Page 2 of Killer Bones

Perhaps it’s a trick of the mind.

This is the same palm I use to smother mouths while I watch their lives drain to nothing.

That we have met again is not Fate. I make my own fate. Her red heels will look nice on my trophy shelf.

Decision made, I start walking.

2

Izzy

I’m not stupid enough to be oblivious of my surroundings this late at night. A man is following me.

I almost hope he tries to catch me so I can use the alarm or the knife in my handbag. Almost, but not quite. I’m also not stupid enough to want it to happen. The fantasy is me knifing him, not the other way around.

The rented apartment is not where I expected it to be. I really should scout the location before I drive to a new city, but this info leak was too good to miss.

I could scream if he gets too near, but in this neighborhood, I’m unlikely to flutter anyone’s interest. They’ll watch while he dances on my corpse.

One-handed, I search for my phone in my bag. Nudging aside my paperback of Marrow, I glimpse its blue flowers-and-ribcage cover. It shines when I turn on the screen. I set the phone up for an SOS, and what if that vanishes after a minute? I imagine myself jabbing at a black screen and getting nowhere while my throat is cut.

Seriously, imagination, calm the fuck down. Again, I shift things to check the interior, and the large pocketknife rattles against the phone.

The irony of that book does not escape me. I’m reading Marrow, a romance about two killers. My favorite dark theme could be my epitaph. My journo instincts feed me a headline: she died doing what she loved.

I pass an alley that smells of piss where a black cat scampers out to disappear ahead of me, so maybe it’s not human-variety piss.

I’m here. Next building.

The guy following me has faded. Thank you, gods.

Ahead and to my right, the long frontage of the building climbs in what, by daylight, must be a dirty, rundown façade. A third of the windows glow as does the glass doored entry. Shadows move behind the glass, though I’m too far away to see details. My place is three stories up and at the side, so I’ll have a grand view of a brick wall.

According to my informant, Montez Flores is in the city for one more day. I would’ve refused to come if I hadn’t been told this was big. Alice is scared of emailing it. Not that any method is safe, but a dead drop in a nearby park seems so last century. I’m going to need some anxiety meds when I do that. A bomb in Montez’s underwear would be better than this scrabbling about for facts to smear him and hopefully send him to prison.

Killing him is a recurring dream and has me salivating like a Pavlovian dog. Yesss.

I visualize him on his yacht, turning into a black smoosh on the horizon. A geyser of water and flame and flying bodies.

Footsteps sound nearby, closing in.

While I was drooling over that fantasy kaboom, I forgot my street awareness. I walk faster, jog a little, and almost sprain my ankle as my shoe catches on a hole in the pavement. The door into the apartment complex is five or six long strides away. Ankle aching, I hobble forward, plunge my hand into my bag.

The door squeaks inward, light sweeps the pavement. The voices disturbing the night are a mix of male and female.

I’m saved. Or he is. I am not allergic to stabbing someone who gets in my way. I pull the folded knife from my bag then begin to turn so I can face this asshole. Keep the fuck away hovers on my tongue.

He might be innocent, but I’m a woman and suspicion is wise.

Halfway into my turn, somebody scuffles out that door then my follower lunges and his hand clamps around my throat. He drags me into his body, tightens his hand on my neck.

I gasp but am too strangled to manage more than a startled grunt. My nails scrape at the notch on the knife. Open! One-handed, it’s fucking hard to do. He catches my wrist and strangles it, too, until I nearly drop the knife.

Don’t panic. My mantra since the Night of Fire. His stubble rasps across my cheek, and blood thuds hard behind my eyes as my heart strives to cater for the crazy situation.

I shudder when he speaks, grating out words like they’ve traveled over rocks, “Beethoven, Izzy.”

I freeze. What did he say? He knows my name.