: Chapter 4

Fucking prick.

Kaplan didn’t even bother to actually read my work. At least not the full document, that’s for sure. He admitted it when I cornered him. He was able to follow along for the first few minutes of my discussion, so I’m guessing he read the summary, but nothing further than that.

Why, though? Did he see something I couldn’t? Was he just too much of a coward to tell me? Did I miss something glaring? Is my methodological approach off but I’m too close to my work to see it?

And it’s not just that.

I’ve been sporadically watching Kaplan for a few weeks. I recognized him in the window as I was about to pass Deja Brew. I almost kept going, but I wanted to get closer before we met in his office. Just a glance.

But with that first close look as I entered the cafe, I found that I wanted to stay.

I managed to avoid meeting Kaplan’s gaze, even though I felt it latch onto me. I still stole glances when I could. A heated, dark energy seemed to roll from his wide shoulders in waves, pulling me in. And it didn’t seem like I was the only one affected. Kaplan tried to focus on his work but he struggled, running his hand through his artfully disheveled dark brown hair, his muscles bunching beneath his shirt. He seemed tense. Frustrated.

And when I finally let our gazes collide, he seemed interested.

I was so sure of it. There was a humming current in the air between us, a vibration. Desire. But something darker, too. It felt like another predator was there in my midst, but one with a different kind of hunger to sate.

So why was he so dismissive when we finally met? Did I read everything wrong? When he got a closer look, could he see behind my mask? That’s what he does, after all. Excavates the souls of people like me. Did he see darkness there with just a glance?

These unanswered questions burn in my mind like embers as I drive home. It takes every ounce of self-control I have to make it into the house and onto my treadmill without combusting in a red mist of rage. I skip the warm-up and just start running.

A 06:30 minute mile.

06:15.

06:00.

I’m pounding out a 05:10 pace, slick with sweat, when I hear the driveway alarm. I hit the emergency stop on the treadmill and rush to the security tablet on the wall, keying in my password and bringing up the camera.

Amy. My cleaner.

Fuck.

In my fit of rage at Kaplan’s dismissal, I forgot she’d changed times to come in the afternoon. And I’m not in the mood to see anyone right now. For their safety and mine.

I grab a towel and head downstairs to the front door just as Amy walks through.

“Hi, Bria!” she says in her singsong, cheery voice as she turns and disarms the security system. I want to snap her neck and strip out her vocal cords with my bare hands.

“Hello, Amy.”

“Getting an extra workout in?”

My molars grind together as I force a smile. “Yep.”

Amy bustles past me with her supplies, blowing a lock of over-bleached hair from her eyes as she sets them down beside the kitchen island. Kane saunters in from the living room to rub against her legs. She coos in a baby voice to the cat who relishes every moment of the affection. I fold my hands into fists when she calls him “Sir Kitty Candy Kane.”

I could grab a knife from the kitchen. Or the steel throwing needles hidden in the living room. Or the Glock 43 from the closet; shoot out her kneecaps. It would be so easy. So easy to kill and feed this fury. To feel the euphoric release of a life ebbing away by my hand.

“I’m going out for a run,” I announce, heading toward my bedroom to change into dry gear.

“Be careful out there, Bria,” Amy says. The worry in her voice is so genuine that it forces my feet to a halt. “It’ll be dark soon.”

I scowl at my watch. “It’s only four thirty.”

“I know, but I worry about you. I don’t want you to get hurt. You don’t know what kind of weirdos are out there in the shadows.”

I look at her over my shoulder, some of that scratching rage calming, just a little. She knows a lot about weirdos in the dark. And I know there are just as many in the bright desert sun as there are in the cool Montana night. “I’ll be careful. Thank you, Amy.”

She smiles, the worry still heavy in her weathered skin. The wrinkles of her hard early life make her look older than she really is. I walk away toward the bedroom, get changed, and leave without another word.

I sprint down the driveway and the gates open as I draw near, sliding back into place once I’ve passed into the empty street. There are few cars and no pedestrians, just me and my music which I keep low enough to hear my surroundings. I take a few turns and head in the direction of Berkshire’s campus.

It takes me thirty minutes to work my way there. I twist through the sprawling grounds, narrowly avoiding the few students who have returned to get a jump on the next semester. I exit the campus, crossing a few streets until I arrive at Bloomfield, the condo looming ahead like a fortress of concrete and glass.

