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Putting a shaking hand down to the front of the pants he’d stolen, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a leak.
Back at the medicine cabinet, he opened the thing all the way so there was no chance of seeing himself.
Tylenol. A couple of joints. Half a bottle of penicillin for that tooth Mickey had broken.
He picked up the duffle and went back out to the living room.
The woman was like a mouse in a trap, re-reacting to his presence, flailing once again as if he was the plug for her wire.
Putting the duffle down, he went to the kitchen and started opening drawers. He found a serrated knife in the third one down, and he took it over to the woman. For a moment, he watched her cry, marveling at the crystal-clear tears that dripped off the bridge of her nose. Then he knelt next to her.
When the knife got close to her face, she started screaming, the sound trapped by the gag—
“I’m really sorry,” he said roughly. “But I need this place. I got nowhere else to go. I need… to think…”
He started crying with her, and the weapon shook in his hand.
Especially as he realized the noises coming up from the woman were something liken-n-n-n-nnnnnnn-ooooo—
Hold up, he thought. The knife was going to make a mess. What if her blood seeped through the floor and onto the ceiling of the apartment below?
There had been a lot of the stuff when Mickey’s throat had been cut.
Evan put the blade aside, and the woman shuddered like she’d been given a reprieve.
“Shhhh…” he repeated.
Standing back up, he went into Mickey’s bedroom. There were a couple of pillows crammed into the seam between the mattress and the wall, and he picked them out of the tight squeeze, testing them for firmness.
He chose the softest one, even though it was fucked up. When he was suffocating her, was she really going to care that he’d picked something for her comfort? That was like getting ribbed condoms for a prostitute.
Back in the living room, he glanced over to the windows. Mickey had already pulled the drapes before leaving the other night—and good thing.
He should have checked that before. He was going to have to get better at not being distracted.
Over by the woman, Evan lowered himself down once more. When he wiped his tears, the black smudge on his fingertips was what came out of his veins, what was on the floor of that office building, what he’d been forced to swallow… the worst kind of Kool-Aid there was.
“Hold your breath,” he said in a voice that cracked. “It will be over sooner that way.”
Bringing the pillow to her face, he—
He had to stop again. It wasn’t going to work with her head to the side. She needed to be face up.
As he got frustrated with himself, her crying also got on his nerves. He was upset with this turn of events, too. Fucking hell, like she thought he wanted to do this?
With his newfound strength, he easily cranked the chair a quarter turn, so that it was as if it had fallen straight back.
“You gotta give me a break,” he muttered as she started screaming again. “I’ve never done this before, okay?”
She was totally hyperventilating now, and her bound hands were like a snare drum on her lap, the beat as she tried to get her arms free so fast he could hardly track it. Once more with the pillow, and as he put it just above her face, her eyes stretched so wide, if she’d been a cartoon, they would have popped out.
“It’s not going to be long,” he said roughly as he got sad again. “I promise—”
He surged forward and pinned the pillow to the floor on either side of her head, right by her ears. The soft one proved to be a good choice. The seal was easy and immediate.
As she struggled, he got too busy tracking her movements against the binds to keep with his crying thing. He was worried that they were making too much noise. The apartments in the building were occupied with people who could call the police to investigate strange thumping sounds.
It felt like a year and a half before the woman finally fell still, and the concentration and effort required to kill her right reminded him ofhaving sex, what with the way he had to work at it and pay attention to what was happening with his partner.
