2
Here is what’s supposed to happen: Now that I’ve identified my mark, I spend a day following him, learning who he is so that I’ll know how to play the part. I’ll meet him in some spontaneous, unexpected way. Smile shyly, wrap my hair around my finger. I’ll make him love me, whether this takes days or weeks, until he’s helpless in my palm. And then I’ll kill him.
I’ve never dealt the killing blow, but I’m the reason we never get caught. I know how to hide a body until it’s safe to dispose of it. The number one mistake is trying to make sure the body disappears entirely. People set fires or submerge their victims in acid, bleach every inch of the crime scene and throw their rubber gloves in a dumpster five miles away, thinking this makes them clever. But bones don’t burn, acid isn’t the eraser you’d think it is—besides which, it’s impossible to handle—and rubber gloves are a suspicious purchase to make right when your spouse goes missing.
The body is going to be found. That’s almost inevitable. Make your peace with this, and plan for where you’ll be when that happens. Hot weather accelerates decomposition; wildlife eats at the flesh and scatters the bones.
People have families who look for them, and small towns like Rainwood, Arizona, don’t see a lot of people disappear, so while the police may not have the resources, they’ll have the time. The key is to make sure the body has no ties to you and that you’re gone when it emerges. It’s as simple as that.
Right now, I should be following my mark. Getting to know his habits, making sure there isn’t a girlfriend or a wife or a nettling mother.
Please don’t let there be a woman in his life.This would mean I have to pick someone else. Someone who won’t get wary of me. A daughter or a niece would be worse. Little girls are more insightful than the most hardened detectives, and they’re too young yet to be anything but honest.
Instead of learning about my mark, I’m here, on a roped-off trail of the Skyline Hiking Hill, because Moody couldn’t just let me handle things. This trail is less popular than some of the ones on surrounding desert mountains. Not as scenic, and with paths too narrow and rocky for runners. The Serpent’s Trail is closed off because a twelve-year-old boy fell to his death three months ago. And judging by the physique of the man Moody clubbed with that tire iron, nobody will come looking for him on any hiking trails.
As it is, Moody and I worked up a sweat carrying him up the narrow channel in the pitch black. We had to wait until nightfall, leaving him in the trunk as we drove for hours. I had hoped the heat would do the job of killing him so we wouldn’t have to; it’s a wonder he survived,and a shame for him. Moody walked with a flashlight pinned between her lips, the only thing saving us from stepping into the abyss.
Now Moody is gone and I wait for her to come back. Just the man and me. I didn’t want to, but I had to hit him with the tire iron when he started moaning. “It’s better if you’re not conscious,” I’d said by way of apology.
I don’t have the flashlight. Moody took it for her descent. Things are chirping in the wilderness. An owl coos gently and flutters skyward.
The man is still breathing, and I can just see his white wifebeater rising and falling in the frail moonlight. I gnaw my lip, bearing down so hard I taste copper. I’m trying to resist letting my imagination paint another picture, the way I do when I stare at strangers for too long. It will do no good to think about who he is, because whatever that might be, he won’t be it for much longer.
Instead, I think of my mark. Right now he’s home, I tell myself. He’s got a condo, I imagine, with cream-colored walls because he doesn’t have anyone in his life to teach him about color schemes. I can see more hues. I look at a plain wall and see what sorts of shades would depict which sorts of moods. He’s still blank, probably little more than a recliner and a large-screen TV. It’s a Saturday night, and he’s home. In his shower, standing in the roils of steam, alone.
He doesn’t even lock his door, unconcerned as he is. If I knew where he lived, I could walk right in. Tiptoe across the living room floor, follow the sound of the water down the hallway until I find the room that radiates the warmth of the steam. Pull back the curtain with awhooshand a clatter of the plastic shower rings, and see him. Rivers going down the hills of his muscles. Hair rumpled and wet. All of him.
His eyes would go wide with shock, but I wouldn’t hurt him. No garrote, no knife. Not this time. Not yet. Nothing but me.
The crunch of pebbles under someone’s shoes shocks me back to the present. “Sissy?” someone whispers.
A flashlight clicks on and meets me squarely in the eye. Moody is standing before me, sweat darkening her shirt from armpit to hip. We keep in good shape, but neither of us is used to this terrain.
A figure emerges from behind her, slender, hair drawn back, and identical to Moody and me. Iris.
“You couldn’t have picked someplace more level?” Iris complains, even though she’s not even out of breath.
As though in answer, the man coughs and opens his eyes. I move to stand beside my sisters, and I watch as his expression juggles between delirious and astonished. He’s seeing triple.
“Well, this is a special moment for you,” Iris tells him, and I dread the enjoyment she’s taking from this, though I don’t say as much. “Not many people get to see all three of us at once. Unfortunately, it means you’re going to have to die.”
The man digs his heels into the dirt and tries to propel himself away from us. His gaze cuts to me, as though he can somehow tell us apart and he realizes I’m the one he pulled over to help; I’m the one who tried to spare him. He looks right into me, and for a second I can’t move. “Help,” he whispers. He doesn’t shout it. He knows there’s no one but the coyotes and owls to hear. “Help. Please.” The words aren’t for my sisters, or for the bright stars burning through the velvet sky. They’re for me.
I can only stare back at him.Who are you? Who is out there missing you?
I’m sorry.I mouth the words to him and then look over sharply to make sure Iris and Moody haven’t seen, but they aren’t paying me anymind. Iris waves the flashlight around slowly, tracing the cliffside. “Not many places to dig,” she says, and stomps her foot against the ground. “The earth is hard as rocks.”
I take comfort in my sister’s familiar practical calm. When it comes to murder, Iris is unsentimental, analytical, as though we’ve convened on this hiking trail to assemble a new bookshelf.
“Nobody comes here,” Moody says. “Trail’s closed. I can see why now. Almost broke our necks.”
“There’s a lot of brush in the hillside,” I say, capturing their attention. My sisters are more experienced than me. Last month, when it was Iris’s turn, she strangled her lover with a garrote fashioned from her lace bra. That’s her favorite method, standing behind them and clenching her fingers and her teeth until she feels them leave. She kills them in intimate places—the bedroom, the car after they’ve just had sex at a scenic overlook, and never when Moody or I am nearby. One of my sisters is out in public to be an alibi, while I’m waiting for the cue to come and clean up.
I’m the one who keeps us from getting caught. I never miss a detail, not a single drop of blood or a pair of headlights on the road behind us when there’s a body in the trunk. I’ve just never been the one todoit.
With this one, I didn’t have much time to plan. Since this is the desert, I hadn’t planned on a water burial anyway. We’ve only been in Rainwood for a day and a half. I’m still learning where the rivers and landfills are. I can’t have a search history on any of our devices, so I’ve been limited to travel brochures and paper maps. Real estate listings are also a good source, as the listing agents will mention any notable landmarks within a few miles of their properties.
“He only has a head injury,” I say. “Could have gotten that hitting his head during a fall.”
