants to ask you questions.”

Wordlessly, I looked sleepy-eyed in the direction he was looking. I found myself looking at a long pair of legs. I traced my gaze upward over the legs, then over the torso, then to the head. It was a tall woman with black hair tied strictly back into a bun like a ballet dancer, wearing the uniform of an officer more highly ranked than Alex. She held a notepad and a recorder in steady hands. She looked apologetic.

“Your name is Kit Ward, isn’t it?” the woman asked. Wearily, I nodded.

“I’m very sorry,” she said awkwardly. “I know this is very hard for you, but I need to ask you some questions, all right?”

After a moment of pretend hesitation, I nodded.

I put one hand on Alex’s left shoulder and pushed off it, using it for support as I stood. He grabbed my other arm, pushing it upward, as if that would help me. He looked worried. As he let go, the feeling of his touch lingered on my skin.

I stepped to the side of Alex and leaned against the plate-glass window next to him. I crossed my arms, trying to look small and scared, and glanced tiredly at the policewoman.

She looked at me pityingly and cleared her throat. She clicked the record button on her recorder and flipped open her notepad.

“When did you discover the body?”

“Ah . . . around six, I think. It was getting dark . . . ,” I murmured. She scrawled quickly.

“Why were you at school so late?”

“I had a project. I was in the library . . . just down the hall . . . oh God.” My eyes went wide and I pretended to be traumatized, remembering the body. I clenched my fists tightly against my thighs.

“I’m sorry. I have to ask these questions,” the woman said.

“Yeah . . . no . . . I know.” I wiped away imaginary tears.

“Were there any other people around?”

“Well . . . Michael . . . and the murderer . . . I suppose,” I whispered dully.

“No, I mean, did you see anyone around? Were you in the library alone?”

“Yes, I was.”

“The teachers were gone already?”

“Most everyone leaves by about four . . . but the school is unlocked and everything until nine.”

“So you didn’t see anyone around?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“How did you discover the body?”

“I just . . . went to the bathroom, and he was there, on the floor.” I shuddered.

“Did you hear anything unusual?”

“Unusual?”

“Footsteps, or closing doors.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You had an altercation with this boy last week, didn’t you?”

I tensed, looking horrified.

“Yes, but I didn’t do it, I swear I didn’t, everyone is going to think that, but I swear I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t . . . ,” I wailed insistently, and leaned more heavily against the window, quivering timidly. I even managed to make myself cry some more, tears leaking out of my eyes slowly.

Alex brushed his fingertips comfortingly across my forearm.

“It’s all right, Kit,” he murmured. “We know you didn’t do it. It’s okay.”

“What do you know about Michael? Did he have enemies besides you?”

I nodded quickly. Too quickly, perhaps.

“He had lots of enemies,” I said.

“All right. Can you give me a list?”

“You can put the entire student body on that list, and most of the teachers,” I said sarcastically, bitterly. “He was good at making people dislike him. But something like this—who could do this?”

“Hmm,” the policewoman said, and wrote something down.

“It’s perfect,” Alex murmured. “The murder is perfect. No evidence, and there’s a perfect scapegoat. There’s only one murderer who does things this . . .
perfectly
.”

“There’s no letter,” the policewoman reminded him.

“But what if the murderer decided to kill this boy on his own? What if he had a personal grudge he wanted to settle?” Alex protested.

I couldn’t decide if this was good or bad. It was good, because the police got discouraged whenever they started working with Perfect Killer cases. And it was bad because calling this a Perfect Killer case would link the Perfect Killer entity personally to Michael, narrowing the list of suspects to include me.

“Serial killers like the Perfect Killer have a consistent modus operandi, at least in terms of the letters. The Perfect Killer would leave a letter. This isn’t your problem. This isn’t your murder to worry about,” the policewoman said with a sigh.

“Are you sure?” he asked uneasily. She didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure.

I sobbed into my hand to break the silence.

“Anyway—” the policewoman started.

“Kit!” I heard my mom yelp. I turned slowly to see her at the end of the hallway running toward me, pushing her way between police officers, barreling in my direction until she reached me, stumbled over Alex, and threw her arms dramatically around my neck.

“Oh my God, Kit, darling, are you all right? I was stuck in Brussels—I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner!”

She wasn’t any happier to see me than I was to see her. But we put on a good show. I wrapped my arms around her back and wailed into her shoulder. She looked around at Alex, nodding thankfully to him with little tears at the edges of her eyes—she had eye drops—and then looked at the policewoman.

“I’m Vienna Ward, Kit’s mother. Can this wait?” she asked pleadingly. “Kit’s tired, mentally exhausted, everything. She needs to go home and get some rest. She can’t handle this right now.”

“Yes, she can go home, Mrs. Ward,” the policewoman said after a moment’s hesitation, closing her notepad. “We’ll contact her later if we have any more questions.”

“Thank you.” She nodded to the policewoman, then to Alex, and began to lead me down the hallway. This time the police officers scattered as she came through, and she didn’t have to weave between them. She took my hand as we began to walk down the stairs.

She took it in a death grip, digging her nails into my palm, making me wince. My eyes teared up from the pain. I let myself cry—this was an appropriate time for it. Her face looked benign and distraught, but through her grip I could feel the fury and the danger inside her. Sometimes I forgot that she, too, was a killer. It was a rather foolish thing to do.

When we reached the second floor, Dr. Marcell was there, standing with a group of other teachers across the hallway.

All of them turned toward us quietly, some with morbid interest, others with pity—

Dr. Marcell looked with suspicion.

It wasn’t even the mere spark of suspicion that she had looked at me with before. It was a full-fledged thought in her mind. I could see easily what she was thinking.

Did she do it?

Yes, I did.

Suspicion and doubt burned in her eyes like wildfire, raging and destructive, with not a shred of pity. She looked over me from head to toe as my mom and I turned to walk down the next flight of stairs.

I wondered if she had noticed that my eyes were barely red, that I had barely been crying.