She could see it in her mind’s eye, though, like a scene from a movie: Gray almost nose to nose with Christina, her expression as vicious as her words. Christina’s eyes going wide in shock, then narrowing to slits like the eyes of a snake.

I fucked your precious father.

Christina’s father. Julia Gray’s fiancé.

“No,” Brittany said, pushing to her feet. She couldn’t look at Julia Gray now. “She didn’t tell me anything. I should probably go,” she said. “I need to get home.”

Julia stood and went with her to the foyer.

“Thank you again for coming, Brittany. You’re a kind, sweet girl,” she said. “I’m glad to know Penny had a friend like you.”

She embraced Brittany tightly, with more emotion than seemed appropriate, and a strange chill went through Brittany just before Julia Gray said, “I’m so sorry. I really can’t let you go.”

46

“I’m sorry I don’t have a trunk for you to fall out of,” Fitz said as he put Dana Nolan in the back of the van.

She had finally given up and succumbed to the relief of unconsciousness. He went on speaking to her anyway. She was like a doll now, a thing he could play with. She couldn’t answer him. She wouldn’t scream, didn’t move, didn’t react, didn’t resist. She was more inanimate object than human.

“Then again,” he said, “that was really sloppy. That was what really pissed me off—that they would think I would be that careless and that sloppy. That was offensive to me.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” he told her. “And with great success, I might add. But here’s the thing with being that good: No one knows. Genius wants recognition.”

He covered her with a blanket, just in case. Couldn’t have someone looking in the window while they sat at a stoplight. Those were the kinds of stupid, sloppy mistakes that ended with incarceration.

The key to success was riding that fine edge of the ego.

He had been the tactical master for a long time. Tonight he would take it to the next level: art.

Euphoria filled him as he got behind the wheel of the van and started the engine. Tonight the world would be his stage, Minneapolis would be his canvas, Dana Nolan would be his masterpiece—a living piece of art.

They wanted to credit him with a zombie.

He would give them a zombie.

47

Brittany tried to pull away, but Gray’s mother held her, saying over and over, “I’m so sorry. I can’t let you go. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop it!” Brittany said, struggling. “You’re scaring me!”

She tried again to pull away. Julia Gray grabbed her hair in each fist, fingernails digging into her scalp, and gave her a rough shake.

“Be still! I can’t let you go!”

“Oh my God.”

Brittany started to cry, huge tears slipping from her eyes, but she made no sound. She should have been screaming, she thought, but there was a part of her that couldn’t believe what was happening. This couldn’t be real. She had to be imagining it or misinterpreting it.

Her brain struggled and scrambled to make some kind of sense of it. Julia didn’t want her to go because she was lonely, because she was missing her daughter. I’m the only one who’s come to say they’re sorry. I’m the only friend her daughter had. She was just overreacting to the stress of losing her child.

I’m just overreacting, Brittany thought. She’s not really trying to stop me from leaving.

She tried to turn toward the door. Julia kept hold of her hair in her left hand and began striking her with the right, despite the fact that she had already injured that hand and wore a brace.

“You can’t go!” she snapped. “Stop trying!”

The scent of liquor soured her breath.

“Let me go!” Brittany said. Shouted. Screamed. “Let me go! Oh my God! Stop it! Let me go!”

Frantic, she tried to scramble backward, her feet slipping and sliding on the floor. She kicked at her attacker. She slapped at her. She felt like a kitten pawing at a lion.

“Don’t fight me!” Julia screamed. “Stop fighting me!”

Brittany twisted and tried to lunge for the door. Julia came with her, suddenly rushing forward instead of pulling back. Their legs tangled and then they were falling, the back of Brittany’s head striking the heavy wooden door like a hammer.

Black spiderwebs flashed across her vision; then everything went dark as her phone silently vibrated against her belly in the pouch of her hoodie sweater.

•   •   •

R U HOME YET?

Kyle typed the words and sent the message and waited impatiently. He didn’t like the idea of Brittany walking to Gray’s house and back by herself. It wasn’t far, and it wasn’t a bad neighborhood or anything. He just thought a girl shouldn’t go walking around by herself at night, especially with all the talk about serial killers in the news and everything like that.

He would have felt better being there with her. Even if he had just walked her over and back without ever going in to see Mrs. Gray. He wished he had thought of that sooner.

He walked around his room feeling like a tiger in a cage, watched by the life-size cutout of Georges St-Pierre mounted to the back of his bedroom door. St. Pierre in fight shorts, bare-chested, muscles bulging, a serious expression on his face, his hands resting on his hips. A stack of Japanese characters were inked on his left chest, expressing the nature of his character—saying that he has a good side and a dark side but that respect is the most important thing. Respect for self. Respect for others.

Kyle imagined he felt his hero’s disapproval. GSP wouldn’t have let a woman walk alone in the dark of night. Ultor, the hero Kyle had created, would never have neglected his duty to protect. What had he been thinking letting Brittany go alone?

Gray was dead. Murdered.

His mom and Sam were downstairs talking about a serial killer.

Kyle flashed back to the scene from the morning—the nasty look on Christina’s face as she glared at Brittany from the passenger’s seat of Aaron Fogelman’s car, Fogelman’s rage as he had come at Kyle swinging his fists with bad intentions. Christina was angry with Britt. What if she and her henchman decided to do something to her? He could still see Christina lunging at Gray that night at the Rock & Bowl.

His hands were shaking as sent another text.

Where R U? Pls answer!

But she didn’t answer.

She was probably still talking with Gray’s mom, he reasoned. Kyle wouldn’t have had that much to say beyond I’m sorry for your loss, but he was a guy. Women liked to go on and on.

He stood by his window and looked out at the dark, seeing only his shadowed reflection looking back at him.

R U OK? He typed and sent and paced some more.

He stared at his phone until his eyes burned.

No message came back.

•   •   •

SHE DIDN’T KNOW how long she lay unconscious. Seconds? Minutes? Longer? She came to with a sense of floating. Or maybe she was dead. No. A hand was wrapped tight around her wrist. Her arm being pulled from her shoulder. She was being dragged, dragged across the floor, down the hall.

Adrenaline burst through her like a bomb exploding. In an instant she was struggling, flailing, scrambling. She yanked her arm free of Julia Gray’s grasp and struggled to get her feet under her and get up.

Julia was on her in a heartbeat, grabbing her head, falling down on her, banging her head against the floor, over and over, shouting, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”