Page 8 of Girl, Remembered

Then, in April, he had turned fifty. His neighbor had baked him a sponge cake and put a single candle on it, claiming that fifty candles seemed excessive. Colin had stood in his kitchen while she sang to him and, staring at that lone candle, understood that his life was over.

He had no wife anymore. No children to speak of, because his wife had wanted to wait and then wanted a divorce. No house, because the house had gone with her. He had a small room in the projects with a single bed and a kitchen that doubled as a bathroom, and somewhere out there was an ex-wife living handsomely off his sacrifices.

For fifty years Colin had never thrown a punch. He’d never raised his voice in a meeting and never once sent back a plate of food that arrived cold. He had waited his turn in every queue the world put in front of him. Younger men swaggered past him into jobs he’d earned. Women seemed to look through him. Somewhere in those fifty years, Colin Wray had melted into life’s background furniture, which was now where he was doomed to spend what few years he had left. It had begun as annoyance, but had now transformed into a rage at a world that no longer made sense to him and, he was certain laughed at him behind its hand.

The cruelest part was that Colin Wray had done nothing to deserve the laughter. He had kept every rule. He had been good, and being good had cost him everything. The world seemed to hate him without reason.

Well. Tonight he would finally give the world a reason.

Up ahead, the Silver Spring Transit Center rose out of the dark. It was three tiers of concrete, all of which were eerily deserted at this hour. The buses didn’t start running until 6AM, so Colin had just under two hours to get the job done before the commuters started rolling in.

Colin chose a bench on the ground level, close enough to the timetable board that a passing patrol car would see a man waiting for a bus, but far enough from the lone working camera that the man would have no face. He knew about the camera because he had come here four times in daylight to learn the place. That preparation belonged to the old plan, but knowledge kept its value even when the plan that bought it didn’t.

He sat down and waited. Even though this place would be dead for a couple of hours, there was always a lone straggler that was too cheap to get a motel for the night so settled for a bench instead. Colin was banking on there being at least one such person here tonight, and if there wasn’t, he’d wait until someone suitable showed up. Colin had no intention of leaving this station without blood on his hands.

The waiting gave him room to think, and his thoughts went where they always went, down the worn groove that led to Diane.

People assumed a divorce ended once the paperwork was signed. Colin knew better. Diane had spent eleven years dismantling him so subtly that he simply figured that was what marriage was. Diane had corrected the way he dressed, the way he ate, the way he told a story at a dinner party, until he learned to check her face before he finished a sentence. By the end he’d apologized for things he hadn’t done just to keep the peace. When Diane finally left, she told her friends he had no personality. She had drained it out of him a spoonful at a time and then used that as an excuse to leave him.

He’d fantasized about hurting her, of course, but abandoned the idea for the same reason every time: the ex-husband was the first door the police knocked on. Diane was the one woman on earth he couldn’t touch.

So Colin’s frustration had gone looking elsewhere, and elsewhere turned out to be everywhere. Colin began to see Diane in the faces of strangers, in every pretty face that expected the world to open for it and was proved right daily. Diane hadn’t been special or clever. She’d just been good looking, and so the world had bent over backward for her. It was the same for every woman who’d been gifted with a symmetrical face. His mentor had told him so herself, and she would know, being one of them.

Don’t romanticize us, Colin. We’re all the same animal. A few less of us isn’t going to make a difference.

And the mentor had said, if Colin really wanted to exorcise those demons, he should leave a lock of brunette hair at the crime scene. She’d even given him a knotted lock of hair he could use, which he’d accepted gladly.

Footsteps on the ramp.

Colin peered over without moving his head, and a figure appeared at the top of the ramp in increments.

When he saw her properly, his heart began to climb.

She was in her mid-twenties with a backpack over one shoulder. She was dragging a duffel bag with the one arm and had two carrier bags in the other. She stopped under the timetable board to redistribute the weight, lost the battle, and set one bag down on the concrete with a huff.

Colin took out his phone and put it to his ear.

‘No, I know,’ he said to nobody, but loud enough for the lady to pick up on. ‘I told Dave the delivery was six, not eight. Well, I’m at the station now, and hopefully I’ll get there for eight, but it depends on when the next bus comes.’

As she drew level with his bench, he lowered the phone and covered the receiver with his thumb.

‘Sorry, do you need a hand with those?’

The stranger looked at him, and Colin registered the small miracle of such a thing.

‘Oh my God, would you? My hands are killing me.’

Of course, he thought, standing. Of course she said yes. Kindness at the right moment was all it took. On a bright street with her hands free, she’d have walked through him. It took the dead of night and a load she couldn’t carry for a man like Colin to finally become visible.

‘No problem. Where are you headed?’ he asked.

Colin didn’t hear the answer, because he was already reaching for the knife.

CHAPTER FOUR

Keith Brace could name the exact day his life had been decided for him.

Tuesday, September 4th, 1990. The first day of seventh grade, and his mother had sent him to school with a briefcase.