Page 93 of Serial Killer Games

“Yes.”

“I’m almost thirty.”

She shrugs. “I’ve never really forgiven myself for that first Christmas.”

“I thought I was putting on a Christmas show for you.”

“Does that explain the decapitated ornaments?” she says, and I go still, a misbehaving child found out. But she’s notangry at me and my anxious little boy antics. “I think they really capture the festive spirit. I added a few myself.”

She smiles a big, brave, fake smile at me. I flick on a matching fake smile. I learned from the best. I will see her Christmas spirit and raise her. I lean forward, elbows on knees, and catch her eye.

“The Christmas tree star.”

She glances up. Sharp edges, metal and glass. “Sure,” she concedes. “If it went straight into an artery.”

She doesn’t seem too excited.

“Strangulation by string lights.”

“Oh, I like that,” she says, cocking her head to one side while she pictures it. “That would be…dazzling.”

We both picture it for a moment.

She eventually sighs. “Nope. I don’t think either would work. I think both are too good for him.”

It’s been twenty years, and we still haven’t figured out the perfect way to off Andrew.

“Do you want me to check your phone?” I ask. Now and then he installs something nefarious. A tracking app. A spy app.

“It doesn’t matter. I never go anywhere exciting.”

I brace myself. I had this conversation once with her, years ago, when I left for university, but she shut me down. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance, so I try it out again. “I wish you’d leave him.”

The statement lands like a Christmas ornament exploding on the floor. Her face goes slack for a moment, and the glimmer of unease that follows is scarier than any expression I’ve ever seen Andrew make. That look right there is the reason I would never ask her to help me at the end, to do something that would be in defiance of Andrew.

She clears it away rapidly and squeezes my hand.

“You know I don’t stay for him,” she says, frankly this time. “I have no living family—Andrew’s family has always been my family. I don’t want to lose that. Family is so important to me.” She smiles at me, willing me to understand. This little dysfunctional family is everything to her, for some reason. I don’t tell her that we could have been a family, just the two of us. When I was younger, I fantasized about us packing up and riding off into the sunset. I’d lost my mother, and she’d lost her estranged sister, but Laura and I—we hit it off immediately, despite the grief. Maybe because of it. Together we could have been happy.

“And…how would I, anyway?” Laura continues. “He’s outmaneuvered me. He’s a majority partner in my business. He’s got our money all squirreled away. I’d say we’re going to wait and see who dies first, but he’s never going to die. His parents are in their nineties and they still do the couples dance classes at the home. He’s going to gradually…desiccate, like one of those monks.” She lets out a shivery breath and bravely perks up. “Did I tell you about the mummy that came in last year—?”

“Yes.”

She smiles ruefully and stops her retelling.

“I have money, Laura.”

She waves me to shut up. “No.”

“I do. I have a lot of money.”

She looks at me like I’m a child offering all the buttons and bottle caps in my piggy bank to her. “Hush. I’m not asking you to solve my problems. I was going to leave him when I was younger, but at the last minute, I couldn’t.”

This is brand-new intelligence.

“When?”

“Twenty years ago. But I would never have done that to you, Jake. After everything you’d been through, I decided you needed an extra parent figure on hand to help. I couldn’t take you away from Andrew, could I? I stayed for your sake.”

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