Page 10 of Wicching Hour

He admits, if only to himself, he’d been scared. He wasn’t sure if he’d go through with it. Now that he’s here, though, he can’t wait. He hadn’t anticipated the excitement.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he makes his way to the second floor. Lots of doors, and all of them closed. The tile floors continue up here, but he has rubber-soled shoes and so moves silently from door to door, straining to hear signs of life. He has time. He doesn’t need to hurry, and it wouldn’t do to pass a door that wasn’t checked, only to have her come out behind him. No. He’ll do his sweep in a systematic fashion.

Feeling a charge of adrenaline every time he puts his head to a door, every time he gets closer to his target, he realizes he’s getting hard. A secret smile plays over his lips. He knows what’s going to happen, but she doesn’t. He has all the power now.

At the last door, he hears slow, even breathing and he feels a clutch in his gut. This is it.

The door swings open noiselessly. Of course. These fancy places would never stand for a squeak. She wouldn’t understand real problems. The rest of us have to struggle. Rich bitch like this is probably getting payoffs right, left, and center. Crooked. She doesn’t deserve any of this and she has no right to tell hard-working people what to do.

He moves to the foot of the bed and watches her sleep. She doesn’t even know. He has all the power now. Watching, he lets his breathing match hers. They’re in sync now. He steps to the side of the bed, heart racing. He wishes he could make it last for hours but wants it done now.

Ready to burst, he grabs her, yanking her toward him. She wakes, confused but alert. When she sees the dark silhouette looming over her, her eyes widen. Before she can scream, his hands are around her neck. She fights, trying to break his grip on her, but that only excites him more.

She’s nothing, a washed-up old bitch who isn’t even safe in her own house. He has the power now. She looks like a fish on dry land, mouth open, trying to suck up air. Her body convulses and he feels a force race through him. Life and death are in his hands.

He knows when she dies. He spasms too. On a long, guttural moan, he drops her back onto the bed. She’s nothing now. He’s erased her.

And he smiles.

Throat throbbing, feeling sick, my gaze went straight to the family portrait I’d studied earlier. They’d been such a beautiful family. They were happy. You could see it in the ease and familiarity. No tense shoulders or angry eyes at odds with a bright smile. They’d loved one another. Those poor children—adults now—had lost both their parents in the span of one year. It was tragic.

I put my glove back on and walked through the house and out the front door. I wanted air and seawater to deal with the pain.

A few moments later, Detective Hernández stepped out and found me sitting on the stairs. “Hey. I thought I heard the front door open.”

Nodding, I stared at the bright fuchsia bougainvillea crawling up the side of the garage. “I needed out.”

She locked the door and then sat beside me. “Did you see anything?”

“Yeah.” And I told her the ugliness that had happened in that beautiful house.

“I checked on the alarm,” Hernández said. “Her kids told me she sometimes forgets to arm it. They said she got into the habit of waiting until everyone was home before arming it because the son’s dyslexic and was always putting the code in wrong and setting it off. Now, even though she’s alone here, she still waits to arm it until she goes to bed. Unless she forgets.”

She pulled her notebook out of her pocket but didn’t need to look at it. “The security company confirmed that it wasn’t set every night. Maybe once or twice a month, it was left unarmed.”

She stood and gestured to her car. “I should get you back now. Maybe tomorrow you can see the second victim’s place.”

I sighed and nodded, following her. “Yeah, I can do that.”

When she turned on the ignition, she said, “So it wasn’t random? He wanted to kill her specifically?”

“Not random,” I confirmed, kind of wishing I hadn’t eaten that muffin earlier. I studied my gloves, black today and so like his, it made my stomach twist anew. “He wore black gloves and rubber-soled shoes that were quiet on the tile. He didn’t touch anything other than two doorknobs and the victim herself. He listened at doors along the hall, but he didn’t press his ear to the door. It was more like holding his ear close to the doorjamb, listening for her breathing.

“He knew, though,” I continued. “He knew which door she’d be behind, knew the master suite would be at the end of the hall, but all the skulking and invading her space was getting him excited.”

She stopped at a red light and turned to me. “Excited? As in, excited?”

“Yep. Hard as a rock and feeling quite powerful.”

The light changed and there was a quick honk behind us. Hernández hit the gas. “The medical examiner determined no sexual assault. You’re saying there was?”

“No.” I thought about how to explain it. “It was more that the power of being in control, of having her at his mercy, got him stirred up. I didn’t pick up any thought to rape her. Strangling her, though, her death throes sent him over the edge. He came in his pants and groaned like it was the greatest sex he’d ever had in his life.”

Hernández pulled over to write in her notebook. “The other victim is male. I believe it’s the same killer. The manner of death is the same, but again, the victims have absolutely nothing in common, so I could be wrong. That’s why I want to bring you there. You can tell me if I’m on the right track or if it was his landlord, pissed that he’d missed rent again.

“If it’s the act of killing that excites him,” she continued, “that might be why he switched victim genders. Killers—serial killers, anyway—usually stick to one gender, often one race, for their preferred victim.”

We were quiet most of the drive back to the gallery, each lost in our own thoughts. I kept circling around an idea, though. “I think he knew her and that she’d done something to make him feel small and powerless. Having power over her was very important.”

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