Forty-Three

Ewan Copeland scraped at the dried blood on the table with a fingernail.

So much of his life was spent waiting. For his mother to hurt him. For his father to come home. For the bars to his cell to open. For the painkillers to take effect. For the swelling to go down. For the damn woman tied to the chair to wake up.

He had all the time in the world, but really, this was getting ridiculous. He wanted to play. He got bored with waiting after a while. Patience was a virtue, yes, but in his case, he should be given a bloody Oscar for his performances.

He finished removing the red flecks from the table and debated. He’d started an excellent thriller last night, gotten halfway through. He liked thrillers. They moved quickly. Just like him.

Read? Or wake her ass up?

Choices, choices.

He stood, crossed the room and retrieved the ammonia capsule from his bag. He’d pilfered them from work, the perfect antidote for fainting relatives and distraught spouses. He cracked the capsule open and waved it beneath her nose until she began to moan. He placed it upright on the table, he might need it again. “Hello, Samantha.”

The woman stirred, her dark hair shifting against her perfect ivory skin as her head lolled forward. Not quite there yet. “Samantha…Samaaaaaantha…wakey wakey.”

He tapped her cheek with his open palm, softly, not a slap, just a nudge. A little push toward the left. Her eyelids started to flutter, the brown eyes out of focus. She blinked heavily, the lashes soft against her lids.

He tapped her harder this time, on the other cheek, with the back of his hand, enjoying the bloom of red on her perfectly peach-skinned cheeks. Her eyes flew open. He watched them process the situation—he, the glorious one, standing before her, head cocked to the side like a curious puppy, a ten-inch blade in his hand. The fear registered in an instant. An appropriate, intelligent reaction. Of course, he expected nothing less, but still. Fear was good. He liked fear. He wanted to see that same glance bleeding out from gray on gray eyes, but for now, this would have to do.

He did so love the look of a wide, mobile mouth incapacitated with a gag.

“Glad you could join us,” he said.

She shrieked behind the gag, and he shook his head.

“No yelling. That’s not fair. I’m not yelling at you, am I? Calm down and be a good girl, and you won’t get hurt.”

He traced her collarbones with the blade, watched as her eyes filled with tears. Sam Loughley wasn’t a dumb woman, she knew what was happening. She sniffed hard, her mouth stretched against the gag, then shut her eyes. They always shut their eyes. He’d gone through a stage when he’d tried gluing their eyes open, but the staring started to get to him. It was so much more feminine, more demure, for the lashes to brush against the cheeks, guiding the rivulets of tears leaking down their skin. Crying with eyes open looked… strange. Like dolls. He wasn’t a fan of dolls.

“Sam, you know your role in this play, don’t you?”

She opened her eyes again, and there was a bit of defiance lurking there.

Good. She would fight for her friend.

“It shouldn’t take too long. You’ve been missed by now. I haven’t. I’ve been planning this for weeks, right under your noses. But Taylor will be looking for you. She’s a clever girl, she should be able to puzzle out where we are. I have faith in her, just like you do. So. We’re just going to have ourselves a little party while we’re waiting. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

The eyes closed again.

He wanted to talk. Now that she was awake, now that he had an audience…he wondered how Ruth was managing. He doubted he’d ever see her again, her or her creepy friend Harvey. The minute he smelled danger he’d probably taken off, out of town, a rat scurrying for the cover of darkness. The boy he killed wasn’t meant to be found, not during all of this, yet he’d managed to both screw that up and leave behind a clumsy, ill-timed red herring that no one had fallen for. Idiot. Why had he let Ruth bring the fool along? It was a mistake, one of the few he’d made along the way. He wasn’t perfect, after all.

No, he was going to be alone again, for quite some time. He wanted to enjoy the company while he had it.

“Samantha, tell me. What was it like growing up with her? Was she as strong as she is now? Or were you the strong one? Working with dead bodies all day, I have to wonder. You enjoy it, don’t you? Feeling inside them. The smell of the viscera, the weight of their testicles, all those holes. You become one with their bodies. You bring work home with you, too, into your family, your children. You share small bits of every human being you touch with all the people you care for. There is no amount of gloving and scrubbing that can erase what’s in your mind. When you fuck Simon, do you think about the blades cutting through the flesh? Do you like that feeling, Sam? The tugging, the cutting, the succulent tissue parting before you?”

The knife was poised above her abdomen now. He edged the tip through her sweater, a bit farther now, into her skin, just ever so slightly. Relished the gasp of air through her nose as the nascent pain ran through her synapses. A trickle of blood wept from the wound, just a scratch, really, and slid slowly over the edge of her slacks between her legs. He ran his finger along it, gathering the red droplets. He stared at the brilliant glow, felt himself become mesmerized. He had to force his eyes away. He wiped the blood on the table, replacing the smudge he’d removed earlier. It looked so much nicer fresh. Like wet paint.

He really loved this woman. She wasn’t struggling, or begging. She was stoic.

Hmm. He decided to see just how brave she really was.