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“You are not a very neat monster,“ I mumble looking at the pictures from crime scene she left on my desk. She didn’t ask for my opinion and yet I know it’s the reason she brought them tonight. I don’t blame her; we have been dancing around this subject for some time.
Deb looks at me strangely, her thoughts visible on her face. “Unlike you,” it says and I smile and look away because there isn’t anything else to do. She still doesn’t fully know the extent of what I am and it would be for the best if she never does. But she’s trying and I’m not really sure how to stop her.
I look back at the pictures, three young women were brutally beaten, their eyes cut out. It’s not a pleasant thing to look at but it doesn’t repulse me, I’m more shocked it doesn’t repulse Deb but she saw things much worse than this, she saw me killing Travis Marshall.
“So what do you think? Why does he do it?” she finally asks, I could see her fight these questions all evening. She didn’t say anything during the dinner, waited patiently as I prepared Harrison for bed and came to his room to give him a goodnight kiss. I’m quite surprised, patience was never her virtue, I guess we both changed a lot since that night.
“Pleasure? The brutal beating would suggest it but he leaves the scene very clean afterwards, it looks like he doesn’t expect it to end this way, like he isn’t prepared to kill. It just happens,” I say and put three almost identical photos next to each other. Why eyes? I ask myself. What do eyes tell about a person?
“You think he never plans to kill?” Deb leans over my shoulder and changes the order of the photos. “That all these murders were accidents?”
No, no, that doesn’t sound right. It’s the same pattern, the women look similar. They’re all young, healthy, happy and look so very innocent. Innocence, the word sparks something. Innocent eyes. According to their families, they were all very good girls, neither of them did alcohol or drugs, they all worked or volunteered for a charity, one of them was a nun.
“Innocent,” I whisper and Debra takes a deep breath. She is getting it. Clever.
“So that’s why the fucker took their eyes,” she says and I nod. Eyes are usually the symbol of innocence, he wanted to steal it, to keep it for himself, probably to regain it himself.
“Yes, he chooses someone he thinks innocent, clean, he meets them and he isn’t satisfied, they aren’t the way he wants them to be. He kills them and takes their eyes as a token,” a pattern, disappointment could be a strong motive, especially for someone with a mental illness. I could understand that. I was never innocent, I wonder how it feels.
I look over at Deb and she nods but there something crosses her mind. I think I won’t like her next question.
“Do you take a token too?” it’s obvious she didn’t really plan to ask me this. It’s a spur of the moment she would likely regret asking and I would answering. But something makes me nod, she deserves some honesty and there’s still a part of me that hopes I once could be completely myself with her.
Before she has a time to ask what it is, I stand up and move toward the secret hideout. I feel her eyes boring into my back; it feels liberating and scary at the same time. My heart is beating a little too loud, I feel it pumping the blood faster and the fresh oxygen reaches my whole body. It´s excitement, almost arousal and many other things I haven’t named yet.
I take out the box of my slides, I rearranged them numerous times, touched them numerous times and put them on the desk for Deb to see. She takes a loud breath, shock is evident on her face and I see her connecting dots in her head. I always knew she had potential, potential to see more than other people, potential to be brilliant. Feelings were stopping her reaching it in full.
She looks up when she has her answer and I expect her to say it out loud, to wait for me to nod but she doesn’t. Maybe that way she could deny it to herself.
Sometimes I think I feel sorry for her. I can’t imagine what a blow must all this be to her, realizing what I’ve done, what I am. I know she has no illusions about the world, but I’m pretty sure she had them about me. The perfect brother, husband and father, lab-geek and colleague, she didn’t plan to add serial killer to my description.
The box lies between us, the token of everything that happened in last few months. When she steps forward, I’m surprised, I didn’t expect her to. She takes it into her hands and opens it. This time she’s calm, counts in her head the number of people I have killed, adds to them the number of Bay Harbour Butcher victims. I almost want to say it aloud but I remain silent, instead I look at her.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” she says suddenly and puts the box back. It’s a strange thing to say but I suspect she wanted to say it sooner and choose this time just to fill in the silence.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’ve every right to ask.” And strangely I mean it.
