Bell sits back and sighs, his olive skin and dark hair blued by the lights. Occasional sparkles of white spill onto his clothes from the spinning mirror ball. He glances between Emma and the dance floor. ‘Where’d you get the wig?’
She’s surprised by the question. ‘No idea. Kristin bought it, and I didn’t ask.’
‘You look real different.’
Emma thinks he finds the hair almost as unsettling as she does. ‘I’m not the same as the girl who had long hair back in ’79.’
‘You seem more like you without the hair.’ Bell grins, shrugs. ‘But what do I know. You want something else to drink? It’s hot in here.’
Emma pushes up her jacket sleeves. ‘Water, if you can get it.’
‘Stay here, where I can see you, okay?’
She nods, tracks his progress to the bar, which is busier than when they first arrived – lots of thirsty dancers. The bartenders are working double time. From the look of the crowd, Bell’s going to be a while.
When she turns back to face the dance floor, someone is blocking her view.
‘Hi,’ the guy says, sliding into Bell’s vacated seat. ‘I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new?’
Emma examines him: on the tall side, rangy, with slightly bouffant blond hair. His chambray shirt is open all the way to his navel, and his pants are some kind of faux white snakeskin. He’s giving her a wide, insincere smile.
‘Beat it,’ she says. This is not her guy.
‘Don’t be like that, honey,’ the guy says, reaching across the table as if he’s going to take her hand. ‘I just wanted—’
‘I know what you wanted,’ Emma says flatly, withdrawing her hand, ‘and the answer is no. Fuck off. My boyfriend is at the bar. Touch me and I’ll scream for security.’
‘Bitch.’ Snakeskin Guy makes an unpleasant sneer, but he leaves.
Emma tracks him as he slides away into the crowd. ‘Call Me’ has started pulsing from the speakers – her sister, Robbie, always a Blondie fan, would approve. The colors on the dance floor change again, a mix of green and blue that makes all the dancers look like they’re underwater. Their bodies are sinuous, hands waving like seaweed on the air, teeth and eyes flashing a sharp, unsettling neon in the dark.
Bell is taking a long time. She looks back; he’s part of a crowd moving closer to the bar, but still about three people away from actual service. Calling him ‘my boyfriend’ came out quite spontaneously. Of course, it works in well with their operational camouflage. She thinks of the necessity of it with Snakeskin Guy – the irony that she has to claim connection with one man to avoid another. It’s the kind of thing that drives her up the wall. She redirects her mind, recalls the expression on Bell’s face when he said that her survival makes her a force of nature.Thatis destined to become one of her good memories – like the memory of Robbie’s hugs – to help balance out the bad.
Emma dabs her glove against her dry lips, catches Bell’s eye as he glances back for her, searching her out. She smiles and lifts her chin. He raises his eyebrows and nods in reply, before a surge in the queue pushes him forward and he turns away.
A voice sounds behind her. ‘Is someone sitting here?’
Emma’s smile winks out like a frozen star, and her breathing slows.
She doesn’t know what process in her head makes the alarm go off: she doesn’t know how she justknows. Her instinct is a product of a complex experiential knowledge set that was born in terror and despair. But she registers all the physical signs, the same ones she experiences standing near Simon Gutmunsson: her skin goose-bumping, the way everything seems to decelerate, the sense of freefall as she topples into the abyss.
Purple strobes make large, unhurried revolutions around her. Emma exhales once, to calm herself, and pivots in her chair to face the College Killer.
He’s standing right in front of her.
She bears down to quiet the claxon in her head, tries to absorb details. He’s white, of medium height and build, brown hair in a conservative cut. Brown pants, white shirt. He’s in his late twenties. Holding a bottle of Evian. Wearing glasses.
So ordinary.But you’re not ordinary, are you, John?
Engage. Keep him talking. Get everything you can. Please, god, let Travis be seeing this.Emma swallows against her dry throat and meets her target’s eyes. ‘Um, sorry?’
He smiles, nods toward Bell’s chair. ‘I was just wondering if someone was sitting here.’
Her right hand is on the sticky surface of the table, her left hand is free. She slips it into the pocket of her jacket, finds the Dictaphone, presses the record button.
Smiles back. ‘Yes, my b—’ – she backpedals quickly – ‘my brother is coming back from the bar soon. Eventually.’ She waves her right hand toward the third chair at the table, trying to make the gesture natural. ‘But you can have that chair if you want.’
The College Killer slides into the spare seat across from her.
