Page 48 of A Talent for Murder

“Oh right. Yes, of course you did. You told her what to say and then you showed up that night at the bar and took her home with you. You remember all that, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“What did you think I was doing to your friend?”

“I knew what you were doing. You were manipulating her, talking her into sex games she didn’t want to play, hurting her. I don’t know what you had planned for after that.”

“She liked it, you know.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you told yourself.”

Ethan laughed, not performatively but in a genuine way. His laugh had an almost imperceptible snort at the end. “No, you’re right. She didn’t like it, exactly, but she would have gone farther if I’d gotten the chance. And you took that away from me. You took her away from me.”

“I’m confused, Ethan,” I said. “She meant so much to you that you waited fifteen years and then concocted an elaborate plan to make it look like her husband was a serial killer, all to do what... to get revenge?”

Ethan appeared to be thinking, his lips pressed hard together, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake by using his name. Finally, he said, “Do you want to know how many people I’ve killed in my life?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Twenty-six,” he said.

“That’s a lot.”

“Yes and no. I mean, twenty-six people probably just died in the last hour by falling down the stairs. But, yes, I’ve committed twenty-six separate murders and I got away with every one of them. I do think that’s impressive.”

“So, it’s kind of like a sport for you. A game.”

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward a little. “That’s it. That’s why I do it. Do you have any idea how boring regular life is for someone like me? Actually, I think you might know. But when they write books about me, and they will, I’m sure they’ll try to find something in my childhood, something that went wrong, but nothing in my childhood made me this way. I was just bored, and I found out how easy it was to play with people, to wreck lives, and eventually I figured out how easy it was to murder people.”

“Who was the first person you killed?”

He leaned back a little and I thought he looked uncomfortable for the first time, as though he didn’t want to tell me. Then he said, “I killed my grandfather. He was sick already, nearly dead, and I suffocated him. I was eleven years old.”

“Maybe you did him a favor,” I said.

“I definitely did him a favor. And I did myself a favor, because I got my own room back. He was living with us and he was in my bedroom. So, my grandfather... he’s the first on my list.”

“Have you actually kept a list, besides in your head?”

“I have, every name and place and date. I’ve hidden it in a place that will be found after I’m dead, and that’s when they’ll realize.”

“You’ll be like the Emily Dickinson of serial killers.”

He laughed, the genuine laugh, again. “I like you, Lily. I didn’t like you at all back when we first met, but now is different.”

“Because now you’ve got me chained in a basement.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

We were both quiet for a moment and I could hear and feel my empty stomach. “I’m hungry, Ethan,” I said.

“When I come back, I’ll bring some food,” he said. “That’s what you want to hear, right? That I’m not going to kill you right away. That I’m going to leave you down here and you’ll have a chance to get out.”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“I do need to go soon. For one, I need a change of clothes and to check in with my other life. You understand?”

“I wondered about that. I couldn’t find you anywhere and figured that you were going under a different name now.”

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