Page 70 of Serial Killer Games

I give Cat a bright, charming smile. “I’ll…I’ll get you a chocolate bar.”

A matronly woman in a reflective orange vest with a permanent groove between her penciled eyebrows approaches. A pickup volunteer. I remember pickup volunteers—nosy, self-important—Is that your dad, Jake? Oh, youruncle…

“Who is this, Catriona?” she asks.

“He said he’ll give me candy if I get in his car.”

“Oh, for fuck’s—” I pinch my mouth shut when the woman’s eyes pop out of her head. “My name is Jake Ripper.”

No dawning recognition. The pickup volunteer stares at me with suspicion. “Am I supposed to know who you are?”

Behind me the driver taps his horn over and over.Honk. Honk. Honk…and my shoulders ratchet higher and higher. I have no idea what Dodi told them about me. Am I a coworker?A friend? And then I remember with a jolt, like I sometimes do about a dozen times a day, that Dodi and I are married.

“I’m Dodi’s husband.” My throat catches on the suddenly strange and awkward word.

“Catriona doesn’t have a stepdad,” she says, raising her voice over the honking, and my brain tweaks. I didn’t say stepdad. That word is even worse. Cat seems to think so too. She stares at me with a disgusted expression.

The woman uses one broad hand to move Cat behind her body, like she’s shielding her from seeing something foul. She edges away with Cat sheltered behind her, but I put my car in reverse and back up two feet alongside her. The car behind me lays on the horn again and I slam the brakes with a few inches to spare between our bumpers.

“Dodi said she’d talk to her teacher about this.”

“I have no idea who Dodi is.”

“Dolores.”

“You keep changing your story. Is it Dodi or Dolores?”

The horn behind me blares again.

“Dodi is her nickname. Do you call your spouse by their full name?”

“I’m not married and neither is she.”

Again the horn blares and I see red. I hold up my ring finger to show her. Her mouth falls open and she actually gasps, and I realize too late it looks like I’m flipping her the bird.

Just then the man behind me sticks his head out of his window and yells, “You going to move the Dickmobile, Bruce Wayne?”

I tap the gas so I can pull forward and closer to the curb so the asshole can pass, but I’m still in reverse. I crunch into the front of his car.

I look up and Cat is staring at the smashed front of theother car with the same malevolently delighted look I’ve seen on Dodi’s face about a half dozen times. Eyes glinting, mouth twitching into a nasty smile at her little nemesis sitting beyond the tinted windows of the back seat. She makes eye contact with me, and I can see one missing tooth in her smile. I’m her champion, and her dramatic exit from her bully’s moment of reckoning awaits. The volunteer lunges at her as she slips from her grasp. Cat dodges and twists around her, effortlessly pops open the ridiculous door handle like she was bred to ride in supercars, and slides into the passenger seat as the pickup volunteer raises the alarm.

31

Career Killer

Dodi

I glance at the clockand wonder with a knot in my stomach how pickup went. I have five missed calls from the school.

“I’m trying to understand. What projects has Dolores been assigned to these past two years?” Cynthia asks Doug.

There’s another person present in addition to Cynthia, Marie, and Doug—a higher-up I’ve seen in the elevator. He watches me thoughtfully while Doug sweats and flails.

“Let’s ask Dolores,” the man suggests, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I have no idea how to describe the “project” Jake showed Cynthia.

“No,” Cynthia says quickly and decisively. “This is a management issue. We have a team leader who doesn’t know what his star data analyst is doing.”

Star data analyst. She means me.

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