Three Times a Lady

Chapter 32

An hour later, Nicholas slipped undetected into Amber Knightly’s house on Sweetbriar Lane; helped along in no small part by the fact that the clinically lazy slut’s home-alarm system had been disabled by the sweeping power outage brought about by the apocalyptic storm still raging on in the heavens.

Making his way quietly upstairs to her bedroom even though stealth wasn’t something he needed to worry about at this point, Nicholas paused and steeled himself for what would come next. Another murder. Another step closer to fulfilling his mother’s diabolical plan. Another step closer to finally becoming a real man – even if that long-awaited transition took place now that he’d blossomed into a living, breathing woman.

Thankfully, the god-awful rainstorm drowned out every other possible sound in the universe as he went, masking each muddy step he took up the thickly carpeted staircase. Brilliant flashes of intermittent lightning illuminated his way. Once again, as had been the case back in Dinah Leach’s mansion and Penelope Hargrave’s limousine, all of nature was his friend tonight.

With everybody in town – including law-enforcement –doing their damndest to keep the overworked dam from bursting just two short miles away, Amber Knightly would be alone tonight. Just as Nicholas had known she would be from the very start.

He stopped just outside the doorway of her bedroom and simply watched her for a little while. The pop singer sat in front of an elaborate vanity mirror with her eyes closed, dreamily running a silver-handled brush through her flowing blonde hair. A solitary, gas-powered lantern cast an eerie yellow glow over both her unlined face and the rest of the sumptuous space.

Smiling, Nicholas came up behind her and rested his hands gently on her shoulders.

Amber Knightly’s eyes flew open as she was abruptly jerked out of whatever reverie she’d been lost in. Nicholas’s handsome reflection stared back at her from the mirror. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t produce even one terrified scream before Nicholas jabbed the sleep-drug deep into her neck and depressed the plunger.

Stretching his own neck, Nicholas watched her body slip off the chair and down to the floor.

Then he smiled.

Time to get back to work. And he had all the time in the world here, didn’t he? Of course he did. No need to worry about anyone interrupting them.

Removing from his waistband the same knife he’d used to slice off Dinah Leach’s breasts and labia in her glamorous Buckhead home, Nicholas turned his wonderful fantasy back at the dam into stomach-turning reality. Dropping down to his knees over her, he began to pluck at the selfish pop singer’s million-dollar vocal cords like so many strings on a harp.

Strand by bloody strand.