“I guess so?”
“Take a deep breath.”
I insert the needle with such care that he hardly winces from the sting. I depress the plunger slowly, so as not to overwhelm his system, and when that’s done, I ease him backward so that he’s lying against the chaise. I scan the room quickly for something sharp that will suit my needs. My hunting knife would be excellent for this sort of task, but the weapon must belong to Elliot. My eyes alight on the canvas again, and the easel bracing it up. On the ledge is his painting knife. A bit dull for my purposes, but with enough pressure, I can make it work.
“How are you feeling?” I ask Adam once I’ve retrieved the blade.
“Great,” he says with a doped-up smile. “How about you?”
The drugs are working, which means he likely won’t remember any of this. “I’m not doing so great,” I admit. “I’m about to mutilate the most beautiful man in the world, who happens to also be my future husband, all to save him from his own dumbassery. I suppose you could say, I’m feeling a bit melancholy at the moment.”
“Future husband,” he says, glassy-eyed and grinning. He then goes on to sing, ala Sandra Bullock from her role inMs. Congeniality, “You think I’m gorgeous. You want to date me, love me and marry me.”
“Unfortunately, yes, which means you can’t go to prison just yet.”
“I really didn’t mean to kill him.”
Christ, he’s going to land us in hot water yet.
“You didn’t kill him, Adam. I did. I came in here and saw what he was doing to your beautiful face, and I knocked him over the head with a tripod. It was an accident. A terrible accident.”
“That painting is atro... atroshu... that painting is ugly.”
The painting belongs in a museum, and if I have my way, it will soon belong to me.
“You make a better actor than an art critic, dove.”
“Probably,” he says drowsily and heaves a great big sigh.
“Breathe deep now, pet, and let me know if you can feel this.” I make my initial cut on the apple of his cheek, his bad side as he would say. Though it’s never been true before, I suppose it will be now.
“I can’t feel anything,” he says with that inane smile on his face.
“Be still, Adam. I don’t want you to end up looking like the Joker.”
“What are you doing to me?”
“Not me, pet. This is what Elliot did to you because he was obsessed with your beauty and your talent. He wanted to ruin you, and I got here just in time.”
“My hero,” Adam says happily while I put pressure on the blade to deepen the gash, careful to stop short of the bone. Blood spills from either side of the incision like an overrun river, and I continue to carve a pathway along his face, following the contour of his bone structure, all the way to his jaw. It’s artistic, in its own way. Definitely adds an asymmetric component to his perfection, though I doubt he’ll see it that way. Even with a scar, Adam will be beautiful still, and thank God for that, since I’m the one who will have to look at him every day.
“This is a sacrifice for me too, you know?” I tell him as I lift the knife at last. Blood drips grotesquely down the side of his face, making him look like a real horror show.
“No pain, no gain,” Adam agrees absently.
“That’s right. Now, I need you to lie here and don’t move a muscle. When the police come, pretend you’re in shock.”
Adam makes his eyes go bug-eyed in an exaggerated mimicry of catatonia.
“Perfect,” I assure him. “Just like that.”
It takes me less than a minute to transfer Elliot’s fingerprints to the syringe and knife handle and my own fingerprints to the tripod’s legs. I blot the pearls of sweat that have accumulated on my temple and tuck my handkerchief away, then proceed to make three calls. The first is to 9-1-1 where I am panicked and distraught. The second is to Dr. Flemons’s receptionist to tell him to meet us at the hospital, pronto. And the third is to my lawyers telling them the same.
This will be the performance of a lifetime.
Chapter25
Adam
