Page 113 of Serial Killer Games

Jake

It’s the same little oldlady with her pull cart. I slip into the building behind her.

“Excuse me—”she says.

I try to press past her, but she steps into me.

“I’m going to report you to the building manager for waltzing in like this! I recognize you, too. I’m going to tell them I saw you sneak in like this the other night—”

“And I’ll tell them I saw you at one a.m. on December twenty-fifth pulling that exact cart, except it weighed about fifty pounds that night, and I heard something clanking inside,” I blurt out over my shoulder before I’ve had a chance to hear myself think. Dodi’s true crime paranoia has ruined me.

I stop in my tracks. Hopefully I’m going to be coming here a lot, for a while yet, unless Cat and Dodi want to move in right away—my thoughts are all over the place. I turn around to apologize to my new neighbor, but her face has gone hard. She stands taller and straighter than a second ago, her hand firm and strong on the pull handle. Her other hand shoots outto smooth the little blanket draped over the top of her pull cart, concealing the contents, and she swirls on the spot and marches quickly away, the bumbling limp from a moment ago gone.

Definitely a serial killer, Dodi’s voice drawls in my ear as I watch her go. They’ll be moving in right away.

Dodi’s not in her apartment. I bang on her door until a girl steps out from the elevator with a Chihuahua in a Christmas sweater in her arms. “I saw them up on the roof,” she says, flustered. “I’m calling the cops.”

“What?”

But she doesn’t answer. She bolts down the hall and disappears.

The elevator takes me to the roof and spits me out into a little vestibule with a metal door. On the other side is a miserable patch of Astroturf living its worst life, a few passive-aggressive signs about leashing and pickup, and across the way—

Chaos.

Screaming, yelling, a man and a woman flailing at each other, a small dog running in frantic circles, his yapping echoing off nearby buildings—

“Get your hands off her, you son of abitch!” A figure in a puffy purple coat lunges at a man, who lurches backward—Andrew, I realize with a jolt. I reflexively search out Laura—there, cowering behind Dodi, who has her arms spread wide and a ferocious expression on her face. Andrew dodges, and Purple Coat stumbles and catches herself on the low parapet, and when she turns, I see it’s…Cynthia?

“Cat!” Dodi shrieks as the little red peacoat bolts from behind Laura to grab Princess.

Andrew lunges for the dog at the same moment. “He’smine!” he snarls, red-faced, explosive. Behind him Cynthia reclaims her footing, and she’s just as deranged. This cool, inhuman HR robot with the icicle eyes lunges and flails at him from behind, hammering his arms with her fists, her chunky homemade scarf swinging madly.

I’m across the soggy Astroturf in a moment to tug Cat back as Andrew snatches Princess from her arms.

“He took my puppy!” Cat yowls venomously.

Cynthia hollers, “Give back that little girl’s dog, or so help me god—”

“He’s my dog!” Andrew shouts, twisting in disgust as Princess licks his face frantically, joyously. He’s never received this much attention from Andrew in his life.

I swing Cat over to Dodi and she crumples with relief around her daughter. Her hair is mussed and the shoulder seam of her coat is ripped. I look at Laura, and the side of her face is red. My stomach twists in half. I missed something very terrible. Laura shakes like a leaf behind Dodi, and I realize I’m shaking too. It’s finally happening. The volcano is finally blowing.

“You’ve always been like this!” Cynthia shrieks at Andrew. “Always taking what you want! And as soon as you get it, you discard it! People too! Throwing away people like they’re garbage!”

“You’re a meddling shrew, Cynthia! An HR busybody! Always sticking your nose in, thinking you have everyone’s number. You don’t know a damn thing! This is none of your business! It’s never any of your business! This ismydog!”

“This isn’t about the fucking dog!” Cynthia rages. “You always were a creep, Andrew! You were my formative creep—everyone in Human Resources has a formative creep! ‘Never again,’ we say to ourselves.” Cynthia finally notices me.“There!” she yells. “There’s another one! Another formative creep!Yourformative creep, Dolores. Right? Jacob Ripper! He’s just like you, Andrew. I saw that the moment I laid eyes on him—a handsy, narcissistic egomaniac on a power trip, manipulating vulnerable women—the very spit of his father!” she cries, and a drop of spit flies out with her words.

For a second I wonder how she knows anything about Jacob, Bill’s son, my mistaken father with the glasses and the hazel eyes and the kind smile. How does she know I’m the spit of my father? And then I realize she’s not talking about him, of course. She’s talking about my real father—Andrew. She knows. She knows this thing about me that only two other people know.

Of course she does.

Cynthia fucking Cutts. I didn’t cross paths with her at one of my temp jobs. I realize now why she’s always looked down at me like some disgusting, misbehaving child. Iwasa child when I met her. She was someone my mom knew, someone from her years teaching in the Catholic school system. She used to come around and drink coffee at my mom’s kitchen table, speaking in euphemisms and spelling words out letter by letter to make sure I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Mom used to watch her warily, wearily, and then sag with relief when her rants about bullies and revenge and playing the long game came to an end. She’d close the door behind Cynthia, serve me a giant bowl of ice cream, and remind me, apropos of nothing, that I was the best thing that ever happened to her.JacobRipper?Cynthia had asked that day back in the annex, on the prowl for workplace harassment.Jacob fuckingRipper?Spit of his father.She must have been there when it happened, the workplace affair that led to me.

“He’s a monster just like you!” Cynthia continues, jabbing her finger in my direction.

“No!” Dodi shouts, her face horrified. “Not Jake! We really are in a relationship!”

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