Page 90 of Serial Killer Games

Satan. Santa. She’s just starting to read.

“That’s mall Santa.”

“No. Satan’s all red.”

“Are you for real?”

“He brings you gifts if you’re good and sends you to hell if you’re bad.”

It occurs to me that I should keep Cat right here, for when Dodi circles back.

“Do you want to ask him for something?”

She shakes her head. “I haven’t been good,” she explains.

“Give him someone else’s name when you talk to him.”

She considers this.

“If you sit on his lap, you can get a picture.”

“Can I take your knife?”

“What?”

She points at the kitchen knife I purchased, forgotten in my hand.

“No. You can’t take my knife, you weirdo. Go.”

I pay the elf a ridiculous sum, and Cat trots up to the dais and stands in front of Santa, hands clasped, feet together, the picture of innocence. More innocent than the last “person” I took to be photographed with Santa. That had been…David. A brief, failed experiment for Grant. I’d assured Santa he was just a clothing store mannequin and it was a gag photo. And then I’d promptly run off.

“I’m Charlotte,” says Cat. “I love spiders. Please bring lots and lots of spiders to my house on Christmas.”

“Ho ho ho, little girl,” Santa booms. He hoists her up onto his knee, and she goes rigid and glowers at the unexpected contact. She looks just like Dodi when she’s been cornered by Doug in an elevator. When Cat catches sight of my grin, her glare is deathly.

“Get up there with your daughter,” a surly elf says to me, and that’s enough to wipe the smile off my face.

“What? No, she’s not my—” The words die in my throat. It’s hard not to think of every single time Andrew went out of his way to correct anyone who mistook me for his son.

“It’s required. An adult has to be present with all minors.”

I skulk up onto the dais and sidle up next to Santa and Cat, and she shoots me a nasty look from Santa’s viselike grip. I connect eyes with Santa, and he frowns at me. I frown at him. He looks—well, all Santas look familiar. I took David to a completely different mall.

“Cheeeeeese,” the surly elf says, and I grimace for the camera, but before he presses the shutter button, an outraged voice rings out, and there she is: Dodi.

She stands by the gate leading to Santa’s little workshop of horrors with a child’s baseball bat wrapped in Christmas ribbons cranked high over her shoulder. She’s frantic and sweaty andfurious.

39

Satan’s Workshop

Dodi

Cat is inexplicably perched onSanta’s knee, and next to her—crazy smile pasted to his face, red paint spattering his shirt—is Jake.

Jake, who is supposed to be anywhere but here.

“What are youdoing?” I snarl at him.

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