—like cutting—

Oh, yes, just touch—

he pulled back, pulled away, shoving Connie more violently than he’d intended.

Both dreams. Both of them at once—

He rolled out of bed, arms flailing, smacking into the nightstand, pulling the alarm clock and the phone down to the floor with him.

Both of them. Killing and sex and—

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry’s not enough. Never enough. Never, ever…

Connie crawled over from her side of the bed to look down at him, her hair covered by the satin bonnet she wore to sleep. In the murky light that bled through the thin curtains, she was chocolate cream and he wanted to devour every last inch of her, wanted to run his tongue over her, wanted to sink his teeth into her and suck out everything of her, ingest it into him.

No. No! Stop it! That’s crazy.

Take it, Jasper, Billy cooed. Take her. She’s yours. She’s your prospect. This is what you’ve been waiting for. And best of all, Jasper? Best of all is that she’s been waiting for it, too.

Not true. He couldn’t believe it was true.

But then there was the naked lust, the yearning in Connie’s eyes, in the parting of her lips, in her pose on the bed. It was less than human, this electricity between them. It was primal, as it was meant to be, as it should be.

That’s when it’s best, Jasper. When they come to you. When they want it as badly as you want to give it.

“Why are you afraid?” Connie whispered, and her voice tasted like warm pie. “Why are you so afraid of me?”

“I’m not afraid of you.” And he wasn’t. Jazz was afraid only of himself.

“I know it isn’t easy,” she said. “I know it’s complicated for you. But this—this thing, this moment—this is supposed to be easy. So easy.”

“We can’t.”

“I brought condoms,” she said, the words an electric prod to his heart. “I thought… I knew we’d be alone here.”

Jazz closed his eyes. It was as though he could see the future. But not just one future. He could see so many of them. He could see himself, happy, with Connie, two normal people living normal lives, drawn closer together and connected by their shared intimacy, the way it was supposed to work, the way it was supposed to be.

But he could also see…

But here’s the thing, Jasper, Billy’s voice purred, speaking from the last time he’d spoken to his father, at Wammaket State Penitentiary. I bet you’re a nice, responsible kid, ’cause I raised you that way, but are you always the one buyin’ the rubbers? Hmm? Or maybe she’s on that pill? ’Cause you can’t always trust ’em, Jasper. You look at them rubbers real close-like, see? You watch her take that pill, Jasper. Hell (and here Billy had roared with laughter), how you think you was born?

He could also see sex as the ignition moment, the fulcrum upon which his own career of serial murder would lever.

None of Billy’s victims had been black. There had been Latinas and Asians and a great profusion of white girls, but not a single African American. Jazz thought that made Connie safe.

He’d thought that… until now.

Now he was no longer certain.

He wanted her so badly. And was that because he was a boy and she was a girl and they were in love and that’s how it was supposed to work?

Or was it because the deepest part of him, the Billy part of him, champed at the bit, strained against its tether, eager and desperate for freedom, to begin what it had been born and made to do?

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, as tight as he could. As tight as the night Billy had skinned poor Rusty alive. The howl of the dog as Billy’s knife did its gruesome work…

Phosphenes again behind his eyelids, this time not of the crime scenes from the pictures, but rather as he’d seen them tonight.

I did something good tonight. I helped tonight. Doesn’t that mean I should be getting better, not worse?

Sex and killing. The two dreams, conflating. What did that mean?

When Jazz opened his eyes and spoke, his voice was deep, sure, emotionless.

“You should throw those condoms away,” he said.

And then he crawled into the other, empty bed to sleep.

CHAPTER 15

Billy Dent roamed Brooklyn, the day having dawned clear and cold. He turned up the collar of his coat and tugged his hat down around his ears.

The cold weather made hiding even easier. Everyone all bundled up. Everyone in such a hurry to get to where they were going. No one stopping to look at anyone else. Everyone wearing gloves, how convenient. Cover up those prison tats. Cover up LOVE. Cover up FEAR.

Cover ’em up, but they’re still there. Love and fear. Equal. Maybe even the same.

It wouldn’t have mattered if anyone had been looking at him, anyway. Billy didn’t fear the human eye. The human eye was a fickle, foolish thing. His goatee and mustache, along with a set of muttonchop sideburns trimmed and shaped just right, changed the angles and configuration of his face. Cutting down his eyebrows made his eyes more prominent. And, of course, he’d dyed his hair.

Billy chuckled to himself when he thought of the vanity of women, and how they’d made it easier on folks like him. God bless Miss Clairol and her endless variations of hues and shades! Billy had—by mixing together a specific set of colors—managed to turn his dirty blond hair into graying brown. After thinning it out with an electric razor, he looked ten years older. The final touch was a pair of black, heavy-rimmed glasses, the kind Billy’s own father had once worn. To the idiotic hipsters of Brooklyn, these glasses were “fashionable.” They also distorted Billy’s features in a way that pleased him and made him harder to recognize. Oh, glorious fashion!

Disguising yourself wasn’t just about making yourself look different; it was about making yourself look different from what people were looking for. The cops could imagine Billy growing a beard or shaving a beard or growing out his hair or coloring his hair, but would they imagine him making himself look older?

He’d studied the FBI and police procedure most of his life. He knew how cops thought and, more important, how they thought he thought. They thought him a creature of immeasurable vanity, and they couldn’t imagine that he would be willing to make himself look worse in order to evade recapture.

Billy was willing to do anything to evade recapture.

After years in prison with nothing to do but exercise, Billy was in top condition, but he dressed to hide his physique. Walked with a slump. When he was out and about, he made sure to wear a watch and checked it constantly, communicating that he was in his own world.

Plus, he had the perfect bit of camouflage: a stroller and a diaper bag.

This part of Brooklyn was called Park Slope, and Billy had noticed quickly that damn near everyone here had either a dog or a baby carriage or both. He had no interest in actually taking care of anything living, but he had a big interest in blending in, so he’d bought a used stroller at an antiques store, then wrapped up a bundle of blankets to look like a baby. Since it was winter, he could keep the top down; anyone looking through the little plastic window would see what appeared to be a well-tucked-in child, napping.

And the diaper bag actually held diapers. Under the diapers, Billy had stashed three different-sized knives, a Glock he’d bought on the street, and a length of rope.