I start to paint again, thick clouds of gray, just the color of car exhaust.
“By the way,” Sonia says as she departs, “I love the new composition.”
I finished my Sinners and Saints series. There were six paintings in all, and each sold for more than the last.
Actually, seven sales occurred, because my painting of the beautiful devil has already resold for twice its original price to Betsy Voss herself.
“That’s a very good sign,” Cole told me. “Betsy has an eye, and she doesn’t make purchases just to inflate value. She really believes it’s an investment.”
The giddy trajectory of my bank account is terrifying. I try not to look at it. The numbers seem impossible.
I hardly need to access it anyway, living at Cole’s house. I don’t need more clothes. And I’d prefer not to spend the money in case it evaporates as quickly as it came.
I do withdraw $1000 each for Frank and Joanna, who lent me money in my most desperate moments.
Cole drives me back to the old Victorian, waiting at the curb while I climb the uneven steps to the front door.
The house already looks smaller and infinitely shabbier. I feel ashamed, not of its ugliness, but that I’m now perceiving it. Judging it. I loved this house—I felt at home here.
I knock at the door like a stranger. The flutter in my stomach when Joanna answers tells me that I was hoping it would be Frank instead, or even Melody.
Her dark eyes are unsmiling. She doesn’t say hello—just waits for me to speak.
“I brought you some money,” I say awkwardly, trying to put both envelopes in her hand. “You and Frank. For the times you gave me slack …”
Joanna looks at the envelopes, unmoving.
“You always paid me back,” she says.
I don’t know how to make her take them.
Her eyes flick down to the Tesla pulled up to the curb. Cole sitting behind the wheel.
“He give you that money?” she says.
“No. I sold some paintings.”
“Congratulations.”
There’s no warmth to the word. We might have only met this morning.
I helped her clean out her grandfather’s house after he died, stopping regularly to hug her while she cried. Joanna sublet her studio to me, over all our other roommates who would have jumped at the chance.
Friendship feels so real, until it pops like a soap bubble.
Her coldness doesn’t stem from jealousy or the belief that Cole is giving me an unfair advantage.
This is about Erin.
Joanna doesn’t know what happened, but she knows it’s my fault.
I’m the one who drew the evil eye upon us. I was attacked first. And I didn’t finish the fight—instead, I began to change.
I didn’t want to be the old Mara—the loser, the unlucky one, the victim.
Cole appeared in my life like a dark genie, offering me everything I ever wanted: money, fame, success.
I took his offer before I even knew the terms of the contract. Before I knew the price.
I shed my old life like a molted skin. And I left Erin to die in my place, in my bed.
For that, I feel as guilty as Joanna could wish.
I just don’t know what to do about it.
I have no evidence against Shaw. No way of fighting back against him, of getting justice for Erin.
Cole wants to kill him. That would break my vow to always keep swimming to the surface, never sinking to the bottom, becoming more vicious than the monsters trying to devour me.
My worst fear is to become like my mother. When I catch myself doing anything her way, I want to slap my own face. I won’t do it. I refuse.
“If you don’t want the money, will you give it to Frank?” I ask.
Now Joanna does consent to take the envelopes. I have no doubt she’ll give them both to Frank. Joanna’s principles are as iron-hard as her posture. I always respected that about her.
“Thank you again,” I say. “If you ever need anything—”
“I won’t.”
She closes the door, not slamming it in my face, but certainly not waiting for my response.
Making the long descent back to the car, I can tell Cole has followed the conversation as closely as if he could hear it.
“She’s still upset about Erin,” he guesses.
“So am I,” I tell him. “What are we going to do about Shaw? Why has he been so quiet?”
“He usually goes dark after three kills. This time it was four—but the third was a prop, to trap me. He meant the real climax to be you.”
Cole’s intimate understanding of Shaw’s process unnerves me.
Stomach clenching, I ask him, “How do you know that? How did you find out what Shaw does? And how did he find out about you? Were you friends?”
Cole sits tall in the driver’s seat, seeming to fill the whole space of the car. Seeming to loom over me.
Asking him questions is terrifying.
“You want me to tell you information that could put me in prison, while you refuse to share any of your secrets with me.”
I flush. “It’s not the same.”
“No. What you ask is more dangerous … for both of us.”
I take several shallow breaths, no oxygen in the car. My brain races faster than my heart.
I don’t talk about my past with anyone.
And Cole is no therapist—he’ll use whatever I tell him to manipulate me. To gain even greater control.
On the other hand, we’re equally curious about each other. I want to know his history as badly as he wants to know mine.
Tit for tat. Pay to play. That’s how the world works.
Sighing, I say, “I’ll tell you what you want to know. But you have to tell me something first.”
Cole’s fingertips give one restless tap on the woolen thigh of his trousers. He weighs the offer.
“You can ask one question,” he says. “Not about Shaw.”
The devil always counters.
“Fine,” I say, so quickly that he narrows his eyes at me.
The silence stretches between us as I consider what he might answer fully and truthfully. And what I most want to know.
Finally, I ask:
“Who was the first person you killed?”
4
Cole
I start the car, turning the wheel in the direction of Seacliff.
“Aren’t you going to answer me?” Mara asks from the passenger seat.
“I’m not just going to tell you … I’m going to show you.”
She falls silent beside me, watching the narrow roadways widen out as we leave her rundown neighborhood, venturing into the broad, tree-lined streets leading up to China Beach.
Tension builds in her body as each minute passes. Mara can’t help her curiosity, even when she’s afraid of what she might learn.
I rest my hand on her thigh to calm her.
It works—the tight muscle relaxes under my palm. She leans against my arm, her head resting on my shoulder.
I remember that Mara told me she doesn’t even have a driver’s license. In some ways she’s remarkably independent, but she has these holes in her education. Things she couldn’t teach herself, because nobody would lend her a car to practice.
Abruptly, I pull the Tesla against the curb.