Howard took her arm, guided her away. “Now I really want to hear how that happened.”

  “We’re neighbors.”

  “Is that so? Well, the rest can wait. Got your ID?”

  “Yes, in my pocket. Nothing else.”

  Inside the walls, the world outside vanished. Not an illusion, Thea realized. The purpose.

  And worse, so much worse when with Musk and Howard and their uniformed escort they were cleared through the first security door and into a building.

  Sudden claustrophobia clogged the air in her lungs.

  “It’s normal, what you’re feeling,” Howard told her. “I don’t have to be a mind reader, Thea, to know what you’re feeling. It’s normal.”

  “Okay.” She had to resist the need to rub the cold chill from her arms. “It’s okay.”

  “If at any time you want to call this off—”

  “I won’t.” She shook her head at Musk.

  She submitted to the scans, answered the questions, signed the paperwork. She listened to instructions.

  No physical contact. Remain seated. Do not approach the inmate.

  More doors, more cameras, more hallways.

  “Here’s your stop.” Howard took her hands. “He’s already secured inside. Cuffed, leg shackles. They’re bolted to the floor. He can’t get up. He can’t touch you.”

  Not physically, she thought. But he had other ways.

  They both had other ways.

  “I understand.”

  “There’ll be a guard inside the entire time. There are cameras, and Phil and I will be watching, also the entire time. We won’t be far away.”

  “I know. I’m fine.” More than she’d expected to be. She felt she’d already run a gauntlet, and survived.

  “Do what you’ve gotta do then.”

  The guard opened the door, and she stepped inside.

  She felt it, felt his first stab of shock when he looked up, when their eyes met. Confusion followed it, then slowly, very slowly came the almost giddy delight.

  His mouth twisted into a smile.

  “There you are! In the fucking flesh.”

  “That’s right, Ray. Here I am.”

  She walked to the single chair across from the steel table, sat, crossed her legs.

  “I’d give you a hug and a big, sloppy kiss, but…”

  He lifted his cuffed hands to the end of the steel wires that secured him.

  “You got all slicked up for me. I’m touched.”

  “Obviously you couldn’t do the same.”

  The prison blues made his eyes look only more faded. His hair had continued to thin and straggled its way to his shoulders. Pale as a ghost and saggy with it, his face bore scores of deep lines.

  He seemed smaller, somehow smaller here, in the room, in the flesh. As if he’d been whittled away by the jagged knife of his own rage.

  “Remember this, Ray?” She held up her arm, wrist turned to him, and tapped the watch.

  She saw the way his eyes lingered on it. He still had that lust, that toxic envy.

  “Bitch got what she deserved. So’d your old man.”

  “They weren’t old.” As she spoke, she began to slide in, slowly, like smoke through a crack in the window. “Barely thirty-two when you killed them. Only a few years older than I am now.”

  “You’ll be lucky to make it that long. But you’ll do yourself. Put on some weepy girl music, light some candles, fill the tub. Drink some wine. Slash your wrists.”

  “Now, why would I do that, Ray?”

  “Because your life is shit. Everybody knows you’re a freak, a fucking freak of nature. I know what you want. A man to bang you, stick kids inside you. Big house with pictures of snot-nosed kids on the wall. Pool in the yard, fancy cars in the driveway.”

  A little deeper now, just a little, and he didn’t know she’d put that image—her family home in Virginia—in his head.

  “Is that what I want, Ray? You know me so well. What do you want?”

  Those faded blue eyes chilled, like ice over a dying lake.

  “To watch you die. Maybe I can’t do it myself, but I can watch.”

  “I think you want that big house, Ray, and the pool, the fancy cars. Fancy watches like this.” She drew his eyes and attention back to it, turning it so the stones glittered.

  “You never had that. Just an ordinary house, an ordinary life, nothing special. But you were special. You knew you were so very special. Your parents were afraid of you, weren’t they? Not so much because you knew things, though they’d’ve prayed that away if they could have. But it was the things you did. The awful things. To stray cats, to birds, to other kids, especially the ones smaller than you.”

