Pretty Little Dead Girls (7 page)

But he also wanted to save her, as one saves dessert for a particularly fine reward for a job well done, a job like passing a grueling test at school or surviving this life, and thus he put Bryony away for later.

That did absolutely nothing to dispel the fact he wanted to kill now, and to make it good and satiating. One does not necessarily have to have crème brulee to satiate oneself. Certainly when there is no crème brulee to be had, one can do quite well with marshmallow rice squares made out of the cheap generic store brand cereal. There is no shame in this.

This particular victim was a girl that he saw shopping at a charmingly modest used bookstore that also doubled as a bakery, and she had exquisite calves. They reminded our killer of his days in junior high, where the girls had trim little calves that lengthened each time they had a growth spurt, and he would stretch his gangly legs out under their chairs so he could be as close to them as possible.

I shall call this girl Kathleen,
he thought to himself (for Kathleen was the name of a girl that he had a shy fondness for when he was about fourteen). He followed discreetly as she hopped in her car and pulled off in the park to enjoy her scone and book. He hoped that this would be her destination, because he had it on good authority (his) that the women who exited this particular bakery/bookstore tended to be the type who headed outdoors to enjoy their lives, and they did things like knitting in the bright morning sunshine, or running around, laughing, with a red kite, and practicing tai-chi out in one of the many parks. This made him realize two things: 1) Bakery/Bookstores are good for the soul, and 2) they were also a fine place to prey.

“Excuse me,” he said, stopping beside the woman as she read her book. She looked up, wiping bits of scone off from her lips.

“Yes?” she asked him with a barely detectable hint of nervousness.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I happened to notice that you are reading the same book I am hoping to buy for my wife’s birthday. Is it something that you would recommend?” A man walked by lazily, and the murderer’s eyes followed him with studied nonchalance.

The woman, his “Kathleen,” looked faintly surprised. “You want to buy your wife a copy of
Why It Is Prudent To Kill the Man That You Marry?”

The killer’s eyebrows raised a fraction before he could control them. “Why, uh . . . yes. Yes, I do. That is precisely the book that I wish to purchase. For my wife.”

“Kathleen” shrugged, and the killer sighed in relief. The woman burst into a long and tedious book report using words like “feminist ideals” and “male oppressive dogs” and by the time they were completely alone and it was time for her to die, the murderer was very, very ready to kill her.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A Song

Eddie sat with his back against the cloying floral wallpaper in his apartment. He held Jasmine in his hands, and ran his fingers over her strings as he looked through the window. The moon was extravagant tonight. The stars were full of brilliant luster.

His fingers never ceased their movement and with his eyes full of the stars he teased out a song. It was something quite unlike anything else he had written before. It was about death and life and a plant that can heal or kill, respectively. It was a song about making the choice to love when you knew that in the end

. . . you would only have . . .

. . . empty hands.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Be Aware

Syrina wasn’t home when Rikki-Tikki came by, but that was all right. He mostly came to speak to Bryony.

“’Sup, girl,” he said, and hugged her. She had spent the morning paying bills and making Very Important Phone Calls and decided to reward herself for the hard work. She was frosting cupcakes and was careful not to get the frosted knife in Rikki Tikki’s dark hair when she hugged him back.

“Hello, how are things? Would you like a cupcake?”

He would like one, very much, and there was an impromptu cupcake party full of sprinkles and raspberry lemonade and good times and laughter. It was an enjoyable occasion, and funny stories were told, and each had the choice opportunity to see each other as the enchanting and mischievous beings that they had been as small children. But then it was time to get serious.

“They found another body, Bryony. A young woman with all of her limbs broken, stashed behind some trees in the park. She had some sort of book shoved down her throat, is what I’m hearing.”

“Oh, how terrible.”

“It’s coming up on your turn, you know.”

Well. He knew it, and she knew he knew it, but somehow the words still sounded unpleasant hanging in the air like that.

“Is it time for me to leave, Rikki?” she said. He was a big man, and a kind man, but most important of all, he was a wise man that listened to his gut and the wind. He watched things closely while the rest of them ran around in carefree bliss. Bryony trusted he would pick up on the subtle tell-tale signs the rest of them would miss.