When I arrive, I key myself in with my fob and then take the elevator to the eleventh floor. I watch my reflection in the mirrored walls as I ascend. Sweat dots my skin, plastering wisps of hair to my forehead. There’s no expression on my face. Just a mask of skin and muscle that hides the rage still boiling deep within.

The elevator dings and the door opens. I turn right and head down the empty hall to apartment 1142.

When I unlock and enter, everything is just how I left it. Well-hidden. Clean. Simple. It’s a bland two-bedroom condo facing the campus and the mountains beyond, and it suits my needs well. There are too many people in the building for my sporadic comings and goings to be noticeable, but I’ve still made sure to set the lights, music, and television to come on at different times. The hidden cameras and the security system are only paired with my computer in my secret room at the main house. The system will alert my phone if an alarm is triggered, but otherwise I keep everything separate. The fewer links between me and my lairs, the better.

After a cursory glance at the space, I head to the shower. As soon as I’m changed into fresh clothes and a blonde wig, I gather a few snacks and make a brief tour through the hidden drawers in the furniture. Before an hour is up, I’m heading back to the elevators, descending to the underground parking levels.

Of the three vehicles I have here, I take the most nondescript option, a silver Honda Accord. I leave the parking garage, heading for the city limits, for a dead-end dirt road where I can change my license plate without the threat of onlookers. It seems like overkill, doesn’t it? Wearing a wig, switching plates on a deserted road, maintaining a second apartment…but Samuel taught me early on that there’s no such thing as too much preparation.

There is no overkill, his voice reminds me, drifting around my mind like a desert wind. There is only kill, or die. Death need not be your heart stopping. It can be the loss of music. Or memory. Or freedom. Whatever you fear most, that is death. So kill, Bria. Kill every risk that would kill you first. Only then can you enjoy the death that is suffered by your hand.

And I will. I will enjoy it very much.

I’m coming for you, Caron Berger. One little lamb at a time.

I push my memories and desires into the depths of my heart, and then I drive back into the city, heading for the business park on the outskirts of town, closing in on 1294 Tropane Avenue.

The business park is pristine, the well-spaced trees following the curving road past glass and steel buildings and sculpted waterways. A few pedestrians follow the wide sidewalks in their suits and skirts and heels, none of them paying any attention to my unremarkable car as I drift through their domain. The various buildings are host to an array of businesses, from the headquarters for a biotech company to an advertising agency to a law firm, and numerous others, all laid out in clean, sweeping lines of modern architecture.

When I arrive at 1294 Tropane, there’s very little to glean from the company sign at the entrance to the building. “Praetorian.”

Nothing else. Just that single word. Not even anything illuminating in the logo design. Just the letters in forward-leaning silver blocks.

Cave Praetorianos, I hear in my Latin tutor’s deep, resonant voice. Beware the Praetorian Guard.

I keep going past the building and follow the curving road, making a full loop around the business park only to come back again. I turn into the parking lot for the business across the street, an architecture firm, parking close to the road where the front entrance of the Praetorian building is visible through the branches of the trimmed bushes.

I rest my binoculars on my lap. And then I wait.

And wait.

I break out my snacks and wait some more.

Every time the door opens, which is not often, I watch through the binoculars, memorizing faces. A tall, broad-shouldered man with short blond hair and a scar through his brow. A petite woman with a sleek black bob, her dark almond eyes casting a sharp glance over her surroundings as she walks to her car. A few more people here and there, none of them familiar.

And then suddenly, a jackpot.

I sit forward a little in my seat, riveted as Cynthia Nordstrom leaves the building. Caron’s second-in-command, his only public representation. His most devoted little lamb. She’s a tricky little creature at that. She has a tendency to disappear. My mouth salivates at the thought of all the things I could do with her. I can almost feel Caron’s rage at the loss, without ever having seen his face.

Cynthia walks with a middle-aged man with dark ebony skin, his perfectly tailored suit impeccable, the quality obvious even from a distance. Maybe the CEO of whatever Praetorian is. He exudes that kind of air as they carry on an intense discussion on their walk toward the parked cars. Two men follow several steps behind. Their gazes shift and roam, their eyes restless. I keep my binoculars trained on the group as I ask Siri to place a call.

Samuel picks up on the second ring.

“Bria.”

“Uncle.”

“How are you?”

I don’t answer that question. If I do, it’s the clue that something is wrong. It’s part of our phone code. Great? I’m safe but I’m with someone. Headache? Law enforcement trouble. Fine? Leave everything and run. Been better? Someone’s trying to kill me.

