But she knows too much. We keep each other’s secrets—trust each other, forcibly—and there’s always the chance she could talk. I’d sew up her mouth and be done with it, but then it’s hardly my fetish of choice.
“If you’re not going to talk to me,” she says, “then maybe you should just go.”
I squeeze my fists. Release them. Squeeze again. “Maybe I should.”
“You’re so busy these days. Your fingers in all those…pies.”
I flick my gaze over my watch—a Chopard, because Rolex is predictable and Tag is for trust fund morons. “I’ve got meetings.” And I do. I left Tuija in charge of bidding for my next acquisition just to appease this succubus, since she had some wonderful news.
“You go to your meetings. Just you remember, Aeron…” She peers up at me, narrowing her eyes as she strokes her swollen belly. “You have an example to set now, so for fuck’s sake…don’t go hacking up any more girls.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Aeron
Psychology (noun): secret members’ club helmed by Captain Obvious
News reporting is a lot like milking a cow. You have to pulls words out of your ass, find a different angle—anything for the cream. And when the cream’s all done, you chase the milk, because America still loves milk. No milk left? Shoot the cow. Move on to the next.
Case in point: we have a lot less to go on with Blood Honey’s newest victim, but my God, are we milking the fuck out of it. It’s not even ten a.m. and we’ve already got crackpot psychologist back on to speculate.
Speculate. Ah. It’s one of my favorite words, partly because it reminds me of speculums, and partly because it makes me a fuckload of money. Oh, I need to think of the money right now since Posner’s cryptic little suggestion that I stay away from this—or else—has been playing on my mind; just sitting there, smiling sweetly when I stare at it, poking when I turn away, like that child at the back of the classroom who turns into an evil fucker when he grows up.
“What’s interesting this time is the choice of victim,” Crackpot Psychologist drones onscreen. “First, we had Macy Ann Green. Mid-forties. Single mother, two sons. Then there was Jamie Perkins—fifteen years old. She was on her yearbook committee and played volleyball for her school squad. These women weren’t troubled; we don’t know how he knew them and we don’t know how he got to them, but what I can say in a professional capacity is that they’d have been a challenge, and that’s significant. Then we come to number three.” Dramatic pause. Thank you, Lore Corp media training. “Preliminary reports are suggesting she was a prostitute. That’s standard fair for your average killer—”
Kasha, our newscaster, puts up a hand in surprise. “Wait—can we just clarify that, please? There’s an average killer?”
He looks amused. Straightens his bow tie. Here is a man who’s enough of a hipster dickwad to be wearing a bow tie on a Thursday. “In my profession, yes. Absolutely. Most of the serial killers we see seek convenient targets. Prostitutes, homeless people, troubled souls…that’s why you won’t hear about them. It’s painful to say it, but these simply aren’t remarkable deaths. Blood Honey was looking pretty special in this regard because he picked challenging targets, possibly deliberately…and yet he’s changed this one up. It hints at desperation. Perhaps he’s losing some of his iron control.”
“Unless he chose a prostitute for a reason,” Kasha suggests.
“Possibly. Possibly.”
“And of course now we hear they’re considering the idea that this could be the work of more than one person.”
He shoots her an incredulous frown. “Since the timeframe between Miss Perkins’ death and victim number three isn’t clear?”