Page 38 of Serial Killer Games

She doesn’t talk to me during the drive. She doesn’t talk to me while I park. She doesn’t talk to me during check-in. I almost touch her elbow when we pass the escalator that would lead to arrivals. I could take her down, show her the chair I left Katrin in. It would break the spell, and she’d turn to me with a smile like I’d delivered another dirty joke.

She makes a point of taking the security lane farthest from me, and I watch from one aisle over as she twitches and chews her thumb while her bag passes through the scanner. A TSA agent curls his finger at her and unzips her bag with gloved hands.

“What do you mean, what is it? What does it look like to you?” she snaps. And surprisingly, the agent raises his hands and backs off. She zips her bag furiously and stomps her feet into her sneakers. She scowls when she sees me watching.

She’s a closed fist wrapped around who knows what, and she’s always been a puzzle to pry apart, one finger at a time. But it occurs to me, slowly, uncomfortably, that maybe she didn’t want to go to Las Vegaswith me. She wanted to go badly enough to tolerate me tagging along.

I leave her and find a seat by the gate. I have two more missed calls from Andrew. I delete the voicemails without listening to them.

I lose track of her until boarding, and she’s already seated at the window when I get to our row, eyes riveted on the tarmac. Her bag has been forced into the too-small under-seat stowage in front of her, like she can’t bear to part with it. Istow my own carry-on above and snap the overhead storage shut. When she hears the click, she startles and looks at me.

I’ve had time to regroup. I’m the facilitator of work vacations, bearer of mutilated dolls. I bring value to our working partnership.

“What did you do with the last Christmas gift?” I ask when I slide in next to her.

“She needed to cool her head.”

“Next to the ice cream?”

“Next to the other decapitated head.”

“Did you—”

“Are you going to talk to me for this entire flight?”

Closed fist. She puts in her earbuds and fixes her attention on the window, and there her attention stays as we take off, ascend, and glide through the gathering evening. The sky turns liquid blue outside, then inky, and the lights of the cabin shut off, and a handful of individual reading lights flick on one by one. Our row stays in darkness. And then I realize Dodi is asleep.

I watch her profile. I watch her face when her head lolls toward me. And then I watch our blurry reflection in the seat screen in front of us, when she slumps over and smooshes her face into my shoulder. I stay still as a statue. I can smell her hair, and hear the tinny rattle of a podcast playing in her earbuds. I wonder if this counts as Dodi letting her guard down.

The plane banks lazily just after midnight and I glimpse the sprawling sparkle of Las Vegas through Dodi’s window. We circle round and round. And we keep circling. Round and round and round…And then a voice rasps over the speaker.

“There are some issues on the ground at LAS. We’re waiting for instructions and we appreciate everyone’s patience.”

Minor murmuring gives way to gasps and groans as everyone consults their phone.

“Bomb threat!”

“We’re not going to be able to land. Can we call—”

“The whole airport has been evacuated—”

We circle for another fifteen minutes, and then the voice returns.

“We’re being directed to land at—”

Howls erupt, and Dodi twitches.

“That’s a three-hour drive from Las Vegas. Are youkiddingme,” someone behind me huffs.

When the lights come on as the plane begins its descent, Dodi asks, groggily, “Are we there?”

“No. We’re doing an emergency landing at a different airport. We’re three hours away.”

She stares at me. She pinches sleep out of the corners of her eyes. She looks around the airplane.

“Is this some Podunk little airport in East Jesus Nowhere? Because everyone here is going to need a rental car.”

I realize she’s right. Her face hardens.

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