None ever affected me. No matter the person. No matter the reason.
None until hers.
In a car I’d stolen and stripped of any identifying features, I waited. At six on the dot, two women emerged from the childcare center, several buildings down from where I was parked now. Bethany-Melissa’s auburn hair stood out; the reddish-brown color so much more interesting than Sarah’s mousy brown.
The two women stood chatting, which was bizarre to me. They’d just spent the entire day together, what could they possibly still have to talk about?
I didn’t enjoy speaking more than was absolutely necessary. There were already too many words in the world. It was a constant babble of nothingness that I had no desire to add to.
But I liked her voice. It was softer than most. Gentler.
When I’d seen what someone had done to her face, the anger inside me had raged, burning higher with every millimeter of bruising her tears had uncovered.
She finally raised a hand in a wave, and she and Sarah parted ways, Sarah trotting to a waiting taxi and Bethany-Melissa getting into a shiny white hatchback. The days had been getting shorter lately, ever since the end of summer, and I used the sinking sun to my advantage, waiting until she was driving into the blinding beams of light peeking over the horizon before pulling out to follow her.
I wasn’t surprised when she stuck to the streets of Providence. Her car might have been small, but it was an expensive European brand. She’d had neatly manicured fingernails when she’d taken my hand earlier, like she had the money to go to a salon regularly, and her shoes had been Italian leather.
It all spoke of money. A lot of money. More money than she should earn as a preschool teacher.
I noticed details. Details told me everything I needed to know about a person in under a minute.
A vital skill when you needed to kill them.
Not that I did that anymore.
New leaves had been turned over. New goals written down in the leatherbound book I kept in my bedside drawer, the one a therapist had made me start in the psych ward of the prison. It was the one thing I’d taken with me before I’d checked out.
Without their permission.
Even weeks later, I was still slightly annoyed my escape hadn’t made the news. It would have made the cat-and-mouse game I liked to play with the police a little more interesting, but alas, it seemed it was not to be.
I couldn’t blame the new warden. I wouldn’t have wanted a riot and an escaped prisoner on my record either. It reeked of incompetence, and that was something a man of any profession should fear.
Even ones in my line of work.
I kept low in my seat, sticking several cars behind Bethany-Melissa, though she had no reason to suspect I’d be following her. I doubted she was checking her rearview mirror for someone stalking her.
Which wasn’t very smart.
I’d talk to her about that. Once we were acquaintances, of course.
She pulled into the driveway of a large house in Providence, and I wrinkled my nose at it. Distasteful thing. Clearly designed by an architect to be edgy and modern. To me, it just looked pretentious.
It didn’t fit her. Despite her expensive shoes.
I parked several houses away, slumping in my seat some more, even though I’d chosen a car with the darkest window tint I could find. So even if she had glimpsed in my direction, she probably wouldn’t have noticed me.
I needn’t have worried. The moment she stepped out of her car, the front door to the house opened, and a man stepped out.
I sat up, the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickling with awareness.
He was attractive in his gray suit and neat haircut. Handsome in a movie star way, with too-white teeth and hair that he probably had highlighted every six weeks.
In his arms was the biggest bunch of flowers I’d ever seen.
My upper lip curled. With one look, I knew exactly who he was. Not his name or his age or how much money his bank account held. But enough to know the sort of man he was beneath it all.
His insides reeked of jet-black darkness.
They were apology flowers. I could see it in the way he swept Bethany-Melissa into his arms, thrusting them into her face while her body remained a rigid, unmoving board. She made no attempt to take them, backing away from his touch so quickly I was sure she hadn’t even consciously thought about it.
He let her go, but his wide smile betrayed his true personality. It morphed into something more like a shark with a mouthful of pointed, dagger-like teeth ready to rip the skin from her bones.
It was clear an argument had started from her lack of enthusiasm over his gift. His shoulders drew up toward his ears, stiff and tense. All the fake charm from a moment earlier disintegrating into a seething anger that had clearly not been buried too deeply.