Page 74 of Serial Killer Games

“Get out of here. Go poke safety pins in your Barbies’ eyes or something.”

She looks delighted at this suggestion and scampers off without saying another word. In the silent aftermath, it’s a minute before I realize my shoulders have been hovering under my ears since driving into the school pickup zone. My muscles relax slowly. I let out a breath and lean against the counter. This is Dodi’s evening, day after day. Relentless. I look at the clock. It’s not even four.

Plenty of time to cook a proper meal, at least. Dodi has a big Dutch oven, which I set on the stovetop. Her chef’s knife is dull, so I sharpen it, and then all the others too, while I have the sharpener out. Everything in this apartment is completely dysfunctional.

I’m not a good enough cook to attempt something complex in a strange kitchen, so I keep it simple. I fry a few slices of thick-cut bacon while I slice the shallots with mechanical precision. When done with that, I fish out the bacon, and into thesimmering grease go the shallots and the crushed garlic. When they have become translucent and the kitchen is fragrant, I add the rabbit pieces and sauté until golden. In go the porcini mushrooms and parsnips and carrots, a sprinkle of flour, and a little more browning, and then the broth and red wine. I pour and swirl, then add the sprig of thyme and fresh chopped parsley and bay leaves and, on impulse, a dusting of nutmeg…I bring it to a simmer, and on goes the lid, and then it’s time for the braised artichokes.

I trim and pare the hearts and stalks, and rub with lemon, and then the artichokes and carrots go into a pot just big enough for them, with the garlic. Rinse, pat dry, and then back in the pot with thyme and a single bay leaf. Wine, water, salt and pepper…

And then I rifle through the cabinets, panicked, as it occurs to me too late that someone as apparently undomestic as Dodi might not have baking essentials. I do find it, though: a single package of yeast on the verge of expiry. I mix the dough, knead it, let it rise, punch it down, divide, let it rise again on the pan, and then into the oven.

The hours go by, and then it’s just the mess to clean up. I swipe the vegetable trimmings into the compost, wipe down the counters, scour the cutting boards, and pluck the bloody meat packaging out of the sink where I left it. As I turn to place it in the trash, Cat materializes triumphantly brandishing an eyeless Barbie, and I trip over her. She shrieks indignantly, the packaging goes flying out of my hands, bunny juice splatters across the kitchen, and the front door bangs open all at once.

“What—?” Dodi shouts. She stomps into the kitchen, a big paper bag of groceries clutched to her chest, and stops in her tracks at the sight of us. Her hair stuck to her damp forehead,eyeliner wing on one side smudged, clothes rumpled, the bottom of the paper bag apparently giving out, her hand cupping a soup can as it tries to slip through a tear—this is Dodi at the end of a long day, home for the second shift, fighting for her life.

She pans slowly around the kitchen. She takes in Cat with her mutilated Barbie, the knives laid out in a row on the counter, the blood spattered across the cabinets, and me, wearing her absurd, flowery apron.

I’m so relieved to see her.

33

Bunny Boiler

Dodi

“You’re home,” he says witha big psycho smile.

I drop my disintegrating paper bag of groceries on the bar top with a thud, and the contents spill dramatically across the counter.

“What’s goingonhere? Where’s my neighbor? And why do I have five missed calls from Cat’s school?”

They came in one after another while I was trapped with Cynthia. The school was closed by the time I returned them.

Jake’s smile closes up on itself and Cat takes a half step behind him.

“What are you still doing here?” I ask.

“You needed me to pick up Cat,” he says slowly and carefully.

“I needed you to drive myneighborto pick up Cat. I told her to expect you.”

We stare at each other for a beat. I feel sick. The calls from the school, the cryptic text from my neighbor:Your man friendcoming through.I scrabble with my phone now to confirm. Yes. That’s what she said.

But I missed the follow-up text a moment later:?

And I made a pit stop at the grocery store instead of coming straight home to make sure Cat was okay. I stare at her now, assessing for trauma from the experience of school pickup by a strange man. She darts from the kitchen like she thinks she’s in trouble.

This is all Jake’s fault.

“Why are you wearing my apron?” I snap.

“I’m cooking dinner.”

He absolutely is not.

“I had something planned,” I say.

He glances at the Kraft Dinner sprawled out incriminatingly on the counter and raises one eyebrow. The snob. He has no idea what it’s like trying to cook for a six-year-old who only eats beige.

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