Page 106 of There Are No Saints

Cole implied that Alastor Shaw is a killer.

More than implied that he’s one, too.

He does what I do BADLY . . .

It seems impossible.

We’re talking about two of the most famous men in the city. Artists, for fuck’s sake.

Rival artists.

Or perhaps . . . just rivals.

You were given to me . . .

I jolt up from the dryer, the warmth of the tumbling clothes giving way to the chill that grips the back of my neck.

Two men. One heavy and rough. One slim, light, almost silent . . .

Convulsively, I clasp my palm over the wriggling scar running up my left wrist. I can feel it under my thumb, thick and hot as a snake.

I spoke to Alastor Shaw the night I was kidnapped. I met him at the show, before I went outside to vape with Frank. We only talked for a minute before Erin interrupted us.

Erin said she fucked him in the stairwell. How long did that take? Quick enough that he could have seen me leaving? Quick enough that he could have followed?

It only lasted a minute. But it was nice . . .

The pieces are falling into place with sickening speed.

He could have snatched me up a block from my house. Stuffed me in a trunk. Bound, blindfolded, and pierced me, then slashed me open and left me on the ground to die . . .

No. Not to die.

Left . . . as a gift.

A gift for the man who would follow.

Where was Cole going that night? What was he doing?

It doesn’t matter. Someone knew he’d be there. They knew he’d find me.

And what was the point? What did they expect?

My heart is racing, the steadywhum, whum, whumof the dryer like a crank operating my brain. Forcing it to keep running. Shoving it toward the inevitable conclusion of these thoughts.

They expected Cole to finish me off.

That was the gift.

That was the temptation.

BUZZZZZZZZ.

The alarm to the dryer sounds, making me shriek.

The little Asian grandma pops up like a jack-in-the-box, bustling over to retrieve her socks. She bundles them all into a string bag, then slings the bag over her shoulder, heading toward the door, waving to me as she leaves.

I wave back, feeling like I’m floating, feeling like I’m one of the many pieces of trash running down the gutters outside, carried away by the rain.

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