Page 110 of Serial Killer Games

I imagine her showing up at Grant’s penthouse. I’m going to leave the door unlocked and the sex doll right there on the couch for when she walks in.

There’s a pause and then, “All right,” and the call ends abruptly.

Immediately my phone vibrates again:ANDREW.I throw it out the window.

—

At Grant’s building, I fishtailinto a reserved parking spot in the basement and leave the Dickmobile straddling a white line. The elevator is waiting, and I go up and let myself in, holding my breath—

Grant is gone. The deed is there on the counter with a pair of key fobs. I shove it all in my pockets. In my room, I get the box of papers from under my bed. I reach for the coat hangers with my shirts and slacks, and I stop. I don’t need any of that shit. I take my box and go. I have to get out of here before Cynthia shows up. But as I pass through the living room, I finally notice her.

Long black hair, dark eyes, tan skin. At some point they started making them with tattoos.

Sometimes it’s necessary to compartmentalize, because I’m not fucking thinking about this right now.

At least he never treated an actual woman like an object, never tried to control or possess a real one. Unlike some men. Dangerous men. Men who shouldn’t be anywhere near a real woman, because that’s when theyreallyget nasty—when the women refuse to be possessed. When they try to leave.

My guts fold in on themselves.

Through the window I can see the bridge and the commuter highway beyond, bumper to bumper with traffic. Somewhere beyond that are Dodi, Cat, Princess, and Laura. Kind, gentle Laura. Has she already called Andrew? Why didn’t I tell her to coordinate a plan with me? Because Andrew’s out there somewhere too, stewing, furious to be coming home after ruining Christmas to discover he didn’t ruin anyone’s Christmas after all. To discover his wife left with a suitcase, humiliatinghim. Did Laura turn off her data again after texting Dodi? Is he looking up her location right now? I pat for my phone to call Laura, but I don’t have it.

I need to get to them, now.

49

On the Roof

Dodi

I peer over the lowwall and there it is, the call of the void, that intrusive impulse gusting up the side of the building like a breeze. The unsummoned visual of my own body on the ground below winks in and out. Thrilling and terrible. It wouldn’t hurt one bit. Nothing hurts right now, although I know from experience all that means is that it will really hurt later. The longer the lag between injury and sensation, the worse the hurt. And yet, it’s better this way. I’m grateful to Jake for that. Mighty high-handed of a man to tell a grown woman how she gets to break her heart, but he’s seen how reckless I can be. I’ve always needed him to cut me off. This is no different than that night in Las Vegas.

My body on the ground below morphs into a man in business attire. A woman screams on a balcony between us, and the lights of Vegas twinkle and glare…

“This rooftop is Paper Pusher bait,” Laura says next to me with her elbows resting on the dangerously low parapet, and Ireturn with a start to my apartment building’s rooftop dog park.

“It’s just an urban legend,” I say without thinking.

She shakes her head. “Did Jake not tell you I tidied up four of her victims? All came to me from the coroner’s office, and they’re notsupposedto say anything…” There’s a flicker of mischief on her face. “But it’s what theydon’tsay, if that makes sense.”

“Her?” I ask.

“Didn’t you watch the documentary? It’s obviously a woman. Sometimes I wonder…You hear stories about falls in other cities, and I think to myself, ‘Is she on vacation?’ ” Laura laughs. “One time I even called up a funeral home in another city to dig.”

She’s into this shit, too. I suppose she would be. Maybe Jake turned her onto it. Or maybe she got him started.

I stare at the parking lot asphalt below. The idea of the Paper Pusher on a working vacation is delicious. That fall victim in Las Vegas didn’t necessarily fall off that balcony. Why did I assume that? Perhaps that woman witnessed the fall as he fell from the roof—

“I’m going to call her Tinkerbell,” Cat announces, and I’m back on the rooftop of my apartment building again. She’s standing in front of me, eyes sparkling, cheeks flushed. She looks like a normal child for once.

“But the dog’s a boy,” I say weakly. “See?” I point to his back end, where it’s clear as day the thing was never neutered.

“Girls can have balls,” Cat says matter-of-factly, conflating actual balls and metaphoric ones. I flinch and look at Laura. She seems like the sort of soft, sweet older woman to care about language, but there’s no disapproving side-eye.

“Girls can have anything boys can have,” Laura agrees.

Cat peels off and Laura smiles after her like she wishes she could jot down this Cat one-liner.

Something in the way Laura looks at Cat makes my chest ache. I push myself off the wall. I have to get back to the apartment to submit that assignment.

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