Page 43 of Lair

And then, at last, “You believe now, I presume?” It comes out hoarse and dry as ash. “You believe that I’m a—”

But I cannot hear him. I cannot hear him for the drumming in my ears, the stench of burnt flesh in my nostrils. How unforgiveable. That even now he can make me pity him.

“Are there others like you?” I whisper at last. “Those guests...”

He is silent a long time in that darkness. And then, “Yes.”

The bodies in Voper’s bed. No normal orgy at all.

“So, what, you’re all yacht owners, then?” I snort. A joke.

But he confirms it. A whole new world before me, conjured to shimmering life. “It’s easier that way.”

“You mean to go where you please, dine as you please?”

“... Yes.” A fatalistic bitterness in his voice.

“How convenient for you,” I hiss. “Floating homes, and no one to catch you in international waters. You simply enjoy yourself in one port and move on to the next, is that it?”

Thea’s corpse, dropping to the deck. Thea’s corpse, dropped over the side.

“Let me explain—”

But I’ve sucked in a decisive breath. “Get out,” I say quietly, and feel him cock his head. “You beast. You monster. Get the fuck out!”

“Aurora,” he swallows, voice thick with torment. “Please—”

“Get out!” I snarl, teeth gritted, and face that voice with hands fisted. “Get out! Get out! GET OUT!”

I’m still screaming by the time the door opens and shuts again.

TWENTY-THREE

It’s not long before sleep claims me once more, slumped on the floor against the wall. I dream of hot blood, and darkness, and Adrian Voper standing wan as a corpse in the merciless glare of the rising sun. He lifts a hand toward me, mouth opening in woeful intonation— Aurora—and his face bursts into flame.

When I jerk awake the porthole has been opened again, and a beam of late afternoon light slants through the darkness onto Mrs. Colding perched prim and erect on the edge of a chair. I stiffen, and for a moment it flares up in me, the dazzling possibility: escape. She is here for my escape.

But no. That is not why she is here. That is not what she is offering.

She gestures to a chair opposite her. “Please. Have a seat.”

Ah.

I grit my teeth, momentarily dizzy with a hard, small murderous anger, and drag myself up. I’m stiff and sore, every muscle in my body crying out as if I’ve been dropped off a building. For now, I drop into the chair, hoping the puffiness of my eyes isn’t visible.

Mrs. Colding considers me a long while before she clears her throat and begins. “Given what’s happened, I thought we should—”

“So, then,” I interrupt acidly, “that’s what you’re always up to in his cabin.”

Mrs. Colding tilts her head in a question.

“Cleaning up all the blood.”

A muscle jumps underneath her eye, but she does not look away.

“What else do you do for him? Help dispose of the bodies?”

This is what she has become in my mind. An old woman with a cunning smile, a sly servant of vice.

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