“Everyone except Erin,” Mara murmurs.
“That’s right. Everyone except Erin.”
“Even me.”
“Yes,” I admit. “Though for me, that had nothing to do with Valerie. I noticed you because of what you did with that dress. But I’m sure Shaw loved that our tastes were finally aligning.”
“He wanted Valerie because he thought you wanted her.”
“Yes. He could never understand the difference between respect and desire.”
Mara sighs. “I don’t know if they are that different. It wasn’t your looks that drew me at first—I admired you. So much that it overpowered everything else.”
“You didn’t want me for my looks?” I say, pretending to be hurt.
Mara laughs, despite herself.
“Not back then,” she says, “But don’t worry, I’ve become much more shallow. Now I notice them every minute of the day.”
“Thank you,” I say, tossing my hair and smoothing it back with both hands.
Mara sorts and punches me playfully on the arm. But then she remembers what we were discussing, and her smile falls away.
“I’m guessing there’s a reason I’ve never heard of Valerie Whittaker,” she says.
“Yes.” I’m likewise not smiling anymore. “There’s a reason. They found her body draped across the lap of the sculpture of Lincoln on our campus lawn. Her naked flesh covered in bruises and bite marks. The first appearance of the Beast of the Bay, though I’ve never seen the police make the connection.”
Even though she knew it was coming, Mara’s face falls into lines of deep misery. She feels for each of these girls as if she knew them.
In this case, I did know Valerie. Mara is right to mourn her loss.
“Shaw left her there for me, like a cat bringing a dead bird to your doorstep. I didn’t have to see his smug smile the next morning in class to know who had done it.”
I swallow down the disgust rising in my throat.
“He thought I’d be impressed. Proud of him, even. I shut him down hard. Turned away if he even tried to speak to me. That was the real start of our enmity. He had shaken off my snubs before. But failing to acknowledge his first kill … that he couldn’t forgive.”
“Did you consider telling the police?” Mara asks.
“No. Shaw would expose me in turn. There was no evidence of what I’d done to Professor Oswald—Shaw hadn’t found my dumping ground yet. But he could draw attention where I didn’t want it.
“I felt sorry for Valerie, to a degree. But you have to understand Mara, I had no real attachment to her, or to anyone. Not until I met you.”
For Mara, who bonds with everyone she meets, this must seem incomprehensible. Still, she nods, understanding me even on our point of greatest difference.
“Valerie’s death drew much more attention than the professor’s disappearance. The arrival of TV cameras was exhilarating to Shaw. That was when he truly began to transform: he arrived at school with his hair freshly cut and combed, wearing an outfit that was almost stylish. He spoke confidently to the cameras, telling them how close he was to Valerie, how wonderful she was, what a loss her talent would be to the art world, and how he hoped whoever had done it would be caught quickly.
“Her death energized him. He made his first painting that scored the top mark in the class—a large abstract in brilliant color.”
Mara grimaces, finally understanding what each of those garish, vibrant canvases means to Shaw. His technicolor rainbows are the energy he feels when he brutalizes a girl, ripping her soul from her body in wild, erotic abandon.
“That’s what the inside of his head looks like,” I tell Mara. “And that’s why you have to be very fucking careful around him. I’ve killed from anger, or because I felt justified. Shaw delights in it. There is nothing more erotic to him than causing pain. Hearing a woman’s screams as he rips her apart. If he ever gets the chance, he will slaughter you without hesitation. He wants to kill you. More than anything else. More than he wants to kill me. He wants me alive to see what he’s done to you.”
Mara sways in her chair, her skin dull as chalk.
I take her cold hands in mine, looking her in the eye.
“But that’s not fucking happening,” I assure her. “We will make our plan, and he’ll never get closer to you than the length of a room. You won’t fight him. You won’t even touch him. I’ll do what needs to be done. I just need your help to create the illusion. He’s bigger than me—I need one moment of surprise. Just one single moment.”