Madness saw the question flash. A soft chuckle rumbled. “But you didn’t play by all the rules, did you, Diane? In fact, you like to break them every so often. Not too much. But once in a while, you enjoy the walk on the wild side.”
Diane shook her head as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Gently, Madness approached the bed and sat. The mattress sagged. Diane’s black hair was plastered to her forehead by sweat. “Didn’t you ever hear that cocaine is a bad habit? If not for that little quirk in your personality, you’d have been fine.” Jonas had lured her out of her car with the promise of coke. “You’d be on the other side of that door right now sitting in your living room watching that cooking show you enjoy so much. But you couldn’t control it and now you must pay your toll.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, a soft moaning rumbling in her throat.
“Maybe it’s not a crippling compulsion, but it’s there nonetheless.” Madness continued to stroke her hair, so soft and dark. “You’re no different from me. Once in a while, I get the cravings. I can ignore them for a time. But the more I deny them, the more they grow until one day I just must have one little bite.” A snap of even white teeth close to her ear made her flinch. “You’re my bite.”
She closed her eyes and wept.
Madness drew in a deep breath, and the scent of her fear smelled sweet. Deliciously intoxicating.
“Now?” Jonas asked.
The world and the people in it were in such a rush. “In a moment.”
“I can’t wait! Why do I have to wait?” He pressed the handle of the gun to his head as if trying to soothe the pounding behind his eyes. Bang. Bang. Bang. The tantalizing promise of release was painful.
“Anticipation is the sweetest part of dessert.” Madness patted Diane on the arm, rose, and moved to the back corner of the room by the dresser.
Madness double-checked the camera’s angle and then hefted a red can of diesel fuel and jerked off the cap. A tip of the canister splashed the fuel on the gray carpet, over the blue bedspread and up sheer white curtains that blocked the light of the full moon.
Jonas shifted from foot to foot. “Haven’t you spread enough of that stuff?”
“Never can be too careful.” Diesel burned longer but didn’t have the initial combustive power of gasoline, which could spread too fast or burn out.
The woman twisted at her bindings. She rolled her head from side to side as if willing this nightmare to end.
They were all suffering with anticipation.
Backing up to the room’s threshold, Madness stood silent, savoring the scene one last time. Finally, Madness retrieved a box of matches from the deep pockets of a blue Windbreaker and dug out a single match and struck it. The flame danced and swayed as if begging to be sent out onstage.
Diane closed her eyes, as tears streamed down her cheek.
A breeze caught the flame and blew it out.
“What’re you waiting for?” Jonas asked.
One. Two. Three. Savor. Savor. Savor.
“Okay, Jonas.”
“I can shoot now?” Excitement and fear rumbled under the words.
“Yes.”
Diane’s eyes shot open and a muffled scream rumbled in her throat as Jonas raised the gun. She jerked at her bindings until her wrists bled.
Jonas pulled on the trigger and, as the gun fired, he closed his eyes on reflex. The bullet hit the woman directly between the eyes. Her body jerked as blood splattered and her eyes rolled back in her head. In one second she was gone, dead.
Jonas opened his eyes and looked at his gun in shock, as if the entire moment had been lived by another. He pressed the gun to his chest, cradling it close. “I killed her! I finally did it.”
Madness pocketed the camera. “Yes, you did. You did it just right.”
Jonas studied her. “She’s so still.”
“Yes.”
Seconds passed as Jonas stared at the carnage. Slowly the brightness in his gaze dimmed. The near-bursting bubble of anticipation had popped with one sharp prick of a bullet.
“You’re feeling let down,” Madness soothed.
Jonas looked at the gun and the woman. “How did you know?”
“Because I feel it too. All the planning, thinking, and dreaming. All gone in an instant.”
“Yes.”
“And just like that, it’s over.” The snap of two fingers echoed in the room.
Jonas flinched. “I thought it would last longer.”
“It never does. It’s always over in a blink.”
Jonas shook his head. “I thought there’d be more.”
“I told you, anticipation trumps the moment.” Breathe in. Breathe out. “That’s why I made us wait.”
“I can’t believe it’s over.”
A clap of hands made Jonas start and look up. “Time to go. Time to destroy the evidence.”
Jonas sat on the bed and took the woman’s cooling, still hand in his. “I won’t see her again.”
“No.”
“Can’t we just stay a little longer? I don’t want to leave her.”
Madness moved toward Jonas and gently pulled the gun from his hands. “We have to go. We need to destroy this evidence and leave.”
Tears welled in Jonas’s eyes. “I don’t want it to be over.”
“No one ever does.” Madness took Jonas by the hand, and with little effort guided him toward the door. One last glance back at the room, the strike of another match, a quick toss, and the room immediately was ablaze. Quickly, the flames generated white, then gray billowing smoke that thickened and blackened to a dense inky shade. Smoke and flame moved up the walls, over the ceiling and back down to the floor again in a deadly whirlpool.
If they stayed, they’d see the flames devour the floor, walls, ceiling and, of course, the woman. It all would be reduced to cinders in fifteen minutes. There’d be some forensic data to retrieve, but not much else. The body, perhaps, and the bullet. But not their DNA.
Out the front door, they moved into the darkness toward Jonas’s car, a station wagon. The actors always drove to the scene, never the master, in case a witness happened to look.
Jonas fired up the engine, revving the accelerator.
“Remember, drive slowly. We don’t want to be noticed.”