He lifted the edge of his shirt, revealing his abdomen, and he flexed, grunting from exertion. Still flexing, in a strained voice, he repeated, “See? How old do you think I am—no, really, take your best guess.” Now he was studying her eyes, staring out across the dark room and the bleeding sergeant.
She met his gaze, stepping, ever so slightly to the right.
“Hey!” he snapped. “None of that now; kick it away. Do it!”
Adele held up her hands in deference and reached back with a foot, kick-shoving her gun across the floor and sending it into the corner of the room beneath the chair. She used the motion, however, to take another, hesitant step to the right, out of the line of fire through the window.
Please be listening, John. If you stopped for another donut, I’ll kill you myself!
“You never met my muse, did you?” said Porter, still studying her. “How old are you?”
“Does it matter?” she said.
He scowled, his smile disappearing. “What a stupid bloody question,” he spat. “What a stupid question. Yes!” Spittle flew from his lips, speckling the back of her father’s head. “Of course it matters. How old are you!”
“Thirty-two,” Adele said, quietly.
The killer hesitated. His mood shifted again, just as rapidly as before. Instead of fury, his eyes now held awe. He glanced out the window, catching the reflection of the moon and glancing up as if looking to the stars. “Truly,” he said. “It’s fate. Elise faded away at forty-one, you know? The numbers equal five.”
“A lot of numbers equal five.”
The killer’s eyes narrowed. “It’s fate.”
What is?” said Adele, still keeping calm, trying to stall, to give her backup as much time as they needed. What if they didn’t come? What if they came too late? She suppressed these thoughts, forcing them, willing them from her mind.
The killer hadn’t handed her shirt back, but still clutched it in one fist, bunched around his hand. He lifted it slowly, and sniffed at the fabric, especially lingering, his nostrils flaring, along the stretches streaked with blood.
“I like your perfume,” he said, quietly. “It smells nice mixed with your sweat… Like flowers and sulfur…” He giggled and inhaled again, pressing her shirt against his mouth and nose now, his eyes rolling back in pleasure.
For a flash of a moment, there was an opening—he wasn’t looking. But the moment passed as quickly as it came.
Adele couldn’t risk her father. She didn’t react, listening, allowing him to speak. The more he talked, the less he hurt the Sergeant. For now, that was a win. Eventually, though, he would lash out. She knew men like this. Killers always thought they were special. People romanticized serial killers—some people fantasized about being like them. TV shows, movies, books—serial killers were revered world ’round.
But really, deep down, killers were all the same.
Scared, vain, desperately alone, and looking to spread their own misery, like a contagion, to the rest of the world.
Adele was a surgeon. It was her job to remove the contagion—whatever the cost.
Her eyes narrowed as she slipped, once more, ever so slightly to the right. Now her shadow no longer played across the killer’s chest. The moonlight struck him solid, illuminating his red hair and structured features.
“Forty-one,” he said. “That was the Spade Killer’s first, you know—Elise… your mother. His cuts are prettier than mine—I’ll be the first to admit it.” He waved a hand, distractedly. “I’m a humble student—I don’t desire to overtake the true savant of the trade.” He shook his head. “But I did continue his work. He stopped at thirty, you know that? I picked up where he left off. Like Kepler finishing the work of Copernicus. Do you know who they are?”
Adele bobbed her head. “Astronomers. Both of them old. Both of them long dead.” Her tone carried no undercurrent, but the killer still frowned at her words.
“Yes—yes, but immortal too, don’t you see? You know them.” His eyes had creased again and his brow furrowed in a summoned rage.
She needed to cut him off at the pass. Talking was fine, but eventually he’d hurt her father. Eventually, he’d kill her too—there was no way he didn’t. The killer saw their meeting as fate. She needed to put him off guard, to give herself an opportunity, to turn the killer’s violent attention from her father to herself.
Adele said, “Death scares you, doesn’t it? Somehow, in that twisted brain of yours, you think by murdering these young, innocent people, that you’re retaining your youth. Is that it? Whoever did the work on your nose, though, didn’t do you any favors in that department.”
The man’s cheeks turned from red to white. He stared at her, his eyes bugging in his skull. The knife wavered for a moment as if his fingertips were trembling from sheer rage. “What did you say?” he said.
But Adele was tired of standing there, scared and shirtless in the dark, her father bleeding, her side aching, allowing the killer to toy with them. It was a gamble; but her father would die soon without medical attention. She couldn’t keep stalling, or he’d bleed out.
“The gardener did your mother right,” said the killer, seething now. “Honestly, it’s funny you left Paris, you know that? Especially given where you worked. He who came before created a masterpiece. I may not be the artist he is, but there’s a poetry to it, isn’t there? It started at forty-one with Elise, and once you’re out of the way I’ll continue all the way down to… Well, until it ends.”
Adele snorted in disdain. “Ends? You won’t end shit. You’re a murderer addicted to your own arrogance. You couldn’t stop killing if you wanted to. A friend of mine, his name is Robert—he thinks that people like you can change. Maybe he’s right; he taught me a lot, but you want to know what I think, Mr. Schmidt?”
The man’s eyes narrowed across the room.
“I think you’re too stupid, too normal, too ordinary and too old to change.” She shrugged in a gesture of disdainful dismissal. “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And hells, you’re ancient.”
The killer loosed a mewling snarl that started in the back of his throat as a whimper, but then exploded, shoved to the front of his lips with a surging vehemence that caught Adele off guard.
He screamed and lunged toward her, knife flashing, just as she turned, grabbing for her gun.
But he reached her first and kicked her in the chest, sending her stumbling away from her weapon and careening into the wall beneath the window. Her head clattered against the glass and her shoulders slumped as they scraped past the sill and she came to a stop against the plaster.
The killer continued to emit his shriek as he dropped on top of her, smothering her and holding her down. His one hand pressed against the exposed flesh of her abdomen, twisting against the blood and slipping along her ribs. The other raised the scalpel, trying to slash down.
Adele’s hand was all that kept the knife from her throat. She had the killer gripped by the wrist, holding tight, keeping both their hands elevated.
She gritted her teeth, emitting a growl of her own to match the killer’s snarl. Like a couple of huffing animals, they lay there, him on top of her, both of them struggling for control of the other’s hand.
The Sergeant was shouting and thrashing now, but his movements had weakened as his wounds took their toll and blood loss had its say.
Adele screamed in pain as she felt a finger jam into the cut at her side, trying to twist the flesh open further. She howled and the killer screamed back at her, their noses almost touching. He managed to jerk his hand free from hers and shove his shoulder down, trapping her wrist against her chest and pinning it beneath his weight.