‘I’ll just leave you to freshen up,’ Peter says, smiling away.
He closes the door. There’s no lock but Patti needs to pee, so she uses the toilet, washing her hands after and splashing her face for good measure. This headache is not going anywhere, god. Another twenty minutes of polite conversation while she calls a cab and waits, then skedaddle. She’s looking forward to getting in the cab.
Half her makeup comes off on the hand towel. She can’t see her panda eyes because there’s no mirror in here. Weird.
A knock on the bathroom door, and it swings open a foot. Peter, smiling again – he has a real commitment to smiling. It’s a bit more than she can deal with right now.
‘Brought you something you’ve always wanted …’ His voice is singsong.
‘Sorry?’
Peter bites his bottom lip. Swings the door wider. He’s holding a clothes hanger up high, and suspended from the hanger is a long white dress. ‘I know, I know – I’m not supposed to see. But it’s a special occasion.’
‘What—’
‘I don’t want to hurry you, but you should get changed quick so we can get started.’
Peter is smiling now in a different way. His eyes are glinting. The dress has pearlescent sequined roses around the bodice. In Patti’s fuzzy state, it takes a moment to register.
Then it all comes into focus.
The white dress. News reports.
When she looks back at Peter, he’s got a long-barreled gun of some bright metal in his other hand. He holds it across his chest. The cock of the trigger echoes loudly in the security-barred bathroom.
‘Come on, Patricia.’ He smiles and smiles. ‘I can’t wait to get started.’
Patti Doricott begins to cry.
CHAPTER TWO
Kristin Gutmunsson, twin sister of the most infamous juvenile serial murderer in American history, watches the oak trees through a window one floor above the Quantico library. The outside leaves ripple in a breeze. Insulated behind the window, Kristin cannot feel the breeze, but she can imagine the coolness of it.
Kristin has a richly developed imaginary life, and right now she is using it to tune out the people talking at her.
She feels nostalgic, looking at the oaks. In her mind, she and her brother, Simon, are lying down together under the big oak in the back garden of the Massachusetts house. It is the end of the summer of ’78, and they’ve played croquet all afternoon with Janet and Marlowe. Once their friends left, Simon and Kristin finished the game without them. Now, with the sun lowering, the grass is pleasantly shaded.
Simon reclines with the bottle of lemon water from the tray. Kristin flops beside him, her hair spun out like a silver fan. Simon plays with it idly as they pass the bottle back and forth.
‘You’ve got grass stains on your skirt,’ he notes.
‘And a sweaty face.’ She swipes the long cotton sleeve of her blouse against her forehead.
Simon gives her the handkerchief from his trouser pocket. His snowy hair matches her own, and they are both wearing croquet whites. Against the bed of verdant lawn and fall’s first russet oak leaves, Kristin imagines that she and her twin look like a sculpture of marble angels.
‘You were very mean to Marlowe,’ she says. ‘I think that’s why he and Janet went home.’
Simon shifts to lean on his elbows, looking at the sky. ‘I’m not mean to Marlowe. He brings it on himself. I wanted to play, not watch Marlowe make cow eyes at you all afternoon.’
‘I like the cow eyes.’
‘Good god.’
‘I like Marlowe.’ Kristin traces a gnat’s flight in the air above them with her finger. ‘I think he wants to ask me out.’
‘It’s a shame, then, that he’s already dating Janet.’
‘I know.’ Kristin makes a vexed frown. ‘It’s most annoying.’
