Page 16 of Serial Killer Games

I spot them: two graying heads stooped over their menus, practically off-gassing straitlaced, affluent suburbia. They’re not my parents, but the family resemblance is there.

“Jake,” Aunt Laura says with her sunshine smile when I approach. My only living blood relative—at least, the only one who knows about me. She has the same dark hair as mine, but with white streaks at the temples, and large, dark eyes, like a gentle fawn. Pearl ear studs and a shell-pink cardigan complete the look. Laura is warm and sweet, at first impression the sort of person a child would want to bury their face in so they can huff the smell of home-baked cookies. Well, not a child like me. Not after what I’d been through by the time they took me in.

Next to her sits Uncle Andrew, judgmental as God, in a midrange suit, his shirt as crisply starched as his soul. He simply grunts when he notices me. Andrew has always made methink of some great, scaly, leathery dragon, spiteful and quick to anger, lolling on a great hoard of every single thing I’ve ever done to earn his disapproval. He sifts bullion and jewels through his fingers as he asks about my life.

I wonder why they still bother with me, what sort of obligation to my mother compels them to meet with me like this, every year. Do they feel good about themselves after? Relieved that it will be another year before they have to do it again? Is it a seasonal routine that anchors them to the passage of time? Do they go home and change the batteries in their smoke detectors after?

I avoid Laura’s gaze as I take my seat. How long has it been since we talked? A month? Two? Some aunts would make sure I was aware of it, but Laura’s not like that. And for some reason my brain slithers to thoughts of Dolores. Does she have deeply unsatisfying family relationships? What hilarious, insulting little comment will she prick me with tomorrow when I mention this dinner? I’m lowering myself into my chair with the enthusiasm of a convict walking to the gallows when a flash of bright, arterial red out of the corner of my eye catches my attention—

Dolores sits at a table for two not twenty feet from us.

But it’s Dolores as I’ve never seen her before. Instead of black, she’s wearing scarlet. Instead of a smooth knot, her hair tumbles down past her shoulders in careless waves. Instead of covering up from chin to kneecap to wrist, her arms and collarbones are bare, and it’s obvious now why she dresses like a corporate sister wife from nine to five.

“She must have spent a fortune to ruin her looks,” my uncle says, following my gaze. “What is that on her chest? A pair of skulls? It looks Satanic.”

“I think the roses look lovely,” my aunt says sweetly.

Bright, bold American traditional tattoos cover her arms and chest. Roses, spiderwebs, a skeleton, a dagger. Below her collarbones are two skulls, facing each other, one dressed as a bride with a veil, the other a groom. Her face is different, too. Her lipstick has smudged off, and I realize I’ve never seen her without her office war paint on—always some shade of vivid pink, screaming crimson, or a deep blood red. Her bare lips are almost indecent.

She must feel my gaze on her, because she lowers the menu and her eyes skim up the length of my body, from my shoes to my face. She doesn’t smile, but one eyebrow slides up at the sight of me. Coming from Dolores, it’s an enthusiastic invitation. I stand without giving an explanation to my aunt and uncle and go to her.

“Dolores.”

Dolores is silent for a long moment. She’s been silent with me ever since the rooftop this morning.

At last, she says in a bored voice, “Jacob.”

I put my robust sleuthing skills on demo. “You’re on a date,” I say.

“Yes.”

Yet there’s no coat draped over the back of the chair opposite her. Her decanter of wine is empty, her appetizer plate wiped clean.

“Where is he?”

She stares me down with the withering gaze of a woman scorned. She was stood up, and to make a shitty evening even shittier, I’m here to witness it.

“He’s dead to me.”

I direct away from the missing date. “Cat’s home alone tonight with a tin of Fancy Feast and the TV on to keep her company?”

“Had your face pressed against my living room window, I see. Are those your boomers?” she asks with a chin jerk toward my aunt and uncle.

“They seem to think so.”

“They’ve been staring at me like I’m a zoo creature.”

“I’ll discipline them later. No Facebook or Olive Garden for a week.”

“They seem so normal. The apple fell far. Unless…the real Jacob Ripper is buried in a shallow grave somewhere, and you have assumed his identity and are holding his family hostage to perpetuate the charade?”

“You know me better than anyone.”

Her eyes slide from my aunt and uncle to my face when I say that. “I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you, Jake.”

I wonder if I sound aloof and mysterious or just plain idiotic when I say, “Do you want to?” And then it occurs to me that I haven’t cared in a long time if anyone thinks I sound like an idiot. Office Idiot is a useful disguise.

She tips her head to one side. “Maybe, for the sake of adding to your case file.” She slings back the dregs in her wineglass and rises, ungracefully. She’stipsy.

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