He shook his head.

“Nah, it ain’t time. Not to leave permanently, not yet, anyhow, but you need to be aware.” He leaned forward. “I think it is time that you take Eddie home and pay a visit to your daddy. He needs to meet the man you’re in love with, and the man that loves you.”

Bryony smiled. “I don’t know if Eddie knows he loves me yet. We haven’t even gone out.”

Rikki-Tikki rolled his eyes. “Girl, he knows. Doesn’t sit well with him, but he knows.” He looked at her meaningfully. “It’s time for you to get out of here. Not for long, because I know fate can find you there, too, and quite possibly it is even more dangerous there. But, you’ll have Eddie, and you’ll have your daddy, and with the three of you standing arm in arm, I think you would have a mighty fine chance of surviving. Might even give fate a good ole kick in the eye, and I can’t think of nothing better. But here? It’s getting too hot around here right now. If you slow down for a second, I think you’ll realize it.”

Bryony patted his knee. “Thank you. You are a dear friend to me.”

Rikki-Tikki grinned, and Bryony liked that. His teeth were white and happy and when he smiled, somehow the world seemed to be a better place.

“There’s one more thing, kid,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I think it’s time that the ole Rickster teaches you how to box.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

A Circle of Stars

Bryony didn’t know why, but she was nervous the next time she saw Eddie. Usually she said what needed to be said without any embarrassment whatsoever, because honestly, who had the time to dance around what was really important? If there was something to be said, it should be said. There might not be a tomorrow, or even a later tonight. But something in her stomach flipped around, and when she saw Eddie at the market the next morning, she found herself suddenly not knowing what to say.

“I called the radio station,” he said to her, and grinned. “I’m going down on Tuesday to introduce myself and play a couple of songs. Which ones do you think I should choose?”

She stared at him and her mouth worked, but nothing seemed to come out. Eddie’s smile faded and he looked at her with some concern.

“Bryony? Are you all right?”

Suddenly she wasn’t. She was tired, and scared, and the feeling of somebody’s eyes on the back of her neck became more intense lately. Her daily boxing lessons with Rikki-Tikki made her feel strong and safer for the most part, but as she clenched her fists (careful to keep her thumb on the outside as he had demonstrated) it could not be denied that she was learning to defend herself from
someone.
Even if it was the palms of Rikki-Tikki’s hands she was hitting, or an imagined foe she was kicking, there was a very real
someone
out there causing all of this commotion. If she was anywhere else, she would have run by now, picked up and moved to another destination, somewhere creative and new, where death wouldn’t be able to find her. She would have blended in, she told herself, keeping her head low while people around her fell to the earth as their hearts stopped. Only she couldn’t blend, had never been able to. Exquisite disaster perfumed her breath, and every eye always roved until they found her, and there it stuck.

But she didn’t want to run. She wanted to stay here, with her friends, with her flowers, with Syrina who told her to start hitting the trails and suggested how to cut her hair, and Rikki-Tikki who was teaching her how to throw an effective right hook . . . and with Eddie. So much with Eddie.

There was no time. There was no time. There was no—

—time.

“I love you, Eddie Warshouski. I am going to die, very soon. I can feel it. It’s coming closer and closer, and it’s time for me to leave here, but I can’t. Because I love you, and I think that you love me, too. I want you to come home with me and meet my father.”

Well.

Well.

Eddie stuck his hands in his pockets. It looked like a defensive gesture, and something small, a bright and giggling thing inside of Bryony’s heart clicked and broke, and she felt the pain of it as it rusted inside her chest. She had been so sure, and Rikki-Tikki had said it himself, and could it be true? Were they wrong? Could it be that perhaps Eddie didn’t love her? The thought made Bryony slightly ill. Her head reeled.

“You’re not looking so well, love,” Eddie said, and helped her sit down.

“Yes, suddenly I’m not feeling so . . . what?” she said, staring at him with her large eyes. “What did you just call me?”

And Eddie did it. He couldn’t help it, but the sight of her inquisitive gaze, with hurt dampening the edges, made the sharp metal cage around his heart give way.

