She is as accommodating to me as she would be with any of her many lovers. She gets out of the car, yes, her back to me. She never hears me coming. From behind, lit only by the streetlight at the lot’s far end, she looks like Jordan. Though I know His will, I am tempted to do more. She reminds me so much of my prize, My Reward, that I feel myself having impure thoughts. Even as I do, my hand snakes out, wraps around her flat belly, and I pull her to me as my other hand covers her mouth with the cloth. I’ve soaked it in chloroform and it will render her unconscious quickly. In the meantime, she bucks and fights, rubbing against me, multiplying my impure thoughts, but she is no match for my strength much less my spiritual resilience. My face is buried in her neck and she smells good, but not like Jordan, who smelled so fresh and clean that sacred night. Clare’s scent is a combination of sweat, spilled beer, and some cheap perfume mixed with a sale brand shampoo. Earthly scents that one must admit have their carnal appeal.
Just as I wonder if I’m going to be exposed too long in this lot, she goes limp in my arms. Working quickly, I hit the unlock button on the key fob as I drag her around to the passenger side, tuck her in, as if she were slumbering or slumped drunkenly, and close the door. I walk back to the driver’s side, start the car, put on my seat belt, and pull away. Check my watch. Elapsed time, not even two minutes.
I could have dispatched her right there, but I have better plans. As we drive through the night, I glance over. She’s really not as pretty as Jordan — even with only the passing streetlights as illumination, that much is clear.
Twenty minutes in a car with an unconscious female might be dangerous, but she is important in my plan to remind Jordan of our time together.
When I get to the Ohio City Historic District, the neighborhood where I know Jordan now lives, I can’t resist driving by her apartment. I reduce speed as I pass her building, look up at the light barely visible through her closed venetian blinds. I smile as I suppress the urge to alert Jordan that I am so close.
But no. I am no hormone-rattled teenager, honking for his date to come join him. She and I will have a much more meaningful relationship than that, our bond already formed but soon to be forged into something eternal. And it will happen soon enough. Tonight, I have God’s work to do.
I consider leaving the body near her door, but that seems too obvious. While I want her to know I’m thinking of her, there’s no reason to be boorish.
Fairview Park is less than a mile from both her apartment and St. Dimpna’s. Close enough to make my point, and nice and quiet at this time of night.
I pull to the curb, extinguish the lights, then the ignition, before sitting and watching. The neighborhood is quiet. These are working-class people and will be up early to get to work. By now, nearly all of them are asleep. My only concern is the lonely soul out walking a dog or the insomniac who thinks a stroll in the cool air may make him drowsy.
Once I’m satisfied that Clare and I are alone, I get down to business. She has moaned softly once, and she may be close to coming around. I doubt she will regain lucidity before it is too late to matter for her. God has passed his judgment on her already — mine is simply the duty to carry out that sentence.
I get out of the car, go around to her side, and remove her from the passenger seat. Still no sign of another soul as I walk into the darkness of the small park, Clare slung over a shoulder. When I’ve reached the tiny grove of trees that passes for nature in this area, I drop her to the ground. She lands on her back, a tiny whimper emerging, but no movement.
Even in this darkness, it’s clear this is not Jordan. For tonight, she’ll do. Kneeling next beside the unconscious sprawl of her, I wipe stray strands of her dark hair from her face. In a cheap way, she is pretty. My arousal is returning, so I concentrate on my work. Removing the hunter’s knife from its scabbard in my waistband, I close my eyes, picturing the exact pattern of stab wounds I lavished upon Jordan’s mother. That should provide resonance, and a nice reintroduction. Showing Jordan I haven’t forgotten how cooperative her mother was, sacrificing herself. The woman thought she was protecting her daughter, when in reality what she did was deliver her to me.
Just as I raise the knife, Clare’s eyes drift open. They seem hazy and I can’t tell if she’s aware or not, though her body heaves at the first blow, ejaculating blood, then jerks a little thereafter, spurting more blood, but soon it is like stabbing a bag of grain, and bags of grain don’t bleed. The knife follows the pattern of Jordan’s mother. It performs its duty with divine guidance, as He works through me to hand down his justice. Technically, I suppose, I have taken her life. But He has taken her soul.
After, I lean over her, panting, unaware I had worked so hard, and from my exhilarated exhaustion, one might think I had followed my worst instincts and committed fornication upon this creature. But I have maintained control. To be with anyone but Jordan, from here on out, would be a sin, and I stay on the other side of sin.
I wipe the blade clean on Clare’s clothing, then put it back in its scabbard in my waistband. I take off the latex gloves I have been wearing since arriving at Clare’s building and wrap them and the chloroform rag in the raincoat. This package I will drop in a sewer or Dumpster later.
For now, it’s time to go.
But not until I’ve said a prayer for Clare.
Amen.
Chapter Seven
“Jimmy was just about the best older brother a girl could hope for,” Jordan said. “I could share any feelings, any secrets with him. He kidded me, sure, but he’d been through so much himself.”
Tears welled and Jordan stopped, swallowed, glancing around the circle at the encouraging smiles and nods of the Victims of Violent Crime Support Group.
“He’d been through a lot,” she said, “’cause, well, ’cause he was gay. It was something he hid for a long time, and I was the first one in the family that he... came out to. He was so afraid I’d be disappointed in him. But I didn’t care. And neither did Mom or Dad. He was just Jimmy... kind, loving...”
A box of tissues was passed her way and she used them, dabbing her eyes, blowing her nose, everyone just waiting.
Finally Levi asked, gently, “Did you see him?”
Jordan’s head jerked up. “Huh? What?”
“The killer. Did you see him?”
It had all been so positive, so shockingly easy, talking about her mother, father, and brother. As if she and a girlfriend on a sleepover were in her darkened bedroom, on a comfy bed, leaned back talking about wonderful times, the way you might before drifting off to sleep after a fun day.
But the door to the rest of the house was cracked open, the light a bright vertical slash, and what was waiting out there, the horror of all that, she couldn’t face, much less share.
She could not open that door.
Chin lowered, Jordan said, “That’s all I have to say right now.”
Dr. Hurst’s expression was kind and so was her voice as she said, “Jordan, I know it’s difficult. You’ve done very well, sharing the positive memories. But we need to push past those, and face—”
Jordan shot her a look that melted the doctor’s pleasant expression into pale blankness.