Eventually, we manage to snap out of it, slowly continuing our walk to the other side of the gym floor.
“Oh fuck,” she eventually jokes, but her laugh is as nervous as I feel.
I subtly pull her aside to the water fountain.
“Did you hear what they said?” I keep my voice low, but I know my eyes are wide and wild. The only illness that man had was in his psyche.
Clarke was the man I killed last night; he was a piece of absolute shit.
No loss to anybody.
He was our latest mark from the list for the Sumus society.
He was in the year abovethemat university.
When we looked at his file against the police records, we only used the dates of his graduation, and the one his wife provided. The latter was a domestic disturbance logged but never filed completely through. When we contacted his wife, she told us it happened repeatedly over their seven-year marriage.
She’d lash out, he’d drug her.
She’d been suspicious he was hiding something, and to keep her quiet, he forced her to be unconscious.
When she tried to file for divorce, he started a smear campaign against her.
Not a single lawyer in the state would take on her case.
When she’d finally realised she couldn’t live like this, she tried to report it to the police, and that’s where the case we found showed it was marked closed.
The last straw was when she needed an overnight stay in the hospital.
Regina visibly swallows. “Clarify to me how you left the body again?”
“A home invasion gone wrong,” I grit through my teeth.
Or in my terms, I murdered him and covered it up perfectly.
When I decide to go through with these kills, it’s easy to want to simply execute them on the spot. But that draws too many questions.
Was this an old enemy?
Who could have hated them so much to do this?
Was this targeted?
I switch it up between home invasions and masking it as them taking their own lives.
The Sumus members have hidden their misdeeds well. We haven’t been able to dig up dirt apart from the police files, and I’ve made sure none of their deaths would spark interest in being connected.
All spread out, all different.
Home invasion was needed for this one. These guys are dotted across the state now; the police have never been able to connect them. The sick part of me likes to rough them up if it’s a break-in andalwaystoy with them.
I like to let them know who sent the angel of death before they no longer waste oxygen.
“Why isn’t this being reported as a home invasion with murder? His wife didn’t say he had an illness?” she whispers, and I dip my head in response, directing her to the changing room so we can leave.
We don’t speak another word to each other as we shower and head home.
The minute we walk in the front door, knowing our surroundings are safe from prying ears, we head straight into Regina’s room.
