Play Dead

Chapter 29

He walked toward me.

A shadow among the shadows.

He always came to me at night.

Sweet boy. Sweet, sweet boy. Such a pretty face.

He couldn't see me, because I was hiding.

Nobody could ever see me. I was invisible.

It had been easy to lure Enrique to the fountain. He was used to these assignations, and suspected nothing.

He always did what I told him to do.

When he was close, I stepped from the shadows, frightening him.

"Those two detectives," he fretted. "I'm afraid they might start asking questions I won't know how to answer."

"You worry too much."

"You didn't kill them, did you? Gary Turello and Jordan Kemp?"

"Of course not. How could you think such a thing?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not mad at you. I should be, but I'm not."

He smiled. Enrique of the pretty face. The pretty teeth. He always did what he was told, but Enrique was weak. If the police brought him in for questioning, he would talk. In the end, his loyalty would be to no one but himself.

"I'll never ask you to do anything you don't want to do ever again," I said.

I used to pretend that something had come over me. That a spell, a curse, had turned me into something else, a new species. But then I realized. This is what it's like to be human. What it's like to be alive.

The smells.

Glorious.

The hunger.

The cravings.

So much time had been wasted.

"Come and play," I whispered. "Wade with me in the fountain."

A smile hovered near the corner of his mouth, but he made no move.

The tabby brick wall was wide. I ran, landing on the top, silent and smooth as a cat, then I slipped quietly into the water.

He would follow.

I heard a splash behind me and smiled to myself.

The water wasn't deep. No more than three feet.

I dropped to my knees, then rolled to my back and floated. Something brushed my hand, and I realized it was a fish.

Stars. In a black velvet sky.

"I haven't told anybody," Enrique said. "And I won't. Ever. You know that, don't you? Your secret is safe with me."

"Shhh," I whispered. "Look at the stars. Just look at the stars."

"They're beautiful," he whispered.

I rolled to my stomach. "Keep looking." With my feet on the bottom of the pond, I pushed and floated to Enrique's side. "Don't stop looking."

He always did what he was told.

I could see his eyes, see the stars in his eyes. The eyes in his pretty, pretty face.

I pulled out the knife. "Are you looking at the stars?" I asked him.

"I'm looking."

I could hear the echo of the smile in his voice as I slit his throat.

Your secret is safe with me.

Hot blood ran across my fingers. Sticky. Smelling sweet and bitter and metallic, all at the same time.

I'd been planning this moment for days so I knew what to do. I worked diligently, and soon everything was exactly the way I'd seen it in my mind. I filled his clothes with rocks, so he would sink. So he wouldn't be found for at least a few days.

Finished, I climbed from the fountain, water pooling from my clothes. I was hot and tingly, my nerve endings singing. I could smell the worms living in the soil beneath my feet. I could taste salt in the air, from the marshes miles away. I could hear people fucking in the safety of their homes and beds.

I stroked myself through my soaked clothes and thought about the detective David Gould.

The salt in the air became the taste of his skin; the whispers, his soft encouragements and groans of sexual satisfaction.

I hurried through the darkness. In my bed, I stripped off my wet things and slipped under the covers, putting my arms around Mr. Turello, pulling him close, whispering sweet tales of death in his ear.