CHAPTER FORTY FOURMeanwhileWhile Chad the Fish Guy died alone in a seldom used part of the building, Bryony went to her favorite fruit vendor for their Lunch Special. The Lunch Special cost a dollar fifty and consisted of a freshly plucked peach, a bottle of water, and a paper towel.“You’re looking rather peaked today, my dear,” said the kindly old woman who ran the stand. She was picking out the perfect peach, heavy with juice and full of flavor. “You really ought to go home and get some rest.”Bryony accepted the peach and bit into it, careful to keep the juice from running into her rag doll stitches. “This is delicious. Thank you so much. I think I miss Eddie, and I’m tired of . . . everything. I miss my father. I think I might be homesick, but I’ve never been happier anywhere other than here. Is that not strange?”Before the old woman could answer, Bryony heard somebody calling her name. She turned to look and there was Peter, his cheeks still flush from his most recent kil
CHAPTER FORTY FIVEIn The Murderer’s CarBryony rested her head against the window.“Peter? I’m . . . I’m not really feeling well. Do you mind if I close my eyes for a little bit?”Did he mind? Of course he didn’t mind, not in the slightest. Wouldn’t this be perfect? Wouldn’t this be almost romantic in a way, the two of them companionably enclosed in the car, she dreaming sweet dreams and he driving them off somewhere exotic and adventurous?“Of course I don’t mind. You’re safe with me.” He nearly giggled, but he was not a giggling sort of fellow, so he managed to abstain.“Can I tell you something?”He nodded, but realized she couldn’t see him with her eyes closed. “Yes,” he said aloud, and beamed at how sensitive he could be to her needs.“When that man was . . . on the trail. When he was . . . ”“When he was trying to kill you,” he prompted helpfully. He heard Bryony sigh.“Yes. When he was trying to kill me, it was strange. I keep seeing his face in my head. I thought I w
CHAPTER FORTY SIXPrioritiesOnly things did not go as planned for our deviant and murderous Peter. When he pulled up to the Warshouski’s apartment, he noticed a car outside. Their car. And when he helped Bryony climb the stairs, they were soon greeted by an agitated Eddie.“What are you doing home?” Bryony asked happily. Peter echoed the sentiment in his head exactly.He thought: “Oh no, this was going to be so lovely!”He thought: “Can I take Eddie out, too?”He thought: “Not a chance, that is one irate man. Okay, better go!”He opened his mouth to hand Bryony off to her husband and beat a hasty retreat, but Eddie spoke before he ever had the chance.“Bryony, it’s your father. They called me at the radio station. He had an attack of some kind, and he’s not doing well. You need to go home.”Bryony reeled a bit, and Eddie and Peter both reached out to steady her. She steadied herself, however, as she had always done, and she straightened her back.“All right, Eddie. Can we le
CHAPTER FORTY SEVENBryony Sleeps on Peter’s ShoulderThis is what the murderer thought:He thought, “I can’t believe my luck! They’re so trusting. Useful.”He thought, “Perhaps she is fated for the desert after all, only . . . with my help.”He thought, “It’s not long now.”Beneath the flying airplane, the desert howled and hissed and coiled around itself in painful anticipation. It somehow sensed Bryony’s arrival, somehow tasted the soft flesh hidden under her skin. It sucked greedily at what it knew would sate it.It is time. It is time. The desert always knew it would come.
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHTKill HerBryony knew he wouldn’t be there, but she checked the house first.“Daddy? Daddy?” she called, and ran from room to room.“Wouldn’t he be at the hospital?” Peter asked. It alarmed him to see Bryony worked up to this state, to see her flying wildly around the house like a bird newly thrust into a cage. Where was her serenity? Where was her ethereal acceptance? This panic seemed so unlike her, and it was equally endearing and disconcerting. He silently begged her not to change so that it was like killing an unfamiliar person. He knew exactly how he wanted it to be, what expression he would read in her face and eyes. He wanted to see her hands flutter to the knife and then stop, accepting her fate and his role in it. No, not merely accepting. Embracing. He wanted her to look at his comforting face while her soul finally shrugged off this beautiful yet hindering body, and slipped off to the stars. He didn’t want to kill a stranger; he wanted to murder his d
CHAPTER FORTY NINEStopStop was indeed in the town’s tiny hospital, which was little more than a glorified clinic, really. They delivered babies there and bound up broken bones and put Branny Jacob’s eye back in after Tom Kidd had popped it out with the butt of his knife, though. Twice. “The first time you pop out my eye, shame on you,” the nurse said to Branny after he came to, “but the second time that you do it, shame on meStop lay in bed, hooked up to tubes and monitors and wires. His hospital gown was on backward so they could easily reach in and adjust all manner of medical doodads on his chest, and he had an IV slowly dripping a clear, benign looking substance from a bag into a long tube that ended on the back of his hand.“Oh, Daddy,” Bryony said, dropping to her knees beside the bed. She kissed her father’s shriveled hands and smoothed his white hair away from his gray face. “I have missed you so much, and talking to you on the phone isn’t enough. I need to see you with
CHAPTER FIFTYTeddy BakerThis is what Teddy Baker thought:He thought, “I recognize the look in that man’s eyes. It shone from my own eyes long ago. He is going to kill Bryony, and she seems too weak to notice. That is not like her. Something is wrong.”He thought, “Why is she with him and not with her husband?”He thought, “Am I willing to risk my life to save hers again? It really is her fate to die, it has always been so, and who am I to deny it?”His heart, which had been stretched by his wife, and even more by his baby girl, was big enough to encompass the Star Girl. Besides, he still recalled their one and only kiss, and how it felt, and the sweet sound of her breathing as she leaned toward him, and his certainty that she would not be breathing in the morning if he got his way. That kiss, her breathing, and her guileless gray eyes had made his heart chant the same mantra it was chanting now.Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.And human nature sel
CHAPTER FIFTY ONESorrow“I’m sorry, but I have to be alone for a while,” Bryony said to Peter. He nodded and stepped outside, quietly closing the screen door behind him. Bryony wandered around her childhood home, touching the walls and running her hands over the counters, shiny from years of use. She picked up the phone, called Eddie, and let it ring and ring and ring.“Hey, it’s Eddie. Leave a message, will ya?”There was a beep, and Bryony didn’t know what to say for a long time. She wanted to be positive; she wanted to make sure he didn’t worry. He had so much to concentrate on, after all. But at the same time, she wanted him to realize how hurt she was. She wanted him to be on his knees saying: “Baby, I’m so sorry, please forgive me. How could I ever have been so misguided?” They would then fling themselves at each other and there would be tears and warm kisses and they’d rub the tips of their noses cozily together.Now all was not well, and this very real not-wellness made i