Page 5 of King Among the Dead

He lifted his head, shook his hair back from his eyes, and offered another of those small, enigmatic smiles like he had last night. “Good morning, Rose. Did you sleep well?”

She started moving again, creeping really, drifting toward the island, feeling pulled along by his silken voice. “Very well. Thank you.”

His smile widened the tiniest fraction as he plucked the bacon out onto a paper towel. “Wonderful. How do you like your eggs?”

“Oh. Um.” She only ever had eggs the way Miss Tabitha wanted them: hard boiled. And before that, however her previous foster parents prepared them. No one everaskedher.

As if he sensed her predicament, Beck said, “How about if we try them a different way each morning, and then you can pick your favorite?”

She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. A simple kindness. An unbelievable kindness she’d never hoped for. “That sounds good.”

“We’ll tried fried today, I think. Fetch the juice, please.”

The fridge wasn’t new, but it was spacious, and clean, and, when she opened it, full of a shocking amount of food. She’d never been in the home of someone not living week-to-week off allotment coupons. There were meat and produce shortages in the city, but no one would know it looking in Beck’s fridge.

She grabbed the carton of juice, and turned back for the island – and saw that they were no longer alone.

A woman had entered, silent on slippered feet, wrapped in a floral bathrobe, her iron-gray hair in curlers. She was a tiny, elderly thing, with a full face of makeup, and a cigarette smoldering between two fingers.

Rose drew up alongside Beck, who was cracking eggs into the skillet he’d cooked the bacon in. “Rose,” he said, “this is Mrs. Kay. My third-floor tenant. Mrs. Kay, this is Rose.”

The woman waved a dismissive hand and blew out a stream of smoke. “Just call me Kay, honey. I ain’t been anybody’s missus in a long time.” She chuckled, the sound dry and crackling. She wore deep wrinkles and laugh lines, and the triangle of chest visible showed old sun spots from years outdoors, but her eyes were flint-sharp and Rose could tell they missed nothing as they shifted over her, assessing. “Aren’t you a pretty thing? What’s your story?”

A story that Rose neither wanted to relive nor give voice to.Awful, she thought, stomach churning.Awful, until Beck killed Miss Tabitha and I fell into this strange dream.

Before she could scrape together an answer, Beck said, “She was one of Tabby’s.” His expression didn’t change, but his voice hardened noticeably.

“Hmph,” Kay said on another drag, brows jumping. “Was?”

“Past tense.”

“You took care of it, then?”

“Yes. Rose, the glasses are in that cabinet over by the sink.”

“Good,” Kay said, nodding.

Rose went for the glasses, glad for a moment to turn away from them, to think. Kay knew what Beck had done to Miss Tabitha? And approved?

By the time she returned to the island juggling three glasses, she hadn’t found any trepidation beyond the vague social sort, wanting not to say the wrong thing.

To her surprise, when she glanced up, she found that Kay’s expression had softened, and grown serious. “You okay, honey? You get out without being too beat up?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kay’s gaze narrowed. “She get you with the cigarettes?” She waved her own, smoke curling off the cherry in ribbons.

Admitting felt like weakness, but Rose said, “No, ma’am. The belt.”

Beck flipped the eggs in the pan and turned to her, honey eyes glittering, not smiling now. “Where?” It wasn’t an order or a threat; his voice was soft.

But she didn’t feel she could lie. “On my back. But it’s fine–”

He took her gently by the shoulders and turned her. The lightest touch, but she could feel the strength of his fingers; a strength he didn’t need to use. His fingertips skimmed down her back – she shuddered in automatic reaction – and came to rest at the hem of her shirt. “May I?”

She nodded.

Slowly, with a care that she could feel in every tiny tug of his fingers, he peeled her shirt up. Not all the way, just far enough to reveal the welts that now seemed to throb beneath the scrutiny. Far enough for Kay to hiss and say, “Goddamn. Good riddance to that bitch.”

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