CHAPTER1
MAXINE
Forget about the coppery smell, the slick feel of your sweaty palms under the leather gloves, and, most importantly, forget about the dead eyes staring back up at you.
Remember them when they were burning holes into your flesh with his filthy glances and suggestive leers. Remember his soft hands, because he never knew real work, as they bit into your skin.
That is the man you killed.
Don’t feel sorry for him. He never felt sorry for you when he made you bleed or hurt you so deeply, the wounds were invisible.
I wipe my brow with the sleeve of my shirt. It’s too big and the material is scratchy, but it mops up the moisture. After readjusting my crouch, I shove my arms under him and drag his heavy body a few more inches. It’s times like these when I wish I had a friend. I see people sharing memes about who they would call to help hide a body on social media. They make it seem fun, like a bonding experience, but it’s not. It sucks. I don’t even like myself much after I have to dispose of one corpse.
“A few more feet,” I grumble, talking to myself.
I’m alone in the house I scouted for months, pouring over every detail of the property to ensure I knew the place inside and out. There’s ten more feet before the garage, then another fifteen to get him into his truck.
I don’t need to worry about being caught red-handed. No one will be looking for him, and his wife and children are away for the week on one of their many vacations—vacations, in my opinion, that they earned for putting up with this asshole. I wonder if they will silently thank me when they won’t have to pretend that he was a great father and a loving husband. They should.
What makes the timing even more perfect is the fact that he shut down his own security system for me—a precaution he took to make sure he didn’t get caught doing what he loves, which is hurting girls—and it just so happened to work out beautifully for me. I’m not dumb enough to rely solely on him though. I did my own sweep and took my own precautions, but he made it easy for me.
I thought about trying to make his death look like a suicide, so I could let everyone find him in his home away from home, and maybe even discover all the atrocities he’s gotten away with here, but the moment I saw his ugly face, dark beady eyes, and a jaw many would still call chiseled, I put a bullet in his forehead. I’m not even certain he had time to recognize me, which sucks because I wanted him to know who killed him, and now I have a mess to sort out. Good thing the only people who know to connect him with this house are either already dead or on my list.
His feet thump down the two steps that lead into the spotless garage. The floor is cleaner than most of the tables I grew up eating on.
I drop his shoulders and stand up straight, mopping more sweat from my forehead while I suck in deep gulps of air. My heart is thundering harder now than it did when I sneaked into his house and watch him prowl around earlier this evening. I’m not too worried about my DNA being found on him. I’ve never been arrested, and the fact that I have no family to trace any familial DNA back to works in my favor too.
I look at the black SUV parked another five feet away. Getting him inside isn’t going to be easy, but if killing people were simple, then more people would do it.
I leave him lying on the floor and head over to one of the many built-in cabinets. I stowed some things here a few weeks ago in preparation, and I like knowing I could get in and out of this house without him knowing. Now that he’s dead, I might even miss my little game, but it’s not like he’s the last person on my list. I have plenty of others to fill the void with.
I line the back of his own vehicle with heavy plastic, since I don’t want to leave any blood evidence. A high-powered attorney such as Michael Cloven is bound to have a thorough investigation into his death, even if he’s found dead on the side of the road from an apparent robbery gone wrong. A little effort will show that Cloven often visited the area he’ll be found deceased in to pick up sex workers. His family and the DA won’t want that info to get out, so they’ll lump his death in with other acts of senseless violence, and some asshole will probably start a campaign on making the city safer. I’m doing everyone a favor.
With the SUV prepared, I lumber back over to Cloven. His skin is already waxy, but corpses look that way. It’s hard to see him as the man who was able to hurt me all those years ago. He seems so weak now, his face has more lines, and his hair is a little thinner. I’m surprised his vanity allowed him to show any signs of age, but his fit physique proves that he still cared. I want to kick him and beat my fists into his face, but there’s no point, so I take a deep breath and get my ass back to work.
I do wish I hadn’t killed him so quickly. It would have been nice to leave him battered and bruised the way he would leave me, but I’ll settle for his death.
* * *
The street is deserted,or at least it seems that way when I pull the SUV up to the curb. I picked this spot because there’s a trap house across the street, and most of the others around it are either vacant or used by squatters. In other words, nobody has a Ring Doorbell pointed my way.
It took me a long time to load his heavy ass into the back of the SUV, but I made it work. Now, I need to rush to get him out and on the ground in a similar position to the one he was in after I shot him, because I know rigor is setting in.
Keeping my hood up, I hide behind my bulky clothes as I yank him out of the rear door of the SUV. I fire off one shot after getting him settled, causing dogs to bark for a block or two, then hop back in his SUV and get out of the area.
It’s easy enough to cram the bloody plastic wrap in my bag, along with my boot covers and hoodie, after I park the SUV. Leaving the key fob in the center console, I walk away with my duffle gripped in my fingers. Two blocks later, I strip out of my zippered hoodies and drop them on a man curled up on the sidewalk as I pass.
Foot traffic is getting a little heavier because I’m getting close to the downtown area, which is a double-edged sword. It’s easy to get lost in the crowd, but it’s also easier to get spotted alone, now that I’m just wearing a tight-fitted, long-sleeved shirt and black jeans. Plus, my heavy bag could make me an easy mark for some idiot who thinks I might have something of value in the thing and not bloody plastic.
I stick kind of close to the group in front of me so it looks like I’m with them, but when the group enters a restaurant, I’m left on my own again. I look straight ahead while walking but keep my eyes peeled, which is why I’m surprised when the handles of my bag are yanked and I’m pulled into an alley when I don’t release my hold.
We tussle over my bag for a wasted second. There’s no way I’m letting the thing go. It’s getting burned along with everything else I wore tonight as soon as I get home. “You don’t want this,” I snarl through my teeth.
“Give me the bag, bitch,” he spits out and shoves my shoulder.
“The fuck you doing?” comes a low voice. I look over my shoulder to assess the new threat, but the man jogging over has his eyes locked on the guy tugging on my bag as if he doesn’t even see me.
I’m pretty sure my would-be thief is just as surprised as I am, because the next time I jerk the bag, he releases it, and I almost end up on my ass in the dirty alley.
