Page 74 of There Are No Saints

I storm out of my office, heading down to the main floor. I don’t bother stopping at Mara’s studio—I know she isn’t here. She’s probably still at home, sleeping.

As I pass Janice’s desk, I see several artists crowded around her computer screen. They break apart as I approach, hurrying off in every direction except mine.

Janice tries to close her browser window, but I knock her hand aside, barking, “What are you looking at?”

“Another girl’s been killed,” Janice stammers. “It happened last night.”

I lean over her desk, unpleasantly enveloped in her sickly-sweet perfume, so I can examine the computer screen.

She’s on some trashy true crime site. The page is covered in full-color photos of the murder scene.

Alastor’s work.

His bodies are far more distinct than his paintings.

And yet . . . this is a new level of violence, even for him. I see the frenzy in the scattered body parts. This wasn’t just lust . . . it was rage.

I stand up again, my heart already returning to its steady beat.

This explains why Alastor wasn’t at the show last night. He must have gotten distracted on the way over.

He missed something he really should have seen.

Lucky for me. It buys a little more time.

* * *

I walkover to Mara’s dingy Victorian. I hammer on the door, startling her roommate Frank who opens the door after a long delay, looking high and paranoid.

“Oh,” he says, looking partly relieved and partly even more confused. “It’s you.”

“Where’s Mara?” I demand.

“I dunno,” he mumbles, running his hand through his wild curls. “Work, maybe?”

The second I get my hands on her phone I’m putting a tracker on it.

This intention becomes an absolute fixation as I unsuccessfully visit Sweet Maple and Golden Gate Park in turn, without finding her.

WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?

Several fantasies play through my mind as I search the park. The first is how I’m going to drag her into the trees and strangle her. But when I picture wrapping my hands around her throat, instead I see them sliding down her body . . . cupping her breasts . . . squeezing her tiny waist as hard as I can . . . forcing her down on my cock over and over and over . . .

Fucking her in the woods isn’t good enough.

I want her somewhere isolated, where we can be utterly alone together. Somewhere I’ll have every tool I desire at my fingertips. Somewhere I can spend all night long having my way with her . . .

I want to bring her to my house.

No one but me has stepped foot through the front door since my father died. The house has been my cave. My one place of absolute privacy.

My desire to bring Mara there shows me how far this obsession has grown. Bringing her into my house is like bringing her inside my own body. A far more intimate act than simply fucking her . . .

Where could she be?

Did she meet up with that fuckboy again?

Is she at his house right now, letting him put his hands all over her?

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