Deb nods and turns away from me. Her back is tense and I want to reach and massage it out of her shoulders but before I have a chance to step to her, she moves and enters the kitchen reaching for a bottle of beer she left on the counter. I’m not sure if I should be worried about her alcohol consumption as a way of dealing with me and my secrets but I know I wouldn’t have a chance to say anything more before she would simple tell me to “fuck off”.
We stay like that, Deb finishing off the beer, me awkwardly standing behind her, waiting for her to deal with the new revelations. It’s not for the first time and I doubt it’s the last. There are far too many secrets Deb has yet to uncover.
“I’ll be in a shower, are you coming to bed soon?” she asks and puts the empty bottle back on the counter and I nod. It does usually end this way.
While she showers I use the time to look in the file again and an idea strikes me. Only when Deb puts her hand on my shoulder I realize that more than an hour passed already. “Sorry,” I mumble and she smiles at me.
Then she notices the files opened on my computer screen. “Did you find anything?”
I remind myself that few months ago I would lie, say something and to turn her attention away but not only Deb had to accept few changes, I had to as well and I feel my Dark Passenger already protesting, whispering to me not to tell her.
“I got a hunch. If he is trying to regain his innocence, remind himself of it, it might mean he lost it very early, probably as a child. I checked records of abuse, run those names through our database for violent attacks on girls and I came up with these four names,” I hand her the paper I already printed with names and addresses of possible suspects.
“It’s very possible he tried it before, maybe unsuccessfully maybe not. We could check their alibi for the nights of the murders and if they have none...,” I swallow and Deb jumps in.
“Fuck, Dex, this is brilliant. You did work for half of our department in an hour,” she’s impressed, I can say. I choose to smile, not attracting her attention to numerous times I used this technique for my own way of justice. I also do not point the few laws I broken while obtaining the necessary information.
“Just don’t tell anyone who got you this.”
She nods and lays the papers back to my desk and I can see that under her delight still darkness lurks. Each new information, each new secret takes its toll on her. I see her disappearing before my eyes and I want to stop it so desperately, reverse the time and make everything right again. It almost makes me feel human, this need.
“I was waiting for you,” she whispers and touches my face. Her fingertips trail along my cheek and settle themselves behind my ear. I shiver and she smiles. It’s a smile I know, one she uses when she wants something from me, help, love, attention and even though I don’t how to give them, I try.
I settle my hands on her hips and slip my fingers under the band of her shorts, well my shorts she decided to redo into her sleeping attire. I don’t mind. There’s something else bothering me. Her hip bones are more visible than they should be, I could feel their sharpness against my palm. Deb was always very skinny but I know it’s getting worse but it’s another topic I don’t dare to approach. It’s my fault anyway.
I push my hands upwards and I see her close her eyes, she’s enjoying my touch, craves it and I’m willing to give her as much as possible. But then again, her ribs shouldn’t feel like this either and I count them tracing every single one on my way up. Her tank top is almost up her arms when she looks at me. I can see arousal in her eyes, maybe love and I stand up getting it completely off her body.
My Dark Passenger told me to kill her that night; he begged me, pleaded me and ordered it to me. But I couldn’t. I haven’t killed her then but I’m killing her now, maybe not with a knife but simply by my presence. I’m sucking the life out of her by forcing her to learn and keep my secrets. And only thing I could give her back is pretended affection, I could try to be human but I can never promise her to be one.
Harry’s apparition looks disapprovingly at me across the room and I turn us at the same time Deb leans up to kiss me. I reach to grasp her head, to push out bodies to even closer contact and she sighs at that. Maneuvering us into my bedroom is something I mastered already and we end there without a single bump. My shirt ends on the floor then along with her shorts and we fell to the bed.
It’s not for the first time not the last but for a moment I feel overwhelmed, my worst nightmare came true, one person I never wanted to see my true face is on her way to uncover the inevitable truth. And I know that no matter what happens, Deb will realize what a monster I am and then, then the end comes.
And maybe I am finally ready for it.