Eddie laughed. He tipped his head back and he laughed long and hard. When he finally wiped his eyes and looked back at Bryony, she was disheveled and obviously more than a little bewildered.

“Are you . . . laughing at me?” she asked him in a tiny voice. Eddie pulled her from the chair and swung her around.

“No, not at all,” he said. Then, “Well, yes. A little, but only in a good way.”

“I . . . uh, okay,” she said, and Eddie laughed again. He pulled something out of his pocket, which was the reason for putting his hand there in the first place.

“I’ve been trying to give this to you for ages, Bryony. And it just hasn’t worked out. I didn’t know how. But I saw this, and I thought of you, and I didn’t know if giving it to you would mean anything, or if I would make a fool out of myself, or if you wouldn’t like it or—”

“What is it?”

Eddie opened his hand, and inside laid a delicate bracelet made out of dozens of tiny silver stars. Bryony oohed.

“It’s beautiful, Eddie. This made you think of me?”

“How could it not?” he asked, and carefully clasped the bracelet onto her wrist. Bryony held her arm to the light, and the stars twinkled and chimed.

“It really is one of the most perfect things that I have ever seen,” she said, and the smile she gave Eddie made him know he had done the right thing, and for a second he was able to put the worries out of his mind. He knew as soon as he saw the bracelet was fashioned exclusively for Bryony, knew it would flow like water around the Star Girl’s slender wrist while sitting stiffly and disappointedly on anybody else’s. But he had hesitated. He had gone back to look at it in the case, again and again, pacing back and forth and trying to decide whether he should purchase it or not. Because he had visions, you see, pictures in his head of the way this would turn out. He would come home one day, either to visit her in her apartment, or perhaps (and this sent a little thrill through him) they would be married and he would return to the home they would share. “Bryony,” he would call, taking his jacket off and draping it over a chair. “I’m home, darling.” But there would be no answering call, no off-key singing in the back room while she dusted, and he would search the house for her, finding nothing, no trace. Until he came to the spare bedroom, where he would see something white and broken lying on the floor, barely peeping out from behind the bed. It would be her hand, he knew it, lying vulnerably with the palm up, the nails covered in blood and flesh that the police would later say wasn’t hers. And for a second he would say to himself, no, that wasn’t his Bryony, it was a discombobulated stranger that somehow ended up in the wrong house and had gotten herself killed. Yes, that is what happened except—

—except for the whimsical ring of stars circling her tender wrist and effectively destroying his desperate illusion, forcing him to see the bitter reality. Yes, this was his Bryony, and she had fallen, she had fallen, she hadn’t been able to run fast enough or far enough this time.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Dear Girl Who is Already Dead

This is what the murderer thought:

He thought, “The girl tends to come out in the early evening, except for Wednesdays. On Wednesdays she comes out in the morning when the mist still covers Matthews Beach. Useful.”

He thought, “She always runs alone and then stretches out by the water. Useful.”

He thought, “She tends to favor her right ankle, which seems to be a little unstable. Endearing, that. She is friendly to the other joggers on the trail, and doesn’t mind falling into step with them temporarily, and will even chat with them. Useful.”

He thought, “Something about her eyes. Something about the soft paleness of her throat. She seems to run above the ground, not necessarily across it. I think she was not created for this earth, but from the stars. And to the stars I will release her.”

Briefly he thought that this could be a kindness, but then he pushed the thought away. He is not a man who dwells on being kind.

Her time is coming.

It is coming, but it is not quite here. He wants to watch her a little longer, the way that she often comes and swings on the swings after a particularly hard run, like she was a child. The way she climbs into the lifeguard’s chair and gazes at the sky, or sits on the pilings and stares at the water.

Stares at the water.

Suddenly he thought of a gift that he could give her. It would be something very special, very personal for the Star Girl.

For the murderer had a hidden streak of romantic fancy inside of him, although he would slit your throat immediately if you so much as dared mention such a thing to him. But we are who we are, and deep inside the nearly impenetrable chambers of his heart, he wanted to do something small to make Bryony happy. He wanted to see her face alight with joy, to see her smile widen and know that he had caused it, to see the happy light burn bright in her eyes before snuffed it out permanently. This was what he thought about as he lay in bed at night.