Page 102 of The Grave Artist

“Ruled accidental.”

Damon found the familiarity of her MO delightful: death by drowning. And made to look like an accident.

He studied her for a moment. “Earlier, when we met—”

“That fateful moment,” she joked.

“You said you always figure something out.”

“Oh. Did I?”

“Yep.”

A deep breath. “I was lost in the moment,” she said slowly.

“So there were others.”

Maddie debated. “The jock wasn’t the first. I told you I was an orphan. Had a foster home thing. The family was okay. One of the older boys placed there wasn’t. Not sex. He was just a bully. Hurt the little ones. There was something wrong with him. I knew he wouldn’t stop. We were walking to school one day. It was along this big highway and we were the only kids who lived on that side of it. A semi went by. I’d gone there earlier and left a twenty under some leaves. When we were waiting to cross, I uncovered it with my foot. I started to pick it up and he pushed me away and bent down.” She shrugged.

“You shoved him.” He made it a statement rather than a question.

“Under the rear wheels. That was the first. Then, a couple years after the hot tub, I was dating this guy. He turned abusive. In a big way. Put me in the hospital twice. Hurt his two-year-old niece and threatened to kill me if I told his sister what happened. He spent every Saturday working on his cars. You know, sometimes those jack stands can collapse.”

Jesus.

A faint laugh. “I’m not normal, Damon. I have to say that right up front. But I guess you figured that out.”

“I’m not heading for the hills, am I? What did you say? I’m incredibly confident or I’m completely nuts?”

“And you implied you were both.” She laughed.

Damon decided he’d heard enough.

A nod toward the far end of the dimly lit den, the curtained-off special area.

It was where he’d left Her.

“Come on.” He rose, smiled and gestured for her to follow.

“What’s back there?”

He reached into his pocket and gripped the box of razor blades with sweating fingers. “Something special.”

Chapter 50

“Yo, you can’t park there.”

The office maintenance engineer—he preferred that to “janitor”—was calling out to the driver, who had just pulled into the loading zone. He might’ve shut the engine off. Ramirez couldn’t tell because rap was blaring from what must have been oversize speakers.

The driver’s eyes, a shade darker than his skin, turned and sliced Ramirez into little pieces before returning to his phone.

No, no, this wasn’t going to work. Fuck no.

“Yo, I call the police, have your ass thrown in jail.”

The driver frowned. “Yeah. On private property? You cansuemy ass. But police got nothing to do with it. Course, you could always just whip my ass. In fact, I’d welcome you to try.”

Ramirez couldn’t see the driver’s body, only his head, but it was a big one and the torso it was attached to was probably equally sizable.