He does as I ask, kissing me with everything he has. Telling me he loves me without the words. Then going to make the world a little bit of a better place for me to live in.
Chapter Twenty-One
Daman
A computer hard drive is like a diary of sorts. The browser stores traces of your internet visits, emails keep track of your conversations, the metadata on a photo can reveal the location and time of the photo. With a person’s hard drive, I can recreate their entire life. The best part is that I don’t even have to break into someone’s house to track all this information. You only need to send a link to their phone or email and once they click on it, the door is opened.
That’s how I know the handyman is at twelve on the ten scale of worst humans around. It’s not that he’s going into women’s apartments and jacking off on their beds. It’s not even the dozens of porn sites he visits every day. It’s the videos and photos he’s stored of the college girls that live in and around the apartments. He takes daily snaps of the apartments he oversees but the vast majority are in their apartments when they’re passed out. He strips them down, does his business, takes photos and videos and then leaves. The women probably don’t even know he was there. I don’t know if he drugs them. I didn’t find evidence of that, but it’s easy enough for him to monitor who was drunk coming into the building and easier to get into their apartments without anyone questioning it.
If Quinn had lived here much longer, it would’ve been her or her roommate and if I don’t end him, it’ll be someone else. That is something I will not allow. He should have never looked at her. Fuck. He doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as my Quinn. Never mind him having the thoughts I know he was having about her.
I’ve killed people for thinner reasons. My moral code isn’t that strong. After all, I was a hitman. I killed for money, but this guy deserves to be gone and I’m not sorry I have an excuse. When it comes to Quinn, I’ll never let anything harm her. Even if it’s only to clear her thoughts. I will fix it. I check my watch again. The handyman is taking a while. He should’ve been here at least an hour ago. It only takes about ten minutes to get a sandwich from the deli, especially on a Tuesday night. Then again, the dude is not very habit oriented. He gets up when he feels like it, goes to sleep after he’s done stalking the women in his apartments and in between spends time selling his homemade porn stuff. I debated nuking his hard drive, but figured the police will need it to track down some of the buyers and contact the victims. I’ve made it all easy for them to find. I am making the world a safer place for my girl. It might not be the way others go about it, but it is the only way for me. I am using my skills to keep her safe in the one way I know how.
The front door opens and the handyman stomps in. His keys make a clinking sound as they hit the table. I hear the faint buzz of the refrigerator as he opens it. He pops a bottle cap off and the small metal piece pings against another surface—probably the sink.
He takes precisely six minutes and forty-eight seconds to drink his beer, rifle through his mail, and then piss. From the sounds, he drinks while he’s pissing. And if he didn’t deserve to die for the other things, that seems like a good enough reason in and of itself.
The toilet flushes and he strolls into the bedroom, flipping on the lights—or trying to. I’ve disconnected the electrical connections.
“Fuck, what now?” he mutters. He tries it again, but the switch is dead. “This stupid ass of a building. I should have quit years ago.”
“But how would you stalk your prey if you didn’t work here?” I ask.
“What the fuck?” he yells, frightened by my voice.
I flick on a flashlight and shine it in his eyes. His hand comes up. “Are you wearing my fucking sweatshirt?” His eyes squint as he tries to make me out.
I am, and a pair of his pants and his boots—all over a skintight neoprene bodysuit. Any blood or fibers from his apartment will stick to those items and not my clothes. It makes it easier for me, not that he needs to know that. I ask my own questions. “If you didn’t work here, how would you be able to take advantage of the drunk and unconscious women? Would you start hunting them at bars or clubs and drugging them in the parking lot?”