Instead, I get straight to the point.

“I think I’ve got something. Praetorian. Possibly a security firm. Cynthia Nordstrom is exiting the premises now with someone important.”

“Leave it with me.”

Samuel hangs up just as Cynthia slides into the back seat of a blacked-out BMW sedan. One of the two men who had been trailing behind her gets into the driver’s side and I lower my binoculars, watching as they drive away down the curving road. The CEO man leaves with the other bodyguard in a similar vehicle, heading in the opposite direction.

Even though I’m itching to follow Cynthia, I know I can’t. If I’m right and this is a professional security firm, there’s a strong chance I would be spotted. They would lead me all over the city before they’d ever bring her to a place where I could get close.

I wait for twelve minutes, and then I drive to my deserted road, switch my plates, and head back to the condo.

When I’m back inside my condo, I get changed and take some time to meditate on the living room floor and place the key details of my observations in safe places within my memory palace. I spend a little time in this world I’ve created, visualizing my trophies, picking up my conch shell to listen to Nick Hutchinson’s voice, his pleas forever answered by the snick of my blade. But a bubbling rage still simmers beneath my skin, tempering my enjoyment of the memory.

What did I miss? Why would Kaplan dismiss my work like he did?

He must have a reason beyond his sabbatical. If my project was as good as I thought, he would have been willing to support me in some capacity, despite his absence. He and I both know a sabbatical doesn’t last forever. I’m sure he’ll be back well before my doctorate is finished.

I open my eyes, frustrated at myself for losing focus.

The only thing I can do now is keep running.

There’s no one in the hallway or the elevator as I exit the condo, heading back in the direction of the campus. But instead of crossing the road to join the pathway that snakes through the quad, I veer left, crisscrossing a few quiet streets until I’m heading down Temperance, running beneath the outstretched arms of the solemn elm trees that line the wide stretch of asphalt. This is where many of the faculty live, in older houses of character that show their prestige with their manicured gardens or semi-circular driveways or gaudy granite lawn ornaments that are supposed to be “art.”

My steps slow until I’m walking. There are no other pedestrians. The moon is no more than a sliver in the blanket of night.

Motion flickers ahead and I slow to a stop. The window of a car door catches the lamplight as it opens. I pull out my AirPods and pocket them, standing in the shadow of a tree.

“…don’t think he’ll be too happy that I didn’t bring treats,” a woman’s voice says. It’s rich and warm with affection.

“Duke? Are you kidding? He’ll be thrilled to see you.” It’s Kaplan. He steps out of the passenger seat of a Volvo C40 and closes the door. He doesn’t notice me down the sidewalk in the dark. I’m standing perfectly still and his attention is focused on the woman I can’t see, her body obscured by a thick elm.

Kaplan digs in the pocket of his tweed jacket as he waits for the woman. Fucking tweed. I wonder if he does it to be ironic, or if he’s really just that sad. A thirty-one-year-old professor in a tweed jacket and Converse. I fold my hand into a fist as I imagine ripping the jacket off his broad shoulders and strangling him with the arms, winding them tight around his throat. But then, inexplicably, the vision changes. I see those tweed sleeves tying him to a bedpost as I ride his cock and he screams my name. An unwelcome warmth spreads through my core and dampens the apex of my thighs. “Besides,” he says, snapping me out of my daydream as the sound of the woman’s footsteps fills the space between us, “I always have extra treats.”

A beautiful woman steps into view, long, golden-blonde hair cascading past her shoulders to the center of her back in scrolling waves. I see her bright red lipstick in profile beneath the lamplight as her smile stretches and she takes the offered dog biscuits. “You’re such a softie, Kap. I bet you give dog treats out to every mutt you see. I’m surprised you have any left for Duke at the end of the day.”

“That’s why I have an extra stash at the front door,” Kaplan says, and the blonde woman tilts her head back and laughs.

The two walk toward an arts-and-crafts era bungalow with pale yellow plaster and Roman-style roof tiles in a shade of rich green—not that I can appreciate those colors in the dark. But I’ve seen them numerous times. This is Dr. Kaplan’s house, after all. I’ve run and driven past it before. I’m not interested in looking at it now, however. All I want to do is run. Run and snuff out this new burning ember that’s scorching my heart. Some kind of fury I’ve never felt. Maybe the failure from today has triggered a deeper darkness within me. It could become fuel, or I could turn to ash beneath the flame.

I put my headphones in and double back, heading home as fast as my legs and lungs will take me.