There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(15)

“What was her name?” I ask him, “Do you know?”

Now he’s grinning, flushed with triumph. He really thinks he got me.

“Mara Eldritch,” he says.

Alastor rises in turn, walking around the kitchen island, rummaging in a drawer.

He pulls out a small plastic card, tossing it on the island so it slides across the polished marble, stopping right at the edge.

“I fucked her roommate in the stairwell. Stole her ID out of her wallet.”

I pick up the driver’s license of a voluptuous redhead with heavy-lidded eyes and a languorous smile. Erin Wahlstrom, 468 Frederick Street.

“I didn’t touch her,” Shaw says, his voice husky. “I left her fresh for you. As fresh as you can find one these days, when they’ll suck and fuck anything that walks. You don’t even have to buy them dinner anymore.”

His upper lip curls in disgust, both at the promiscuity of women and the loss of the challenge when hunting becomes too easy.

“Please don’t tell me you’re into virgins,” I scoff.

He really is so fucking cliché.

“Nah,” Shaw laughs. “I just don’t want to get crabs.”

I set the license back on the counter with a soft clicking sound.

I’m not interested in this confrontation with Shaw anymore. A much more pressing concern demands my attention.

I head toward the door, planning to leave without further comment.

But I can feel Alastor’s smug satisfaction radiating at my back. His happiness displeases me.

I pause by the doorway, turning once more.

“You know, Alastor,” I say. “The way you talk about these women . . . that’s exactly the way I feel about you. Your taste is horrendous. Just standing in this apartment makes me feel like I’ll catch herpes of the aesthetic.”

The smile drops off his face, leaving a vacant absence in its place.

It’s not quite enough.

Looking him dead in the eye, I make a promise:

“If we’re ever alone in a room again, only one of us will walk out breathing.”





The next morning I watch the front door of Erin Wahlstrom’s house. So much paint has peeled off the sagging row house that it’s difficult to tell if it was originally blue or gray. An obscene number of people seem to live inside, as evidenced by the lights that flick on as one by one the residents haul themselves out of bed. Half the windows are covered by sheets instead of proper blinds or, in one case, by a square of aluminum foil.

After a short interval, these residents begin exiting down the steep front steps, some wearing backpacks or shoulder bags, one trundling an oversized portfolio under his arm.

I see the voluptuous redhead, owner of the missing driver’s license. She shouts something back inside the house before hurrying down the steps, heading in the direction of the bus stop.

And then, when I think that must be all of them, the door opens once more.

Mara Eldritch steps onto the landing.

I’m seeing a ghost.

She was dying, almost dead. Bleeding out on the ground.

But there’s no mistaking the willowy frame, the long dark hair, the wide-set eyes. She’s wearing a heavy knit sweater that hangs down over her hands, covering any bandages that might remain on her arms. Beneath the sweater, a ragged pair of jeans and filthy, battered sneakers.

Did someone help her?

It seems impossible, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.

How did she do it, then?

It was three miles to the nearest road. She couldn’t take three steps.

I don’t like mysteries, and I definitely don’t like surprises. I watch her descend the stairs with a deep sense of unease.

I follow her down Frederick Street, keeping plenty of space between us.

The wind blows in her face, making her hair dance around her shoulders, sending dry leaves tumbling against her legs. When the same air reaches me, I can smell her perfume, the low, warm scent mixing with the dusty sweetness of the decaying leaves.

She’s covered head-to-toe in the baggy jeans and sweatshirt, giving no hint of how appealing she looked naked and bound. For a moment, I wish I took a picture on my phone. Already the details are losing their crispness in my mind. I’m struggling to recall the exact shape and color of her nipples and the curve of her hips.

How is she alive?

Alastor doesn’t know.

She must not have seen his face, or he’d be sitting in a cell right now. She did see my face, I know that for certain. Either she forgot it in her delirium, or she doesn’t know who I am. Which is it?

I was so certain she was dead.

I hate being wrong.

I hate it all the more for how rarely it happens.

My anger flares at the girl.

This is her fault. Her fault for defying the fate rushing toward her.

We’ve come to a cafe. She enters the building briefly, before re-emerging wearing an apron cinched around her waist, her hair pulled up in a ponytail. She immediately goes about the business of serving the guests at the outdoor tables.

I take a seat at a different cafe across the street, lingering over my coffee and toast so I can watch her.

She’s quick and efficient, and seems to know most of the patrons. In lulls between service, she pauses to talk with the ones she knows best. At one point she shakes her head and laughs, the sound drifting over the traffic between us.