  “You don’t know shit about my life.”

  “But I do, Ray. I’ve read your life like a book. One I can’t wait to toss in the trash heap, but I read it, Ray. Start to finish.”

  “There ain’t no book.” He shrugged his shoulders as if trying to dislodge a weight. And his fingers began to drum on the steel table.

  “But there is. It’s a sad, ugly book, but I’ve read it through. Why don’t I pick a chapter now? Remember this?”

  She pushed, and hard. He actually jerked back in his chair as if she’d used her hands.

  He was eight on a hot, sticky day, sitting in the stupid, half-assed tree house his father had built for him.

  But it wasn’t so stupid because his mother never came up here. Afraid of heights, afraid of him.

  Afraid of everything.

  She always called him down when she wanted him for something. Mostly something he didn’t want to do.

  Chores, church, visiting his decrepit old grandparents.

  Up here, he did what he wanted.

  He liked smashing flies, and ants. He’d learned if you dropped some sugar or honey on the floor, those ants came marching. Then you could stomp the shit out of them.

  He caught lightning bugs at night and peeled the wings right off them. Lights out!

  And butterflies would tear like paper if you did it right.

  He’d hidden an air rifle up here. He’d stolen it because he was good at stealing and he’d wanted it.

  He should have what he wanted.

  If you were quiet enough, got close enough, that air rifle would do a number on a bird.

  The neighbor’s cat liked to roam the neighborhood like he owned it. He’d been easy to catch and lure into the sack with raw hamburger. Maybe he’d gotten pretty mad about that, but a good whomp against a tree—not too hard, just hard enough—quieted him right down.

  Now, up in the tree house, he opened the sack. Some blood, and that excited him, but old Tom was breathing. Insects died so easy. He wanted something that took more, lasted longer.

  He had his father’s hammer and one of the penknives he’d stolen, since his parents wouldn’t buy him one. He couldn’t decide which to use first, then the cat started to stir.

  He lifted the hammer. He’d break one of its front legs. Let it try to roam around and climb trees like he owned the place then!

  As he lifted it, Thea spoke.

  “Don’t do that, Ray.”

  The hammer slipped out of his hand as he jumped to his feet. A little boy with a killer already alive in his eyes.

  “Who are you? How’d you get here?”

  “You know who I am, Ray.” She wore workout tights now for easy movement, a snug tank top, her hair in a braid.

  She’d kept the watch and earrings, the key. She wanted him to see them.

  “Don’t hide inside a kid. And don’t think I won’t kick your ass if you do. Because I know who you are.”

  It was the man who reached down for the hammer, and the man she kicked straight out of the tree house door. As the man in her mind hit the ground with a bone-snapping thud, the one across from her in the room jolted.

  “First round, you lose.” She climbed down. “And it’s your leg that’s broken. Bet it hurts. And look, Tom’s a little dazed, but he’ll be fine. Heading for home.”

  “This didn’t happen. It didn’t happen.”

  She leaned down close. “I’m making it happen. Time for another chapter, Ray. Better get up. I’m getting away, too.”

  In the prison room, he tried to choke out words, but she dragged him under again.

  Sixteen now, pale, rail thin. He’d already left home. Goodbye and fuck you. One day he’d go back, burn the house down with them in it. Try to send him to a shrink? Talking about military school or church camp and all that bullshit?

  He knew what they thought. He always knew. He was better than them, than anybody. And he could have whatever he wanted. Take whatever he wanted.

  Like this girl he’d found on the street. Give her a bed for the night—in a dump, but he had to stretch the money for now. All she had to do was put out.

  She hadn’t argued.

  Now he had her naked and he pumped and pumped and pumped himself into her. She made all those noises like they did in porn videos.

