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He gives her the goblet and the spoon. Peter Steinman wasn’t a particularly fatty child, but what he did give up when rendered was edible gold. His wife begins to eat quickly—gobbling from the goblet, Roddy thinks. A drool of fat containing a few hairlike strands of tendon rolls down her chin. Roddy scoops it up deftly and tucks it back into her mouth. She sucks his finger, a thing that once upon a time would have turned the noodle in his pants into a railspike, but no more, and there’s nothing that can be done about that. Viagra and the other erectile dysfunction drugs aren’t just bad for the brain; they speed up the clock of the chromosomes. You lose six months of life for every Viagra-assisted act of intercourse. It’s a proven fact, although the drug companies of course suppress it.

He snatches the goblet back from her before she can eat all of it. He almost drops it—what a tragedy that would be—but saves it before it can roll off the bed and shatter on the floor. “Turn over. I’ll raise your nightgown.”

“I can do it.” She does, revealing her wrinkled thighs and scrawny buttocks. He begins smoothing the remains of the fat and tendon on her left cheek and down her inner thigh, where that pesky nerve is sending out its high voltage. She gives a little moan.

“Better?”

“I think… yes, better. Oh God, it is.”

He gets every last bit from the goblet and continues to spread and knead. Soon the shine of the fat is almost gone as it sinks in, soothing that nasty red nerve and putting it back to sleep.

No, not to sleep, he thinks, only a doze. Real relief will begin later, with the girl’s liver. And then nourishing soups, stews, filets, and cutlets.

There are little white crescents of fat under his nails. He licks and gnaws them clean, then pulls her nightgown back down. “Now rest. Sleep, if you can. Get ready for tonight.”

He kisses the sweaty hollow of her temple.

2

Shortly before eleven that night, Bonnie Dahl wakes to find herself lying naked on a table in a small, brightly lit room. Her wrists and ankles are clamped. Rodney and Emily Harris are watching her. Both are wearing elbow-length gloves and long rubber aprons.

“Peekaboo,” Roddy says, “I see you.”

Bonnie’s head is still muzzy. She could almost believe this is a dream, the worst nightmare ever, but knows it isn’t. She raises her head. It feels as heavy as a concrete block, but she manages. She sees they have drawn on her in Sharpie. It’s like a kind of weird map.

“Are you going to rape me after all?” Her mouth is dry. The words are husky.

“No, dear,” Emily says. Her hair hangs in clumps around a face so pale and hollow-cheeked that it’s little more than a skull. Her eyes glitter. Her mouth is a crimped line of pain. “We’re going to eat you.”

Bonnie begins to scream.

July 28, 2021

1

Emily stands at the bedroom window in the hour before dawn, looking out at Ridge Road, empty save for moonlight. Behind her, Rodney is sleeping with his mouth open, breathing in great rasping snores. The sound is mildly annoying, but Emily envies him his rest just the same. She woke at quarter past three and there will be no more sleep for her tonight. Because she knows what was nagging at her.

She should have known as soon as Gibney called with that cock-and-bull story about Dressler being suspected of car theft. It was so obvious. Why hadn’t she? At first she wondered if she was beginning to lose her mind the way Rodney is losing his. (In this small hour she can admit that’s the truth.) But she knows it isn’t so. Her mind is as sharp as ever. It’s just that some things are so big, so goddamned obvious, that you ignore them. Like an ugly, oversized piece of furniture that you get used to and just walk around. Until you run into it face first, that is.

Or until you have a dream about a certain black vegan bitch.

And I knew, Em thinks. I must have. I told him separate cases involving two of the people we’ve taken would be a very large coincidence. He shrugged it off. Said coincidences happen, and I accepted that.

Accepted it! God, how stupid!

Not once had she remembered—at least not then—that Gibney, using her LaurenBacallFan alias, had sent out queries to the Craslows she had found on Twitter. Em supposes that Dahl and Dressler really could be a coincidence. But Dahl, Dressler, and Craslow?

No.

Emily turns from the window and makes her slow way into their bathroom with one hand pressing into the small of her throbbing back. Standing on tiptoe (it hurts!), she reaches the top of the medicine cabinet and finds a dusty brown bottle with no label. Inside it are two green pills. These are their final escape hatch, should they be needed. Em can still hope they won’t be. She goes back into the bedroom and looks down at her snoring, open-mouthed husband. She thinks, He looks so old.

She lies down and puts the little brown bottle under her pillow. She’ll tell him what she now knows, and should have known earlier, in the morning. For now let the old dear sleep.

Emily lies on her back, staring up into the dark.

2

The melatonin worked. Holly wakes up feeling like a new woman. She showers and dresses, then checks her phone. She’s set it to DO NOT DISTURB, and she sees that she got a call from Pete Huntley at quarter past one in the morning. There’s a voicemail, but it’s not Pete. It’s his daughter, calling on Pete’s phone.