I comment on their posts, they comment on mine. My feed becomes more inspiring than before. I stop stalking old acquaintances from high school and begin the process of what Cole calls “real networking”—making friends intentionally amongst people I respect and admire, people who inspire me with their creativity.
I wouldn’t have had the confidence to message any of these people before; they’re legitimate working artists. But so am I now. I’m not a cosplayer anymore. I’m passionate about my current series, I believe in it. I’m not embarrassed to talk about it. Quite the opposite—I want to discuss childhood trauma and self-destructive impulses. My mind is full of ideas.
The more I open up, the more I realize how many other people share these experiences. My past was ugly, but not so unique that no one else can understand it. Instead of judgment, I find acceptance.
A few of my posts go viral; most don’t. I don’t pay attention to that. I care more about the growing conversation amongst our group of like-minded artists.
Opening up to Cole, seeing his calm acceptance of even my strangest statements, is helping me to trust other people. To believe that they could meet the real Mara and actually like her, flaws and all.
Some of my new friends live in San Francisco. We meet in person at shows. Some are already known to Cole.
Cole is different when he’s introducing me around. He turns on the full measure of his charm, which is not as boisterous and loud as Shaw’s but is extraordinarily effective nonetheless because of his sly wit and his intense focus upon the person with whom we’re speaking.
At a dinner at Betsy Voss’ house, Cole sets the whole table roaring with an anecdote from art school.
Afterward I say to him, “I’ve never seen you like that. You had the whole room eating out of your hand.”
Cole looks at me, pushing back his fall of dark hair with one hand.
“I only told that story for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You looked bored. Something inside me whispered, ‘Say something funny. Make her laugh.’ ”
This touches me in the strangest way.
Cole and I had just spent the whole day together and fucked in the car on the way to the party. The fact that he still felt compelled to entertain me is ridiculously flattering.
The Siren prints a photo of us climbing out of Cole’s car, Cole holding the door open for me, dark and moody-looking with his long black coat swept back by the wind, and me with my hair in a maelstrom, my sparkly mini dress glinting like a disco ball, my head thrown back in laughter as the gust tries to take me away.
The caption reads: The Crown Prince and Princess of the Art World.
Below that, a brief article talking about Cole’s half-built sculpture in Corona Heights Park, and my upcoming show. The photograph shows one of my paintings, not Cole’s work.
It’s Cole who shows me the magazine, our glossy image looking far too glamorous to be anyone I know.
I glance up at his face, wondering if it bothers him that they talked more about my show than his sculpture.
“I’m sure they’ll write about you again when the maze is finished,” I say.
Cole snorts. “I don’t give a shit about that.”
I find that hard to believe. Cole is competitive, with a well-developed sense of his own merit. I can’t imagine he enjoys being overshadowed.
He catches my look.
“Give me a little credit,” he scoffs. “Whatever else I may be, I was never a man who had to tear a woman down to shine bright beside her. If you’re not as good as me, then you’re no good at all. And when I saw you, Mara … I thought, this girl is really fucking good. I don’t want to hold you down, chop you down, diminish you in any way. I already know I found something special. Now it’s time for everyone else to see it.”
12
Cole
Shaw has killed again.
He might have done it out of anger at losing his bid for Corona Heights. But the body wasn’t found in a state of mutilated rage. She was posed like Flaming June, something that was hushed up in the papers but TruCrime managed to splash across its site in full-color photographs.
The cold calculation of the slaying disturbs me far more than Shaw’s usual lustful rage.
The girl is dark-haired, slim, beautiful. The close-up photographs show one pale hand with roughly-bitten fingernails. Two of those fingers missing entirely.
It’s the only mark of brutality on an otherwise pristine body. Not a single tear on her flowing orange gown. Her face lovely and unmarked, eyes closed with a gentleness that might be sleep.
Even more disquieting, Hawks doesn’t come calling in the aftermath of her death. Instead, I see his unmarked car trailing mine when I drive from the studio to Corona Heights. I see his tall, upright figure lingering on Clay Street.
He knows I see him. He wants me to know.
He isn’t following Shaw.
Shaw is allowed to roam free with a different beautiful blonde on his arm every night of the week, these girls never suspecting that they’re riding the cock of the Beast of the Bay, kissing the mouth that ripped chunks of flesh out of girls very like themselves.
Never guessing that Shaw’s real preference is, and always has been, exclusively brunettes.
Erin was the only redhead, something Hawks’ brain-dead profiler hasn’t seemed to have noticed.
Sometimes I think I could do any job better than the people employed to do it. The rest of the world is a morass of incompetence, everyone playing dress-up at their jobs. Are there any actual adults? Or just children that grew tall?
Mara can’t escape the news of the latest killing, which is whispered everywhere. I’d like to hide it from her, but I can’t.
Janice pulls up TruCrime on her computer, and a dozen artists gather around.
I watch from across the room. Mara lingers at the edge of the pack, desperately wanting to turn away, but forced to look at the images. Witnessing what Shaw has done.
When she turns back to me, I see the horror in her eyes.
She feels responsible.
Shaw continues unchecked because of us. Because of her.
While she’s admitted her anger, she has yet to act upon it.
Maybe she hopes I’ll do it in secret, without her ever having to raise a finger. She’ll wake up one morning and Shaw will simply be dead.
That’s not happening.
There will be no pleasant convenience for Mara.
She’s going to learn the difference between thoughts and action.
Everyone knows someone they wish would die. Very few will make it happen.
I stand on one side of a chasm. Mara has to join me.
It’s the only way we can truly be together.
13
Mara
At night, lying in bed in the darkness, I can tell that Cole is not yet asleep. No slow, heavy breaths, only the stillness that tells me he’s thinking about something with all his focus.
I’m also thinking hard.
Probably on the same topic.
We both saw those pictures this morning. And we both know what it means.
Shaw is starting another cycle of killing, with barely any break since the last. That means two more girls sacrificed to his hunger. Maybe more.