  But he couldn’t, just couldn’t. And he heard her thinking how he couldn’t, felt her rolling her eyes, smirking, faking the noises because she needed a place to sleep.

  As he went limp, his hand slid up toward her throat.

  He’d kill her. Time to graduate. He wanted her dead so he’d make her dead. Strangle her, beat her bloody. Stuff her in the closet and take off. Paid for two nights, he’d be smoke before anyone found her.

  And no one would care.

  “I care, Ray.”

  Breath fast and short, he scrambled up. “You’re not here.”

  “Right here, right inside that sick head of yours. Let’s get you dressed because I really don’t want to look at that pitiful thing.”

  She put him back in prison blues because that’s all she’d give him.

  Then she bolted out the door. “Come on, Ray, put some life in the game!”

  She felt the wind, cold, icy, against her face as she ran. She heard her feet pound on the pavement as she ran for the street.

  “I knew you’d be slow.” Timing it, timing it. “Such a loser.”

  She dashed across the street. Screaming, he charged after her. The car hit him head-on, sending his body flying up before it hit the ground.

  As the cars she’d built in faded away, she crossed back. She walked back to where he lay in a heap, trying to suck in air from lungs collapsed by broken ribs.

  “You should look both ways, but you’re so goddamn stupid.”

  “This isn’t real.”

  Because she needed him to feel rage—helpless rage—as much as the pain, she leaned down close.

  “I bet the pain feels real. You’re dying, Ray, right here in front of me. But I’m going to save you because we’re not done. You get another chance.”

  She felt him trying to push back, push her out. She wouldn’t have it. “My game, my rules,” she said, and changed the level.

  * * *

  “They’re sitting there, staring at each other.”

  Howard shook his head. “I don’t think so, Phil. Something’s going on. We just can’t see it. Except … he looks shaken.”

  “He keeps jerking. I don’t get it. But she’s following the rules. She’s got the rest of the hour.”

  * * *

  The big house had an alarm system, but Riggs plucked the code right out of slutty trophy wife’s head when she pulled up. She kept saying it over and over—because they’d changed it, and she kept forgetting.

  On this moonless night, after he cut through the glass on the atrium doors beyond the pool and outdoor kitchen—like they cooked—and into the big kitchen with its vaulted ceilings, he walked straight to the control panel and coded in.

  He thought what he always thought as he walked through the house. How he deserved all this, and they didn’t. How they needed to die so he could have what he deserved.

  He walked up the wide, curving stairs, ran his gloved hand over the shining banister, looked up at a big chandelier.

  He bet that shined, too, when they turned it on.

  He could see it if he wanted, see it shining and sparkling.

  But he couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. Just off. How did he know how everything looked before he saw everything?

  Because he was special, he reminded himself. He had something no one else had, so he could do whatever he wanted, take whatever he wanted. Kill whoever he wanted.

  He walked straight to the main bedroom because he knew, just knew exactly where it was.

  Like he knew the old man would be snoring away, and the woman wore a silk sleep mask. Roses on the table where they had chairs. Long curtains over all the windows.

  He’d just slit the old man’s snoring throat and get that out of the way. Then give the slut wife a couple of good pops to wake her up until she told him where to find the safe, the combination.

  But he already knew. He knew there were two safes, his and hers. Like they had two dressing rooms. He knew she’d beg for her life, tell him everything, and beg him not to hurt her.

  His vision blurred; the room faded in and out.

  “Having some déjà vu, Ray?”

  For this level she wore leather, black pants, a leather vest, a sword at her hip.

  “You’re not here. You weren’t here. I killed them, and I took what I wanted.”

  “You did. So much blood, right? That was exciting, but it made too much of a mess, even for you. But I am here, and you won’t kill them now because this is my world.”

  At the ripple of pain over his face, she smiled. “Got a headache, Ray? They’re a real bitch, aren’t they?”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  He lunged with the knife.

