Lexi nodded. She might learn something that could help her. If she knew what made him tick, maybe she could get out of this.
“We won’t start with my troubled childhood. That’s old news. We’ll start a little later, when I fell in love with a woman as a young man. She had everything and she was everything to me. You see, I’d only known twisted love up to that point and she made me believe we had a future. I was ready to lay down my life for her. Instead she picked up a new, what she liked to call, ‘boy toy.’” His hands clenched and the gun wavered.
Lexi whimpered and moved back deeper into her chair.
“Oh, sorry, love. You don’t mind if I call you ‘love’, do you? I know that stupid rock star calls you that all the time. It seems to fit. Now, where was I?” He picked at an imaginary spot on his slacks. “Oh, yes, the whore that broke my heart. Do you know what it is like to love someone and they don’t return that love? I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest while it was still beating.”
She shivered at the imagery. While he talked, a sense of calm fell over her as she resolved herself to her fate, no matter what happened.
“So, I studied them. Both of them. I’d already learned a great deal from her. She was wealthy and I learned to covet the finer things in life. I had plenty of time alone in her house when we were together to go through it and discover her secrets. See,” he waved the gun towards her, “that’s how I knew we were meant for each other. But this new toy of hers, the one she tossed me over for? Him, I had to really work at. He’d come from money and a loving family. Everything I didn’t have. I learned everything I could about him to become him. Do you understand what I am saying, Alexia? I became him.”
Lexi started shaking her head. If this was headed where she thought it was, she wasn’t sure she could live with herself.
“It took much longer than I thought, this transformation. At times, it was painful but I relished the pain. It was so worth the wait. Didn’t the doctor do a wonderful job reconstructing my face? Making me look like him? Even now, Alexia, you are having trouble wrapping your head around it. It brings joy to my heart to watch your thoughts pass across your face. You really shouldn’t ever play poker.” He laughed with mirth. “What am I saying? You won’t have to worry about that after today.”
Lexi moved her hands between the cushion and side of the chair. She was constantly losing things down there. There might be something, anything, down there that might help her. She stopped moving when he stopped laughing.
“Then after I had learned all that I could, would you like to know what I did? I killed her. They say you never forget your first. Well, that’s true.” He rubbed his hardened cock, eyes rolled back. “Sorry, about that. The blood, all the blood as I was fucking her.” He shivered with a gleeful expression on his face. “I came inside of her while I killed her. She called me Anthony. At that point, I knew I could do anything. My plan had worked.”
Lexi stared at him in horror. She had put an innocent man in prison. Every time he’d said he hadn’t done that to her, would never do that to her, he’d been speaking the truth. Silent tears rolled down her face.
“The only thing I hadn’t planned on was that the real Anthony would go out that night. That he’d end up with an air tight alibi. He was supposed to take the blame for it. That fucker is one of the luckiest bastards on the planet. Six times I’ve done this to him! Granted, he didn’t know about all of them—some of them he never dated more than once. But if any of them looked similar to Tiffani, I would kill them. I always had it planned out, but he had an annoying tendency to change his plans at the last minute.” He punched the side of the chair and smiled as Lexi jumped. “Until you. Who would have known that by not being able to finish killing you, you would’ve been the one to finally send him to prison.”
He stood up and started pacing. Every time his back was turned, she moved her hands deeper into the cushions. Her fingers caught at something but she couldn’t be sure what it was.