Perfect Strangers

My voice rises. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, pal, but a normal person who’d recently murdered four other human beings wouldn’t be feeling quite so chipper.”

He shrugs. “So I’m not normal. Doesn’t mean I’m a psychopath.”

“Fine. You’re a serial killer.”

He has the audacity to look insulted. “Now you’re just being mean.”

When I’m silent too long, glaring daggers at his profile, he sighs. “It’s just my job, Olivia. I’m very good at it, but it’s only a job. It’s what I do for a living.”

He kills people for a living. I know it isn’t motion sickness that has bile rising up in the back of my throat.

With a profound sense that I’ve fallen through a crack in the universe and am now inhabiting another, unknown dimension, I say in a strangled voice, “You’re…an assassin?”

He wrinkles his nose. “I prefer the term pest control engineer.”

I stare at him. After a moment, I drop my head into my hands and groan.

James launches into an explanation of the situation that he obviously thinks will make everything rational and acceptable to me, evidenced by his confident, matter-of-fact tone.

“I freelance for governments, international corporations, and high net worth individuals who are in need of—as I prefer to call it—pest control. I’m very selective about the jobs I accept, and I have several iron-clad rules. The first is no women or children.”

I mutter into my palms, “Such a hero.”

He ignores my blistering sarcasm. “The second is that the target has to be a bag of shit.”

I lift my head and squint at him. “I can’t believe I’m going to ask you this, but what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t accept jobs where the motive is simply greed, hatred, or revenge. There are many others in my line of work who don’t care about the reasons why someone would want another person dead—they only care about the paycheck. Not me. I have to know the intended target is someone who’s caused a lot of pain and suffering to other people, and who the world would be better off without. My research into the mark’s background is meticulous.”

He glances over at me. His eyes are dark. “In other words, if I show up at your door, you deserve it.”

I can’t close my mouth. I try and try, but my lower jaw simply hangs uselessly open.

“The third and final rule,” he continues, “is that I’m provided with pictures from the mark’s funeral.”

I manage to make my mouth work to form a single, horrified word. “Why?”

A series of strange emotions crosses his face. Distaste turns into pity which turns into something that looks like regret. His voice drops an octave. “So I can see the expressions of his family. Even the dirtiest dog has someone who loves him.”

I’m glad I don’t have anything in my stomach, because it would be making a reappearance right now. I say with contempt, “That’s the most morbid, disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”

He shakes his head. “You misunderstand. The pictures aren’t for me to gloat over. They’re for me to draw.”

When our eyes meet and I see the anguish there, I get it. “Your collection. Those portraits in Perspectives of Grief.”

He nods slowly. “I’m not a monster, Olivia. I know the different between right and wrong. No matter how noble I try to convince myself my first two rules might be, I realize that what I do is immoral. So drawing the grief of the people who are affected by my actions is my small way of paying penance.

“Maybe it’s futile”—he laughs, a low, self-loathing sound—“no, it’s definitely futile, but it’s my small way of making amends. All the proceeds from the sale of my artwork go to charities that serve victims of violence.”

“So you’re a killer with a conscience,” I say bitterly. “Congratulations. You’re also a pathological liar—”

“I’ve never lied to you,” he cuts in, his voice hard.

“I’d laugh at that if I weren’t so sick to my stomach,” I counter, turning to look out the window into the purple-blue dusk.

His voice turns urgent. “Name one thing I’ve lied to you about.”

“Being an artist!”

“I am an artist. That’s just not the only thing I am.”

I mutter, “Please.”

“What else do you think I’ve lied about?”

When I turn to look at him, he’s leaning toward me, staring at me with his brows drawn together and a worried look in his eyes. Exasperated, I throw my hands in the air. “Everything!”

“Like what?”

Anger grabs hold of me, turning my face hot and making my hands shake. “Like that you knew who I was before we met.”

“No, I didn’t.”