Evan passed out, mouth open, neck arched, and chin pointing up at the ceiling—what was left of the ceiling, at least. Blood lined his eyelids like red eyeliner. A tear mixed with blood rolled down the side of his face. Miki flicked the cigarette butt at the floor next to him. She watched the boy’s unconscious body for a moment, then she sighed and glanced around the room.
She heard cars outside, plenty of people stayed home during the lockdown, but no one came to his rescue. No one even called the police to report all of the screaming. The Good Samaritan was a dying breed, replaced by internet activists. People minded their own business, even when children were being tortured.
Miki said, “Sorry, I don’t have any more time to play. I have a friend to visit.”
Evan stayed unconscious. Miki took the shears out of her coat pocket. She cut his shirt open vertically down the middle. His ribcage was pronounced. She ran the blades down his chest, then she stopped under his sternum. She looked at his face, as if she were expecting him to awaken. She thrust the blades into him, cutting through the cartilage under his sternum.
Still unconscious, Evan bounced.
Miki pulled the blades out. She opened the shears, then she forced one of the blades back into the wound at an angle. She snipped away at his chest, clipping through the cartilage connecting his ribs to his breastbone. She heard his bones cracking and skin crinkling. Streams of blood ran across his chest. She cut an oval around his sternum.
She thrust the blades into his chest again, driving them under his breastbone, then pushed the handles down like a lever. The sternum popped out. She removed it, revealing his heart. It was still beating, albeit slowly.
Admiration glimmering in her eyes, Miki whispered, “You really are a fighter, huh?”
She poked his heart with her finger, then pulled her hand away quickly, as if she were afraid it might bite her. She laughed. She cut around the heart with her shears. The boy passed away seconds later. The blades easily ripped through his pericardium, the blood vessels, and the ligaments. Blood shot out of the gaping hole on his torso and filled his chest cavity. After cutting around it, she yanked his heart out.
It was motionless in her gloved hand. She was amazed by it, running her eyes over it as if it were an alien artifact. The human body was a fascinating thing.
“Thanks for the gift,” she said as she put it in one of her coat pockets.
Like her other victims, she gave him a Glasgow smile, cutting his cheeks open with her shears. She left his body in the abandoned building and walked through the streets of Los Angeles with Evan’s heart in her pocket. Most of the streets were vacant as the residents secluded themselves in their homes. The few people wandering the neighborhoods—kids, teenagers, transients, cops—paid her no mind.
Holding her head up high, proud and arrogant, she headed west. She was sure no one could stop her. She walked for nearly four hours before arriving at her destination. She was exhausted and overjoyed at the same time. She ended up in an affluent neighborhood near the beach, surrounded by beautiful, multi-million-dollar houses with contemporary designs.
The house across the street had a flat roof. The driveway dipped into a garage below the rest of the house, making it a three-story home. An SUV and a sedan were parked in the driveway.
As she stared at the home, a wry smile behind her mask, Miki whispered, “Hello, handsome. Did you miss me?”
17
PARANOIA
Adam’s iMac was open to a document. THE TRUTH (ver 1), the filename read. It was a page long with his name, phone number, and address written at the bottom. In the letter, he described his trip to Tokyo, Japan in 2017. He confessed to his affair with Miki, reported her harassment towards him, and admitted to attacking her in her apartment. In the last paragraph, he presented his evidence connecting Miki to the recent string of violent murders in Los Angeles and pleaded for help.
He minimized the document and maximized another one. The other filename read: THE TRUTH (ver 2). He wrote it as a confession from Dallas’ perspective, but he didn’t sign it with any names. ‘A friend went there… My friend did that…’ He poured his rage onto the page, assassinating Miki’s character and placing all of the blame on her. He called her every name in the book: Liar, stalker, cunt, slut, psycho, bitch, psycho bitch. It was as if it were written to hurt her instead of to help himself or anyone else.
He opened both documents and aligned them next to each other on his monitor. He read them one after the other and almost went cross-eyed trying to read both of them at the same time.
“Which one do I send?” he whispered.
He wrote the confession out of guilt. He felt bad for attacking Miki, and now coffins filled with innocent victims were piling up on his shoulders. Confessing was the honest, honorable thing to do. The truth often sent criminals to prison, but it also set people free from their physical and mental shackles. He knew it would help him in the long run, but he couldn’t stop thinking about his family.
What happens if I go to prison? How could Riley grow up strong and healthy knowing her father was a monster? Would Amber be able to forgive me? What if I’m wrong? What if it’s not her?
Those questions screwed with his head. He dug his fingers into his hair and sniveled. Then he clenched his fists, grabbing two handfuls of hair, and he groaned.
“I can’t do this,” he whimpered.
He closed the confession, deleted it, and then emptied his trash bin. He kept the anonymous letter—just in case.
He heard Riley’s laughter outside. He rolled back in his chair and looked out the window next to his bookshelves. Past the covered patio and the stone barbecue station, he saw Amber playing with Riley in their backyard. Amber spotted him watching them, so she waved at him, then she turned Riley around and pointed at the house. Adam couldn’t hear her voice, but he had an idea of what she was saying.
‘Look, there’s daddy.’
Riley couldn’t see him, but she saw the blinds shifting as Adam moved away from the window. Annoyed and disappointed, Amber rolled her eyes. She saw Adam as a hermit. They were advised to stay home, but Adam had been taking the quarantine to another level. He had been isolating himself in his office since he first found out about the serial killings. He came out for a bite to eat every once in a while, but he didn’t say much to Amber or Riley. He spent a couple of nights in his office, too.
Amber imagined he was sleeping on his recliner with a business textbook under his pillow in hopes of conjuring a brilliant idea. Some people called it ‘learning by osmosis.’ In reality, although he did sleep on his recliner, Adam spent most of the nights watching his backyard and the street in front of his house. He believed Miki—or someone or something—was coming for him. He couldn’t get the target off his back.
He opened his web browser. He read the message from Mickey Miller again.
‘Am I beautiful?’
He saw those words every time he closed his eyes, as if they were tattooed to his inner eyelids—scarred on his retinas. His hands ended up on the keyboard. He wanted to respond, but he didn’t know what to write. He was sure it was coming from Miki, though. He remembered comparing the pronunciation of her name to Mickey Mouse when they first met. And Miller was his last name.