Page 31 of Serial Killer Games

I would never have pictured this, but I don’t know what I would have imagined for her. I look at her, and her eyes gleam in the dim light of the interior of the car. She’s cradling the last Christmas package in her arms: the head.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time. It’s been a real slice.” She makes a slicing motion across her throat. “Sleep tight in that cold, hospital-cornered bed of yours. Is it meant to remind you of the comforts of the asylum for the criminally insane?”

“Yes. And what about you? Are you a coffin sleeper or do you hang by your toes from the rod in the closet?”

She shakes her head. “I usually just spin a web in the corner.”

Her hair is still pulled up in a knot on top of her head, and I can admire the shape of her skull, the slenderness of her neck. She bends to slip her stolen shoes back on, and from the side, I can make out the vertebrae of her spine tenting the soft skin where her neck meets her shoulders. Her little ulnar bones, her delicate hands, her carefully articulated ankles, the expressive arch of her foot. Her skeleton would be very beautiful.

And because she reads minds, she says, “You’re looking at me like you’re imagining picking the meat from my bones.”

And so of course I drift in, and I don’t think I imagine her drawing nearer too—

“I’m glad you asked for help tonight,” she says, and I can almost feel her breath on my face. “It isn’t easy for those of us in this line of work. It’s just about impossible to stay in the business long enough these days to reach serial status, what with video surveillance, cell phone towers, DNA databases…”

“Just one more job being destroyed by technology.”

She smiles at me, an actual smile.

“Ifyouever need help disposing of a body…” I tell her. Her smile fades away, and she considers me very seriously, but she doesn’t seem unhappy with me.

“Good night, Dolores.”

“Dodi,” she whispers.

“What?”

She holds my eyes and hesitates for a moment. “It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.”

“Dodi.”

She tilts her head, like she’s weighing how it sounds in her ear, and her eyes flick down to my lips. But there’s a small knot of something in my chest, ever since she psychoanalyzed Grant.

“What did you think of Grant?”

Dolores sighs indulgently. “He’s definitely not a serial killer.” The way she looks at me says,He’s not part of our little club, is he?

“You seemed to like him.”

Dodi lifts a brow, amused. “He’s not weird enough for me.” She glances at my mouth again, and now her fingertips find the side of my face. I tingle where she touches me.

“You know, I’ve been waiting all night for you to come in for the kill,” she whispers. “But I know why you haven’t.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have a clue how to finish me off, or what to do with my body.”

She’s so pleased with her little joke.

“I know exactly what to do with it,” I say. “I have a very particular MO of my own.”

I absolutely do not.

“Come up and show me?”

“I’m allergic to cats.”

Her lips quirk. “My neighbor is borrowing her. Doesn’t have one of her own. And it’s not like I can leave her alone when I go out. She’ll climb the curtains. Leave hairballs in my shoes. It’s a whole thing. Come up, Jake.”

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