“You look beautiful, dear,” he said. “Sit down. Let me brush your hair.”
I sat down on the corner of the bed, dazed by his good mood. He retrieved a hairbrush from the bedside drawer and sat behind me. His hands moved through my hair, the brush caressing my scalp gently. There were a lot of knots, but he worked patiently, never yanking the brush. His fingers were long, careful. He would have been a good surgeon, I thought stupidly.
“There,” he said. “Now let’s go downstairs.”
He led me down, his hand guiding me on the small of my back. We passed the statue of horses on the stairs; their eyes seemed to watch me as I went down. When I realized we were heading to the kitchen, I started back in panic.
“It’s alright, kitten,” he said, catching me against his chest. “You’re going to make me something to eat, that’s all. That’s all.”
I trembled and continued. What else could I do?
He sat at the kitchen table, where days earlier I had watched him kill and dismember the professor. He gestured toward the fridge.
“Make us something to eat,” he said.
I opened the fridge and looked inside. It felt so weird to look at what a serial killer ate. Everything was so… normal. Milk, eggs, orange juice, shredded cheese.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Are you good at cooking? No, I don’t care. Make us an omelet. You know how to make an omelet, right?”
“Sure.”
“There’s ham in the bottom shelf.”
I took out all of the ingredients and began to do what I had done a million times. Sometimes when I was cooking in someone else’s kitchen, I didn’t know where anything was, but everything in his place was exactly where I would have put it. Bowls in the side cabinet. A pan underneath the counter next to the stove. I greased the pan with butter and turned the stove to hot. He sat there quietly, watching me as I beat the eggs in a large bowl. Then I took out a knife to cut the ham into pieces. As I finished cutting, I looked up at him. He was watching me intently.
“Did you not want me to use a knife?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows in a question.
“I—it’s a weapon,” I said. “I tried to kill you before.” As I held the knife in my hand, my palm grew sweaty. I thought about the razor and blinked the thought away.
“Are you going to try to kill me now?” he asked, smiling.
I shook my head. No, I wasn’t. I was—I didn’t know what I was doing. I put the knife down and sprinkled ham over the cooking eggs in the pan. Added cheese. Flipped the omelet in half, flipped it over to finish cooking.
“Your parents were on the news today,” Gav said. “The local station.”
I almost knocked the pan off of the stove.
“What—what did they—”
“They thought you had run away again,” he said. “They begged for you to not do anything stupid. To come back home.”
So nobody was looking for me. Nobody thought I was kidnapped.
As though reading my mind, Gav spoke again.
“Your friend thinks otherwise,” he said. “The one with the spiked hair and all the piercings.”
“Jules,” I murmured. It seemed like so long ago I’d been shelving books alongside her, making jokes about the terrible books people checked out.
“She’s the only one who thinks you’re kidnapped, though,” he said, shrugging. “Nobody will listen to a girl who looks like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know full well that appearances are all that matter in the world today,” he said. “The eggs are done.”
So they were. I slid the omelet out onto a plate, cut it in half, made two servings. Gav came around and poured two glasses of orange juice. The silverware clattered onto the table. We sat side by side. I cut my omelet into pieces, holding the knife carefully so that he could see it. He didn’t care, or pretended not to.
“Delicious. Wonderful meal.” Gav set his knife down onto his plate, crossed over his fork. “What do you want in return?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing, yet.”
“You’re saving up favors?”
“Maybe.” Truth was, I had no idea what I wanted from him. I wanted… I didn’t know what I wanted.
“I’ll never let you go. If that’s what you’re waiting for.”
“What was the good news?”
“Hmm?”
“You said there was good news. Was it that my parents aren’t looking for me?”
“Oh! Oh, no. Although that is good news too. No, I was out looking for the next man to give me some release. A hundred or so miles away from the last victim, so it’s perfect. You know, I don’t normally kill close to home. This last one was an exception. He was special. That was a mistake, I suppose. It’s how you found me, anyway.”
“You… you’re going to kill someone else?” My mouth dropped open and my fork fell against the plate. I didn’t want to eat the last bite of my omelet.
“Yes. Tonight, maybe tomorrow. I’ve already laid the groundwork. Finding out his schedule, his routine. They always have a routine. You know.”
“How—how many people have you killed?”