I sit in the lot. Hands on the steering wheel. Still.
But it is just not sitting right to me.
The candles say he abuses children.
The candles are the voice of God filtered through the confessional, interpreted by a priest I trust with more than my life, executed by an instrument that has never failed.
I’m doing the work of God, ordained by the Vatican itself. There is no doubt, I tell myself.
I wait until he leaves the office at 5:30. Follow him home. He stops at a small grocery on Via Epomeo. Buys bread, milk, a package of biscuits. The kind with chocolate chips, the ones children beg for in the checkout line. He pays in cash. The clerk knows him by name.
He drives home. Parks. Takes the groceries and the briefcase. The door opens before he reaches it. The yellow dress. The same smile.
I watch from across the street.
The forty-eight hours expire at 11 PM.
At 10:47 PM, I pick the lock on the building's service entrance. Climb the stairwell to the second floor. His apartment is at the end of the hall. The door has a standard lock. Twenty seconds.
Inside, the apartment is dark. The kitchen smells like the pasta she made for dinner. The living room has a couch witha blanket folded on the arm and a children's book left open on the cushion. A pair of tiny sneakers by the front door, side by side. Pink laces.
I move through the hallway. The children's room is on the left. The door is ajar. I see the glow of a nightlight. Plastic stars on the ceiling. Two small beds, one against each wall. The girl is sleeping on her side with a stuffed animal under her arm. The boy is on his back, mouth open, one foot hanging off the mattress.
I close their door all the way. Quietly. The latch clicks.
The master bedroom is at the end of the hall. The door is closed. I open it.
Roberto Ferrante is sleeping beside his wife. She is curled against him, her head on his chest, her arm across his stomach. He is on his back, one arm around her, the other at his side.
I stand at the foot of their bed for four seconds. The knife is in my hand. The bone handle warm from my thigh.
Four seconds of looking at a man sleeping with his wife's head on his chest.
I move to his side of the bed. Place my gloved hand over his mouth. Press down.
His eyes open. Wild. Confused. His hand comes up to grab my wrist.
I drive the knife into the base of his skull. The occipital entry point, the same target I've used before. The blade severs the brain stem. His body jerks once. His hand falls from my wrist. His eyes stay open but the life behind them drains. Instant. Complete.
His wife doesn't wake. The hand over his mouth muffled the single sound he made. The blade in the brain stem prevented any secondary movement. He died in four seconds. Quiet. Efficient. Professional.
I withdraw the knife. Clean it on the sheet, on his side, below the blanket line where the blood will pool and soak downward rather than spread. She will wake in the morning next to her dead husband. She will feel the cold first. Then the blood. Then the understanding.
I leave the apartment. Lock the door behind me and take the service entrance to the street.
I drive home with both hands on the wheel, ten and two, the way Zio Domenico taught me to drive when I wassixteen, because proper hand position prevents involuntary swerving, which is the physical manifestation of an unsettled mind.
My mind is unsettled.
Home. The crucifix. The candles.
I light four tonight. All four. Not because the system called for four. Because I need more light. More flame. More of the structure that holds the ritual together, that holds me together, that separates what I am on my knees from what I was in that bedroom.
I pray. The words come slowly. Halting. I say them twice because the first time they didn't sound right, didn't carry the conviction they've carried for every other kill, the unshakable certainty that the candles spoke and I answered and the answer was righteous.
I pick up the knife.
The cut is deeper tonight. I press the blade into my thigh and I don't stop at the usual depth. The skin parts. The blood comes faster. More. I watch it run down my leg and I feel the pain spread outward from the cut, reaching into the places where the doubt sits, trying to burn it out.
