Page 12 of Serial Killer Games

Dolores is silent for a split second. “Yes?”

“Adismembereddoll?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a hostile gesture. Your colleague left a dismembered Barbie doll in your office.”

“It was a Ken doll.”

“Are you interested in putting anything on record?”

A longer pause.

“No, thank you.”

“I’ve already made some notes in your file.”

Dolores’s voice changes subtly. “That wasn’t necessary.”

“Which caused me to notice, it’s been well over a year since you’ve had a performance review.”

“It’s all right.”

“It isn’t. I’m not familiar with your department. What is your chain of command?”

“I really am busy right now,” Dolores says, walking the fine line between pleasant and crisp. “Perhaps we can schedule something—”

It’s exactly as I suspected. Dolores has reasons to be terrified of drawing the attention of HR.

“I apologize,” Cynthia says, not sounding apologetic, “but I will be leaving for a conference soon, and it will take as long to arrange a meeting as it will to sort this out now. I’ve taken a special interest in you, Dolores.”

And for some inscrutable reason, the apex predator’s dark eyes dart toward me, the little rodent, for help. Before I know it, my arm is raised and I’m knocking two sharp raps on Dolores’s door. I open the door without waiting.

Smile number five: roguishly apologetic and definitely not lying.

“I’m afraid Dolores is needed upstairs for a top-floor meeting,” I say. “Now.”

Dolores stares at me for a beat, then locks her laptop in a drawer and pushes past me without a backward glance.

“They can’t tie their shoelaces on their own,” she huffs as she passes.

“They really can’t. Sorry, Cynthia,” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. I wonder what she caught me doing at that previous temp job.

In the elevator Dolores swivels to face me.

“Why did you do that?” she asks.

“Because I was bored.”

She nods knowingly. “Boredom’s a chronic problem for sociopaths. Where are we going?”

I hadn’t thought that far.

Dolores cocks her head and prowls, catlike, to the buttons. She runs her fingertips deliberately from top to bottom, circles the B, then looks over her shoulder at me. She presses 50, the top floor.

“I have a top-floor meeting,” she explains.

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