Lee grimaced, but his shoulders had relaxed. It was like he was a creature of the night who’d been forced to bear the burning sunlight for a few moments, and now was at ease in the cool shade once more.
“What he wanted me to say,” he said. When Sen’s expression didn’t change, he elaborated: “That you’re a girl from town who I met today.”
“Your father lets you bring strange girls into his house?”
“He wishes I would do it more,” the man said flatly.
Sen didn’t understand what this meant, but perhaps it was a custom of foreigners, so she didn’t question it. She began to feel sick standing in this room that was not her room. Maybe it was the thought that everything she owned was now in the hands of foreigners.
“Could I see your side of the house?” Lee said quietly. His eyes burned with an odd intensity as he looked past her at the mirror image of his own room.
“That is a very bad idea,” Sen said. “Your father might allow me in your room, but my father would not allow you in mine. He would kill you on the spot.”
The man’s lips pressed together into a thin line, but heglanced quickly at her katana and nodded. “Fine. Then we’ll meet tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Sen echoed, letting out a sharp laugh. “When I wake up, I’ll probably think this was all a dream.”
The man hummed. His gaze darted around his room as if searching for something. He opened a drawer, pawed through it a bit, then offered her a silver fork.
“Proof,” he said simply.
She took it with stiff fingers. “You do know that there are forks in my time?” she said.
He shrugged. “But do you keep any in your room?”
Sen looked down at the shiny silver teeth. No, there were no forks in her house. They were a relic of the West, something her father didn’t allow in their home.
“When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll find a fork beside your pillow, and you’ll remember.”
“I... suppose that will work,” Sen said. When Lee kept looking at her expectantly, she nodded toward the shattered sword guard on the floor. “You can keep that,” she said. “For the same reason.” She had no need for an old, broken sword guard anyway.
Lee turned and picked up the pieces, running his fingers across the grooves. “Thank you,” he said. “Sen,” he added quickly. Her name sounded strange on his lips, like it had taken on a new meaning that she herself did not yet understand. Sen forone thousand, a name that was supposed to mean longevity but was now the name of a ghost.
“Good night,” she said.
There was nothing more to say, so Sen stepped back through the door, closing it behind her.
“Lee Turner,” she whispered to herself, holding the fork tight in her hand.
Chapter Fourteen
Lee
Lee read that maggots could eat 60 percent of a dead body within a week. It had been almost a week at that point, and Lee tried to imagine what James would look like with only 40 percent of his skin and fat and muscles left. Which parts would the maggots eat first? Probably the eyes—soft tissues seemed easier to chew. It was almost as if the maggots were Lee’s accomplices, devouring his sins for him.
He wished he could remember where he’d hidden James, just so he could admire his own intelligence if nothing else. Whatever he had done with the body, it must have been ingenious, since no one had found it yet.
He felt silly for having worried about getting caught in the first place. He was Lee Turner—of course he could get away with it. He was smarter than ten cops combined. Even when his brain was filled with watercolors, he could pull off the perfect crime.
He paused at the thought, his hands slowing as he ground his father’s coffee beans. He felt a smile on his lips and carefully smoothed it away.
He had killed someone, and even if James had deserved it, it was nothing to celebrate. He set the coffee grinder down andgripped the edge of the counter and wondered if everyone—his classmates, his teachers, his own father—had been right about him. He didn’t just look like a monster; he had the heart of one as well.
Just like what they said about his mother.
Lee picked up the coffee grinder and twisted it more vigorously. They were wrong about his mother. They were wrong about him.
“I think it’s done,” Lee’s father said.
