Page 69 of Random in Death

“And is this Big Bitch Brenda real, or just a dream person?”

“Oh, she was real. Back at school. She bloodied me a few times. Me and whoever else she decided needed bloodying. She had a low threshold there,” Eve remembered. “So hardly a day went by without somebody getting bashed.”

“Ah.” Leaning in, he kissed her jaw again. “And what did you do about that?”

“Nothing for the better part of a year, hoping she’d get tired of it. She didn’t. So I spent a few weeks studying boxing vids, practicing, trying some martial arts. The next time she went at me, I kicked her ass. Mostly, I think, because it threw her off I fought back. But she tried again later, and since I kept practicing, I kicked her ass again. She didn’t have any form. Just force.

“After that? She left me alone.”

“And where is Big Bitch Brenda now? You know.”

“Doing fifteen—her second round inside. Felony assault. Anyway, since I’m awake, I should get moving.”

“I’ll get your coffee, as I want some myself.”

“Hold mine till I shower.”

He turned to stare at her. “Did you say hold the coffee? Did the dream punch from Big Bitch Brenda knock something loose?”

“The dream punch woke me up. Bang. So yeah, hold that.”

She rolled out, jumped in the shower. Maybe she was running more on adrenaline than sleep, but she was running.

When she came out, he not only had coffee but breakfast under warming domes.

“You don’t have another meeting?”

“I do, and it’s breakfast with my wife. Pancakes, because whoever topples Big Bitch Brenda deserves them.”

“I’m in.” She plopped down beside him, and when he removed the warming domes, drowned her pancakes in butter and syrup.

“Is that all you dreamed?”

“No. The girls, both of them.”

She ran it through for him while she ate, and since it was right there, hit the bacon.

And he kissed her cheek, so damn sweetly.

“Okay, yeah, it tossed me back. They had it right. I wasn’t a normie. No club for me back then. He’s not in one, either.”

“Bullied, you think?”

“Maybe, and probably, but not by those two.”

No, she thought, she’d have gotten the sense of that if they had been.

“They’re not the type. Ignore, shrug off, not see, maybe snicker at. Yeah, that might play. But they weren’t bullies. And they didn’t know him. I’m coming down on the pretty damn sure he didn’t know them.”

“Back to the type then?”

“Possibly a popular, pretty girl bullied him, or ignored him, or broke what he thinks of as his heart. But he’s wrong, he’s wired wrong, Roarke. Not just that he kills, but how he does it.”

“You’re thinking again.”

“Like I said, the punch woke me up. So here’s to Big Bitch Brenda.” She lifted her coffee in toast. “He needs the venue—one that offers easy escape. He needs the crowd to blend into, and a selection of targets to choose from.”

She polished off the pancakes. “At least that’s my current morning thinking.”

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