“Burn it.” I toss it into his lap. “I want it gone by the end of the day.”
Maybe they loved him, I gloated into Leo’s ear as she worried about Blood Honey’s victims, as she pulled tight on my cock like the slippery little Goddess she is. And maybe they did love him. Maybe they made scrapbooks about this shadow of a killer, forgave his many transgressions and offered their lives willingly.
It appears some women will do that, one way or the other.
Or maybe he pretended to be a nice boy until it was too late; an old tactic, but a good one, if you’re convincing enough. Rachel Fordham fell for it. I was just charming Aeron when I first began to groom her, the cute football player who knew bigger words than she expected. Surprise people in the right ways, grasshoppers, and they might just forgive you when you surprise them in the wrong ones, too.
“You could leave it for Gwen to find,” Harvey suggests in a flat tone. “Might be a good idea.”
“Huh.” Perpetuate the myth a little. Keep her on her toes. “No. It’d be too obvious.”
My iPad and phone both begin to beep softly in succession; Gwen, sorting through the crap in the company inbox I hadn’t got to, forwarding important stuff to my personal account. I watch the new emails line up on the screen with a vague, serene sense of satisfaction. No more of this bullshit for me.
One email bears the subject URGENT.
Right. We’ll see what Cleopatrassistant deems so important. Tuija only used the URGENT tag for big stories or PR disasters; we had far more of the latter than the former.
This literally just came in, she’s written at the head of a forwarded message. I’ve no idea of the authenticity but look at who else it’s been sent to—GNS, Snow Media, and the other addresses look like White House/FBI to me. Please see attachments ASAP and let me know what I need to do.
The original, forwarded email was titled Regarding the Blood Honey murders.
A ribbon of ice winds itself about my ribcage, startling my heartbeat to staccato.
“What shall I do with all the perfume?” Harvey asks. “Can’t burn that. I’ll blow up half the city.”
I don’t answer. I’m too busy staring at the email.
The attachment is named RF1, and it takes too many seconds to open; by the time it appears in all its scanned in, handwritten carnage, I’m already trembling. My pulse points throb like open wounds. It’s a hospital report dated fifteen years back. A hospital report about a certain Rachel Fordham, detailing injuries that lead to the end of our little fling.
Memories flash crimson through every synapse in my skull. Thunder and lightning, flesh and bone, my mother’s favorite kitchen knife so warm and comfortable in my hand. Rachel mewling like a cat slowed in the seconds before it becomes road kill; she was so worried that my neighbors would hear how stupid she was being. That night, I had one pointy elbow dug into the valley between her crotch and thigh, pinning her in place as I carved new slits in her swollen inner flesh. I remember how the blood came slowly. Slower than I was expecting. I remember praising her for that, how she sobbed through gritted teeth. Ah. I was just a puppy.
She begged me to take her to the emergency room. I refused and sent her home. In the end, her parents took her anyway, and suddenly my mother knew what I’d done to Rachel and the family were paid off so swiftly that it gave us all whiplash.
They were told not to talk. Even after Rachel’s suicide, to my knowledge, they didn’t breathe a word. And why would they? Their daughter’s humiliation was also theirs.