  She sidestepped, pivoted, then plunged the sword through him.

  “Little knife, big sword. I win!”

  Blood dripped through his fingers as he groped at his midsection. “No. No. This didn’t happen.” But he stumbled, dropped to his knees.

  In the prison room, a blood vessel burst in his left eye, threading the white with red.

  “It’s happening now. It hurts, doesn’t it? Dying can hurt. You’re running out of lives, Ray.”

  “I’ll get out. I’ll get out, and make you sorry.”

  “Here’s the thing, Ray. I’m never going to let you out.”

  “You can’t keep me here.”

  “Who’s going to stop me?”

  He had to believe it, for her to win the game, she had to make him believe it.

  “Every time you try to get out, I’ll just kill you again. Every time. It’s your life, and you’re stuck in it, mind and body now, so get used to it. I’m going to skip a few levels, because I’m getting bored. And to be honest, you’re starting to look ragged.”

  She felt ragged with the effort of maintaining the grip on him, and on her own emotions. A line of sweat, cold, so cold, slid down her back.

  She’d use even that, she determined. She had to be cold. Cold, controlled. Merciless.

  The last level, the final push, required all she had. She slid a hand up to close it over the key around her neck. She held the key to unlock her own future, she reminded herself.

  And took them both into their mutual past.

  * * *

  He’d stopped for some road snacks. Gonna head to the beach in his fine new car, get himself some sun. But there she was. Rich bitch with her fancy watch. Thought she was special in her fancy pink dress.

  Blue dress? Pink dress? How did the color keep changing?

  His vision wavered for a second, brought on a sudden, spiking pain behind his eyes. Something told him to walk away, but he wanted that fucking watch. More, he wanted to kill that rich, better-than-you bitch.

  He walked away, but he waited, waited in his fine new car, then he followed. Everything so familiar … it gave him the heebies. Familiar because he knew what he was doing. As he sat and watched the big, fancy house, he beat a fist on the steering wheel.

  He knew what the fuck he was doing. He’d done it all before, he’d do it all again.

  Get some eats, bide his time. He could just head south, but he wanted that watch and the money, the shiny things inside that big house. He wanted the rush of the kill.

  And that face, the bitch’s face. He knew that face, wanted to smash it, obliterate it. Had to.

  The toothy, zit-faced boy who handed him his food said, “Have a miserable day, asshole.”

  “What the fuck did you say?”

  But the boy was gone, the food was gone. Riggs stood in the dark, glass cutter in hand. The hand shook.

  Then he remembered why he was here.

  His back itched the way it did when someone watched him. But when he looked around, he stood alone in the night. No one could stop him from taking what he wanted.

  He went inside, put the glass cutter in the duffle, pulled out the gun. The gun he’d taken from a rich bitch he’d killed who’d lived in a big house. Even bigger than this one.

  Hate, already rooted, sprouted its thorny stems, opened its poisonous blooms as he wandered through.

  The pictures stopped him. He would have sneered, but that face, the girl, stopped him. She looked right at him, looked into him.

  The girl. The woman. The girl.

  The spike of pain struck again. Something warm trickled out of his left ear. He balled a fist, and barely stopped himself from smashing it into that face.

  Have to be quiet, Ray, someone whispered inside his head. Don’t want to wake them up.

  “Don’t want to wake them up,” he muttered, and continued up the steps.

  And there they were, the rich assholes who had what he wanted. What he’d have.

  “You’re wrong, Ray. You’ll never have what they had.”

  Thea walked to the foot of the bed.

  “Look at them, Ray. Really look. They never hurt anyone. They had such good in their lives. They loved each other. You never had that, did you? Someone to love, to love you back. And you never will.”

  “This is bullshit. You’re bullshit. They’re already dead because I made them dead.”

  “That’s right, Ray. You took their lives. Congratulations. I wonder, though—please tell me what you think—would you have done it, would you have done all this if you’d known it would cost you your life?”