Page 1 of Handsome Devil

Roman baths of Bath

It wasn’t on my year’s bingo card to contaminate the water of two-thousand-year-old ancient thermae, but life had a way of surprising me every now and again.

“Perhaps now would be a good time to stop flailing about, Mr. Boyle,” I suggested stonily, my voice muffled by the plague doctor mask I was wearing.

Breathing through an upholstered leather beak was decisively inconvenient, but the Roman baths of Bath were littered with security cameras, and while severely allergic to humans, I had a feeling I was even more averse to prison food.

Plus, I had it on good authority that Boyle wasn’t a fan of crows.

I always appreciated a good Hitchcockian touch.

Nothing short of polite, Darrah Boyle stopped thrashing in the shallow water upon my request, but not before hitting his head on the edge of the Roman bath’s stair and splitting his forehead. The sound of bone cracking rang and echoed through the empty arena. My nostrils flared.

I despised clumsiness.

I especially hated mess.

Crimson crawled across the green-hued water, visible even in the pitch black of the night. Clenching my teeth, I tapped on the side of my right leg twice, then six times, then twice again.

I loathed going off script. This was definitely a diversion from my plan. He was not supposed to bleed. I wanted his corpse unsoiled and bruise-free.

It’s not in your plans.

It’s not in your plans.

It’s not in your plans.

“Plans change,” I said loudly, authoritatively, to myself.

Uncurling my fingers from his blood-soaked hair, I pushed up on my heels and watched as his ashen, naked frame drifted along the rectangle body of water, face down. A minute passed, then three. Because he wasn’t Aquaman, he was obviously dead.

I briefly considered leaving him inside the columned bath to be found. It would look like an accident. An inebriated ex-felon who came for a late-night dunk where swimming was prohibited. Knocked his head and drowned.

But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

There were rituals to follow. A ceremony to be made.

Two, six, two.

Two, six, two.

Two, six, two.

With an exasperated, long-suffering sigh, I strode into the thermae to retrieve my prey. Water enfolded my Tom Ford Chelsea boots, soaking my Brioni pants. The fog of the springwater swallowed his body in thick mist, and I had to fish my phone out of my peacoat and turn on the flashlight.

I checked for messages, but there weren’t any. Not even from my personal assistant, Gia, whom I called a half hour ago about a missing document I needed for work.

I would deal with her later.

The quiet swishing of the water as I treaded through it drowned out my slow and steady heartbeat.

Boyle’s body floated toward a corner of the stairway.

I gripped his hair in my gloved hand, dragging him up to the limestone pavement.

I used the tip of my boot to roll him over so that he faced me. A sloppy, sodden sound rang in my ears.

His blue face was splotchy, his skull distorted and slightly caved in from the injury. His lips were liver-hued.