Page 69 of Serial Killer Games

I put the bowl in the dishwasher when I’m done, and because I’m doing that, I load all the dirty dishes from the sink too, and press start. The bottom of the sink is full of soggy cereal, so I clean it out into the trash, which is overflowing, so I tie that up and set it by the door, where there’s a pile of shoes. Once those are organized, I start picking up Barbies, but then I stop myself. There’s something very deliberate about the way they’ve been laid out. On the kitchen counter is an empty granola bar box, which looks like it was torn open from the side by a dog. I collapse it and stuff it in the recycling. I take care of the empty milk carton too, and a knife with peanut butter on it.

They’re a pair of pigs.

The morning melts by, shrouded in the fine mist of spray cleaner, prismatic in the bright sunlight. A second bag of trash joins the first. After the first hour, the fridge sparkles, the counters gleam, the dishwasher hums. After the second, thefloors shine and the dead bugs in the light fixtures have been liberated directly into the trash. The washing machine burbles as it sloshes around Dodi’s dirty laundry from our Las Vegas trip last week—which was left packed in her carry-on in the middle of the bedroom floor, because of course it was. I’m reconstructing the Jonestown Massacre–style arrangement of Barbies as per the photo on my phone after having vacuumed the carpet, when the landline rings. I pick it up without thinking.

“You’re still there,” Dodi says. I look at the clock and realize it’s past noon. I was supposed to leave. I consider hanging up without saying anything, but there’s relief in her voice when she says, “I have a problem.”

“What do you need me to do?”

There’s a pause, like maybe she hadn’t anticipated me offering to help so readily.

“My neighbor two doors down is supposed to pick up Cat from school, but her car’s broken down again—”

“Where and when?”

Again, the surprised pause at the other end of the line. Then she clears her throat, and her voice is crisp and cool.

“Our Lady of Sorrows. There’s a pickup lane. You have to be there by two thirty. I’ll call her to let her know.”

“What does she look like?”

But there’s another voice in the background—several voices—arguing, it sounds like—and then Dodi’s voice, far away, like she dropped her phone into her pocket—

And the call disconnects.

—

I find the car whereI left it under the overpass, now engraved with a giant dick on the trunk andEAT The RiCHon the side.

Our Lady of Sorrows is a dour little building with a playground outside and a bruised, gnarly Christ on a cross at the entrance. I went to a school like this, of course, courtesy of Andrew. An awful little school, where the teachers knew who my uncle was and playground bullies ran rampant. A stress headache creeps up the back of my head just thinking about it. I scan the pickup area as I pull in. The school is like an anthill, the children pouring out, milling in every direction. It’s a disaster. Shrieks, horns honking, and every single child wearing the same uniform. I roll along at a crawl looking at the face of every little girl. And then I see a splash of Dodi red.

It’s her, because of course it’s her: a sullen little girl in a crimson peacoat who looks like she should be off haunting an abandoned sanatorium. The reason there were no photos of her at the apartment is probably because she doesn’t photograph. Long, pin-straight dark hair held back with a ribbon headband, she stands with her hands clasped in front of her, her back perfectly straight, staring at something unseen in the distance. Whereas all the other girls her age are wild and bedraggled after a day of play, her tidy hair and neat clothes make it look like she was kept safe pressed between the leaves of a dusty old book. A grimoire.

I come to a halt in front of her and lower the window. “Cat!”

She jerks when she notices me. Her face is a perfect oval, her eyes skeptical and dark like Dodi’s. She takes a few curious steps closer to the car.

“Get in.”

She frowns at me, thinking, and then—“Ow!”

A grubby little blond girl slugs her in the shoulder as she runs past on her way to the car behind me. “Meow!” the blond girl shouts as she goes. I swivel to look, expecting the man atthe wheel to do something about it, but he doesn’t. Of course not. He’s probably a bully just like his daughter.

“Why?” Cat asks me, rubbing her shoulder.

It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be resistance or that Cat would do anything other than hop in the car and sit silently with her hands in her lap as I ferried her home. I probably haven’t spoken to a six-year-old since I was one myself.

“Your mom asked me to get you,” I say, reassuring smile engaged full force.

She doesn’t buy it. “That’s what perverts say. Mommy told me.”

The car behind me blasts its horn, and I lunge across the car and open the door.

“Get in the car.”

“Nope.”

The horn blasts again, a sustained wail setting my teeth on edge.

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