“Oswald fixed me with this look of pretend sympathy, and said with what I’m sure he thought was complete sincerity, ‘I wish I could Cole, but I really don’t think anything you’ve made this semester justifies that sort of recommendation. Maybe next year, if you really come into your own.’
“I had just made a sculpture that had the whole classroom buzzing with envy, every student in that room wishing they’d thought of it first, and several of the girls snapping photos on their phones. Oswald gave it a B+. I could have killed him for that alone.
“From that moment forward, I started making plans. That was when I created my method, that served me flawlessly since. I found an abandoned mine shaft, not on any map, far away from hiking trails. You’ll know where that was, because it’s where you and I first met.”
Mara’s mouth falls open as she finally realizes what I was doing that night. I wasn’t in the woods to find her—I was there to lose someone else.
“I spent four weeks researching forensic evidence, and four more planning the event. It all went off exactly as I planned. I entered his house via an unlocked window I’d scouted before. I wore a full containment suit. Knelt on his chest before he even woke up, already strangling him, pinning him down with my weight. He looked up into my eyes and I saw the comprehension on his face. He knew why I was killing him. I wanted him to know. I finally got the acknowledgement of what he’d done. It passed silently between us as he died.
“I dumped his body down the shaft in two industrial bins I’d bought in cash from a hardware store with no cameras. I doused his remains in oxygen bleach and left nothing in the house—not a single hair off my head, no blood from him. Only a little urine in the bed from where his bladder let go.
“The key to getting away with it is this: no body, no murder. I left his car in the driveway, but I took his wallet. He had no wife, no children. Our professors were hardly the picture of reliability. I knew it might be weeks before he was properly reported missing. By then, I doubted a police dog could get a sniff of anything in his house.
“I had no fear of being caught. In fact, in the aftermath, I felt deeply peaceful. No itch tormenting me anymore. I had righted the scales.”
Mara gives a slow shake of her head, understanding that wasn’t the end of it. Not even close.
“Shaw knew,” she murmurs.
“That’s exactly right. Alastor watched it all happen, from the moment Professor Oswald turned on me. The other students knew I’d fallen out of favor, but only Alastor knew why.
“Once the news of the professor’s disappearance spread across the school, Alastor intercepted me on the way to the library. By this point I’d given him enough verbal slaps that he knew better than to speak to me, but he did it anyway, sidling up and saying in his overly-familiar way, ‘I suppose you’re glad to see Oswald gone.’
“I played it off. I said, ‘The professors miss more classes than the students do. He’ll be back when he remembers he needs his paycheck.’ Shaw licked his lips, giving me this grin like we both knew better. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.”
“Was he threatening to tell someone?” Mara asks.
“No, no, no. The game with Shaw has never been about exposing each other. He wants to be in on the secret together. He never intended to be rivals: he wants to collaborate.”
Mara’s face blanches. She was another of Shaw’s attempts at “collaboration.” He began the process of killing her, hoping I would complete it.
I take a breath. This is the part I didn’t want to tell her. The part I’ve tried not to think about since. The only other thing that’s ever made me feel guilty.
“At that point, as far as I know, Shaw had never killed anyone. I’m sure he had thought about it. Fantasized. Watched movies, read books, looked at porn that scratched a certain type of itch for him. But it was all theoretical. All imagination.
“I had taken fantasy into the real world. And to Shaw, I was a hero. An icon. Everything he wanted to be, but wasn’t. Any boy at our school with talent or swagger wanted to be friends with me. All the girls wanted to date me. None more than Valerie.
“I liked her, but I wasn’t interested in dating anyone. All I cared about was the trajectory of my career. Now that Oswald was out of the way, every door stood wide open.
“Shaw was obsessed with Valerie. She had a specific look that you’ve probably seen replicated in every girl he’s killed: slim, beautiful, with long dark hair, and at least one tattoo.”