Oasis Hotel
Vienna, Virginia
11:47 p.m.
After the debacle at the Lincoln, Astrid had suggested that she and Brad stay at a hotel tonight rather than the house, just to play it safe.
“At least it all worked out,” Brad had told her as he locked the door.
“But shooting an FBI-it was rash. Careless.”
“Okay.”
“You understand?”
“Yes.”
So that was an hour ago.
Now, she was slipping into something a little more comfortable for bed, and he was watching her.
Over the last few minutes, for whatever reason, they’d gotten onto the topic of serial killers. “They take souvenirs,” Brad said. “The serial killers do. So that they can relive their crimes, so they can feel that sense of power and control again.”
She already knew this of course, but decided to pretend that she didn’t. “What kind of souvenirs?”
“Jewelry, underwear, body parts. In a surprisingly high number of cases, shoes.”
Serial killers.
Like Brad.
But not like her. She’d never killed anyone, not in NowLife. It’d always been him.
She’d planned it that way from the start.
Just in case they ever got caught.
No, she was not a murderer. Just a bystander. “We keep a different kind of souvenir,” she said, getting back to the conversation.
He stared at her quizzically.
“In the freezer,” she added.
“The freezer?”
“Prison, our little fishbowl.”
A questioning look.
“I never told you about that? About the fishbowl?”
“I don’t think so.”
She stepped into the bathroom to freshen up. “You mentioned once that you had a dog, when you were a kid.”
“Brandi, yes. She was a Sheltie.”
“I never had a pet myself, but my sister did.” She’d told him stories about her sister Annie before. “A goldfish named Goldie.”
“Annie had a goldfish named Goldie.”
“What can I say, I was always the more inventive one in the family.” She washed her face. “Goldie lived in a fishbowl on the dresser in our bedroom; anyway, one night Annie and I got into a fight. I don’t remember what it was about-who was supposed to help Dad with the dishes, maybe. Something like that. But I ended up being the one who got into trouble, and Annie spent the rest of the night teasing me. Well, the next morning when she woke up, Goldie was gone.”
“You flushed her goldfish?”
“No.”
Astrid finished in the bathroom. “Goldie’s bowl was gone, and Annie looked all over for it. It was Saturday but my father worked weekends, so we were home alone. Annie was bigger than I was, stronger, and she hit me. A lot. But I didn’t say a word. She emptied out the garbage, didn’t find any glass, looked everywhere outside. No sign of the fish or the bowl anywhere.”
She glanced at him to see his reaction.
He was listening intently. She had him, she could tell.
“I guess Annie must have searched for three or four hours that morning. Finally, at lunch, I figured it’d been long enough. I told her to check-”
“The freezer,” he said.
She smiled. “Yes. Annie cried for three days. My dad beat me for doing it, but every time he hit me I hardly noticed, all I could think of was how it had felt when Annie was looking. The feeling was…” She searched for the right word, couldn’t find it. “It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.”
“Exquisite,” he said. “It was exquisite.”
“Yes.” She joined him beside the bed. “All I’d done was set the bowl in the freezer and close the door. It was that simple. And then the water began to freeze and I knew that slowly, slowly, it would become a solid block of ice.”
“It made you feel powerful.”
“Yes.”
“Is that how you got started?”
“It wasn’t the only thing.” She reflected for a moment. “You set things in motion and then life simply goes on, but you have a secret, and in a way you want someone to open the freezer to see what you did, to see your handiwork, but you don’t tell them because while they search, while they wonder, while they worry, you own a piece of them.”
“Like the FBI, right now,” he said. “Searching for Mollie, for us. We control a part of them.”
She thought of the current game, but also of the four men in prison because of her. The goldfish from the previous games. She could get them released at any time; all she needed to do was tell the authorities the truth. “Yes.”
Then, after watching him for a moment, she stepped back and smiled. “So, how did I do?”
“With what?”
“The story. Did I have you?”
A question mark on his face. Then dawning disappointment. “You made it up?”
“It was good, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t know it was a story.”
So, yes, he had believed her. He was staring at her with a wounded, confused look, the same look he’d had at the hotel when she deleted the picture of Rusty.
“Don’t sulk.” She trailed a finger along his cheek. “It was a good story, wasn’t it?”
After a moment: “Yes. It was a good story.”
“Time for bed.”
“Okay.”
The novel that was her life played out in her head. He remained distant and distracted throughout the night and that bothered her, especially since he was the one who had failed her earlier in the day-being so impulsive, so remiss, shooting the FBI agent. Yes, it was true she’d deceived him, now, twice in one day, but it shouldn’t have been a shock to him. After all, so much of their relationship had been built on the sand of half truths and lies. Ever since the beginning. Ever since DuaLife. This moodiness, his carelessness, were not acceptable. In a quiet, slow U-turn of emotion, she found herself considering possibilities she had never fully explored before. She began to wonder if he might be turning into a liability. The idea made her uncomfortable. He was the father of her unborn child and she loved him, but now she realized that if things came down to it, she might need to be ready to swing the freezer door shut on this scarred little pet resting in her arms. And to her surprise, she found the idea enticing. Maybe even exquisite.