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For now, she crept towards the house. She was dressed in dark clothes tonight so that she wouldn’t be easy to spot. She was used to going unseen. As she got closer to the house, she took the time to look through the windows again, making sure that there were no unexpected factors there.
Jennifer Marriott was making her way around the house, collecting things, and putting them in boxes. Perhaps this was some kind of breakup, or perhaps she was just clearing things away. It didn’t make any difference, though. Now that she had committed to doing this, she was going to follow it through.
She had all the tools of her particular brand of work with her: the ropes to hold her victim, the scalpel she needed to make the incisions that would let the lifeblood flow out. And, of course, a syringe held in one gloved hand.
She had lockpicks in one of her pockets, but she had no particular plan to use them tonight. There were many ways of going unseen, and sometimes the easiest one was to hide in plain sight.
She walked up to the door, ringing the bell while plastering her brightest, most humanizing smile on her face. She’d practiced that smile, the way she’d practiced so many other expressions. It wasn’t as if they came naturally to her. Those kinds of emotions were for other, weaker, people. They were for prey, not predators. She wasn’t worried about being spotted by cameras. She’d already picked out a route to the door that wouldn’t let them see her face clearly.
She waited while Jennifer came to the door, doing her best to look non-threatening. She was good at that when she needed to look that way. If it had been a large, threatening man, even a handsome one like Adam, standing there, she was sure that the door would not have opened. Instead, Jennifer swung it wide. She was dark haired and pretty, with deep, dark eyes and a gentle expression.
“Hi,” she said. “Did you need anything?”
This was her opportunity. “I just moved into the neighborhood, and—”
She lunged forward in the middle of the sentence. It was the best time to do it, while her prey was still waiting to see what she would say next. She drove the syringe home, depressing the plunger in a smooth, practiced movement.
“Shhh,” she said as she moved in to hold Jennifer, stopping her from fighting back for the seconds it took for the sedative to take hold and then lowering her gently to the floor. “There’s nothing you can do to stop this. I’m going to kill you. That’s simply a fact, Jennifer.”
She watched for the fear that phrase brought with it. She liked understanding everything her subjects felt, liked watching every moment of helplessness they experienced before their death.
She took Jennifer through to the lounge, starting to tie her in place on the hardwood floor. She took out her scalpel then, letting it shine in the light of the bulb overhead. It was important to draw this moment out, important to let her subject know what was coming.
“Don’t feel bad for this, Jennifer,” she said. “This isn’t about you. You’re simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She held up the scalpel a moment longer. “Now, shall we begin?”
