Page 28 of Two Kinds of Stranger

Logan smiled to himself, descended into the subway from the street. He swiped his MTA card at the turnstile, walked down the stairs and stood on the platform.

Elly was not supposed to survive the visit to the apartment. It reminded him that he could control the environment, the decision-making and a person’s reactions to psychological, social and environmental stimuli, but he could not predict an individual’s biological reaction.

Vomiting shortly after she had ingested the treated water had saved Elly Parker’s life.

It wasn’t supposed to be a revenge killing–it was supposed to be a murder suicide. That’s why he hadn’t balked at giving her his name. Elly kills her husband and her best friend, the people closest to her who had so utterly betrayed her, and then Elly takes her own life.

Still, the first part of Logan’s narrative had worked perfectly–the double homicide.

Elly would be telling her story, or as much of it as she could remember, to her lawyer. She would tell them about a man named Logan she met on the subway steps. About his yellow suitcase and his broken leg and his crutches. And his vulnerability. And her guilt at having lashed out at James and Harriet by nuking their lives online. And then she would tell them how she dropped the gentle, vulnerable stranger’s case. How it had burst open. How she had felt utterly compelled to help this man.

Then the apartment, and the broken elevator, and the stairs and the sweat and the cold water from the fridge and how good it had tasted, at first. Logan’s only distinguishing mark was the small scar on his chin. In every other way, he had aplain, angular face. A sketch artist would draw something that resembled a quarter of the population. But Logan knew he had no real need to worry about being recognized by Elly, the police would not believe her and there were no witnesses nor any physical evidence to corroborate her story.

She could not tell them what she did not know.

That the man would be impossible to trace.

That the man had spent time strategizing, testing suitcases and how they would break when he removed a screw from the handle and cut through most of the fiber weave below the zip with a razor blade so that a heavy blow would rip the remaining threads holding it together, how he had rehearsed his lines, studied her routine, when she went out, what time and where she was going, to make sure she would be the one to offer him help at that precise moment at the top of the stairs leading to the platform.

Like much of the world, Logan had never heard of Elly Parker before he’d watched the video of her accidentally discovering her husband in bed with her best friend. She had looked so shocked, so utterly betrayed. The pain was writ large on her face. The reality of that discovery is what fueled the viral reaction to the video. Logan then watched some more of Elly’s content, and discovered her daily acts of kindness.

That made him feel sick.

It seemed performative to Logan. Not only was Elly deriving the endorphin pleasures of goodwill from her acts, but she was doubling those little rushes of satisfaction by filming these so-called kind acts and lapping up the praise from her followers.

Logan realized then that he had found his next masterpiece. He’d drunk in the hate from Elly’s followers directed at her husband and the friend who had broken her heart. If anything should happen to those two, Elly would be the prime suspect.

And if she was genuinely a kind person, then this was an aspect of her personality he could exploit.

Her act of kindness for Logan would be her last.

A train pulled in, Logan waited with a few other passengers on the platform while people got off and then he stepped inside.

He was looking for a female butterfly.

She was not in this carriage.

He checked his watch. She would likely be on this train or the next.

He stepped out of the train car, ran to the next and hopped on just as the doors closed.

There she was–his butterfly girl.

Following her through the subways and the city as he had done for the last months, he had been reminded of a particular summer when he was seven years old. That year, his parents went traveling alone, leaving him in their mansion in the Hamptons with his nanny. He spent those two months alone, in their garden. It was hot that summer and for some reason their garden was filled with the most beautiful colorful butterflies. And his father wasn’t there to punish him or beat him. Instead, he chased butterflies.

This woman reminded him of that happy summer. She was his butterfly.

Logan took a seat and for a moment, reflected on his business meeting as he tried to ignore the young woman sitting opposite him. He took out his phone and let his mind wander.

Logan had told the truth to Mr. Hartfield.

He liked to kill people.

For Logan, killing was a lot more fun than golf. And probably easier.

Even though he had turned his admission in the boardroom into a dark joke, the thrill of merely speaking those words wasenormous. Logan liked to talk. Toreallytalk. There was, he knew, a deep psychological need for conversation.

Mostly, Logan talked to the dead.