“Nicolas,” Eli said, and I heard the rustle of his clothing and the bench creak—he must have stood. “You don’t have to hide from me.”
I let out a sharp bark of laughter. Heaven help me, but he sounded like he meant it.
“Don’t I?” I muttered. My gaze fell to the dead body lying next to the wall, and I felt a chill roll through me.
I had done that.
I’d done it so many times.
“Who was he?” Eli asked, his voice soft.
“Does it matter?” I asked more harshly than I intended. “He’s dead now.”
Eli sighed, then joined me at my side. “He was armed and unafraid to shoot you. He would have shot me, too. And what did he mean, that I was ‘older than his usual’?”
“You were coming at him with a knife,” I replied, unwilling to tell Eli the truth. I didn’t want to confuse him or let him think there was anything noble about my intentions. I had come here in cold blood to end Mr. Peterson’s life. I had done it because that’s what I enjoyed—even if that seemed to no longer be true. I added, “Anyone would have opened fire if they were holding a gun.”
“Who was he? Why did you go to the police department to get his address? And why the auto parts shop before that?”
I glanced over at him, feeling an odd flash of pride that he had followed me for so long. But it wasn’t the grim, cold-edged admiration I might have expected for a fellow predator—it was hotter around the edges, because I understood Eli wasn’t anything like me. This whole experience had cost him far more than it would have someone like Morgan Peterson.
He’d come here because he wanted answers, hadn’t he? Because he wanted to understand me. He had put everything on the line to do it. He must have known what he might find—but he came anyway.
But he’d done all of that for someone who wasn’t a real person. Who could never be a real person. I looked like a man—but I wasn’t. Not really. He deserved far better than me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him at last.
The best thing to do would be to take Eli home. Mr. Peterson lived alone and had very few neighbors (since most of the other houses behind us were still under construction). Plus, we were in the basement. It was likely no one had heard the gunshots. Even if someone had, mortal hearing is imperfect. They might have chalked it up to fireworks or a car backfiring nearby. The police wouldn’t come here. I could return tonight, collect the body after I’d cleaned up the scene—and after I made sure Eli was safe. Then I’d stay away from him.
Why did that thought fill me with even more despair?
Surely, I wasn’t capable of feeling any of this, was I?
Eli was quiet for a long time, as though he was thinking about our next steps too. He seemed far calmer than he should have been. But after what seemed like an eternity, he glanced around the room and then he froze, his gaze locked on the far wall.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
Then he rose and stepped over the dead body like it was no big deal and drifted to the far wall. I stood as well and followed behind him, prepared to tell him that I was going to drive him home—that I would get him out of here.
Then I saw what he was looking at.
The wall was plastered with newspaper clippings.
And photographs. Lots and lots of photographs.
The bloodied, vacant face of Joseph Goldberg stared back at us from the wall, from at least a dozen angles. Mr. Peterson hadtaken photos of what he’d done. They were arranged around the newspaper clipping about his murder, framing it on all sides.
There was so much blood in the pictures.
And there were others, too. Three more victims. They were all blond men, so young they looked barely out of high school. Just like Joseph, they were covered in blood and staring into the camera with lifeless eyes.
Revulsion tore through me. “Eli, don’t look.”
But as if in a trance, Eli stepped closer, his eyes glued to the wall that Mr. Peterson had dedicated to his victims.
“He was a serial killer,” Eli said at last, his voice oddly flat.
I didn’t say anything, because that much was obvious. Instead, I found myself strangely transfixed by the victims. But it wasn’t the neutral sort of professional curiosity I’d always had when looking over a monster’s handiwork.
