“With all my heart.”
He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers. “Then that’s the way it’s going to be.”
THE END
Continue reading for an extended excerpt
of Maggie’s new thriller Girl Blue!
Girl Blue: Chapter 1
I was waiting, crouched behind his car in the parking lot. It was dark, and there were street lights but no cameras. I’d checked ahead of time. I’d planned this carefully, because I was going to kill him, no matter what. I figured I’d make it as easy as possible.
He came out of the bar, three sheets to the wind, which would make things so much easier. He listed to one side but tried real hard to stand up straight as he walked around the parking lot, awash in android-blue light, looking for his car. Then he took his key fob out and tapped it. The car beside me unlocked its doors and flashed its headlights. He saw it and smiled like he’d just won the lottery.
Only he hadn’t won anything. His winning days were over.
He staggered to the car, opened the driver’s door. I slipped up behind him, silent as a shadow, and jabbed him in the crease of his ass with a perfectly placed needle.
He spun around like a wobbling top, about to fall over. “What the hell!” and clocked me in the jaw. My head snapped sideways. I’d have gone down if I hadn’t caught myself on the roof of his car. I stood ready to take another blow, thinking it would've been worse if he wasn't so drunk and wondering how long the drug would take to kick in.
He had one hand on his ass where I’d stuck him. His eyes rolled. I grabbed his shirt front, pulled him toward me as I opened the back door of his car. Then I turned him around, because I could not do this looking at him, and shoved him face-first onto the back seat, and then I climbed in after him, right up his back. He was out cold in seconds, not moving. I took the wood-handled garrote from my pocket. I’d made it out of picture-frame wire, several layers twisted together to make it thick, so I wouldn’t accidentally decapitate him. I gagged a little as I put it over his head, and pulled it down between his face and the seat, over his chin to his neck. My inner voice, though it wasn’t really mine, said, Do it. Just do it. There’s no other way. He won’t feel anything. Just do it. You’re so close.
I pulled the right handle with my left hand, the left handle with my right, so they crossed at his nape. It was awful, what I was doing. My lips pulled back from my teeth with the effort it took–and not just physically. I had to force myself and my self was resisting. Tears filled my eyes. I tried to focus on my watch. It was an old-school watch, not a smart one. A delicate oval, with gold numbers and hands that swept way too slowly around its face. A narrow, delicate, pink leather band. After two minutes, he started to convulse, his body bucking underneath me, just like the internet said he would. I pulled tighter, to hold on, pressing my knees into his back like a cowboy at a rodeo. Terrible sounds started coming from him. Wet, growly, choky sounds. I wiped my wet face against my black, spandex-covered shoulder.
Just hold on. It’s almost over. It’s better this way. For everyone, even him.
I didn’t know how many times the second hand had circled, but eventually it felt like it was over. The sounds stopped first, thank God. I’d never get them out of my head, though. Those sounds would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. In silence, the twitching of his body eased, and he finally went still. I looked at my wristwatch and held the wood and wire weapon as tight as I could for three more minutes. My arm muscles were cramping up. My hands hurt despite the thick leather gloves I wore to protect them. Murder was not easy.
When I was sure he was dead, I let go of the garrote, slid it out from beneath him, and then climbed off him and backed down his body and out of the car. My legs were shaking so hard I wasn’t sure I could stand up. But I did, I stood there beside the open car door, looking in at the man on the back seat.
I sniffed, backhanded my nose with my black leather glove, forced my gaze away from him to look around. A dozen vehicles, but no people. No witnesses. His keys were on the pavement, so I picked them up. His legs were still sticking out of the car. I bent them at the knees, so I could close the door.
Then I got behind the wheel, and started the car, noticing for the first time that it was a Jaguar, a newish one. Blue or black, impossible to tell which in the dark.
I knew exactly where to put him. There was a burlap bag and a shovel already there, waiting.
I started the car. The radio blasted to life, scaring me so bad my head hit the ceiling before I got hold of myself and snapped the thing off. Then I sat there, gripping the wheel, white-knuckled. I took three long, deep breaths. Okay. I was okay. I put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.
I was driving through the night with a dead guy in the back seat, shaking all the way to my marrow. This was not me. This was not anything I’d ever imagined myself capable of, not in my wildest dreams.
Well, maybe in my wildest dreams.
A congested moan came from the back seat and sent a lightning bolt through my entire being.
The alarm clock went off like a freaking mind bomb.
The murderous dream popped like a balloon at a birthday party, showering its deadly latex bits all around me. I sat up fast, blurting an overly loud, “Holy fuck!”
Mason sprang out of bed, landing in a ready crouch beside it. “What? What?”
My bulldog picked up her head, blinked sightlessly at me, then lowered it and resumed snoring.
I looked around our bedroom like I was searching for an explanation. But there were only the soothing green walls and rich walnut trim.
“Rachel?” Mason turned on the lamp.
I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. Lingering sparks of murder were still blinking out one by one in my head. I swallowed hard. “I’m okay. Bad dream.”
“Was it?”
I met his eyes. “You know me too well.”
“So? What was it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Yes, you do. It’s not like it’s the first time a killer took up residence in your head, or you took up residence in his, after all.
It’s not that, Inner Bitch.
Then what is it?
Like I just told Mason, I don’t know yet.
Yes, you do.
“You okay?”
I slid up out of our big bed, planted a big, morning-breathy kiss on his face, and said, “I’d be better with coffee.”
He smacked my butt and said, “Then coffee you shall have.” He pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that said, DEFINITELY NOT A COP. Yes, I bought it for him. I think it’s hilarious. He only wears it to humor me. What can I say? I got myself a keeper.
I turned back toward the bed. “Wanna go outside, Myrt?”
Myrtle did not so much as twitch her ears in reply. “I guess not.” I pulled on my fluffiest robe because it was six a.m. and also September, and went out onto the balcony. It had pretty wrought iron railings and a view of the four-mile-long, mile-wide Whitney Point Reservoir.
God, I loved seeing. I could spend hours just…seeing. As would, I guessed, anyone who’d spent twenty years of their life blind. I went to the railing and looked at the water. It was a rippled mirror, reflecting rolling hills and blue sky. The air tasted good, but its flavor was shifting. It smelled like back-to-school.