KILLING SARAI(42)

“Are you going to drop the towel?” she asks. “I can’t very well do this with it in the way. And it’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”

I start to remove the towel just as she says that, but then I notice a sound so faint, like the sound of a sharp breath, that I’m surprised I heard it at all. I glance into the mirror and look behind me at the door seeing nothing but knowing that Sarai is on the other side of it.

“Victor?” Samantha urges me, getting irritated with my slow response.

“No,” I finally answer, turning around so that the side where the wound is, is facing her. I reach down and strategically adjust the towel over the back of my hip so that she can access it, afterwards tying it firmly together on the other side to hold it in place.

“If you insist,” Samantha says and goes right to work.

I feel the needle slide in once and I grit my teeth for a moment until the pain fades.

“You never did tell me why you stopped coming here,” Samantha says.

“It was for the best.”

“Bullshit. It was something I did, or said, or maybe it was something I didn’t do. I just want to know. No hard feelings. No awkwardness. Just answer the question that’s been bugging the shit out of me for ten years. I deserve that much.”

After the second pass of the needle through my skin, I no longer feel it.

“I respected you,” I say. “It didn’t feel it right to use you anymore.”

“Honey, you know better than that.” She smiles up at me briefly. “I didn’t mind; hell, I enjoyed it.”

“But I did mind.”

Samantha pushes the needle through again, always carefully. Then she shakes her head. “I wonder how you manage to pull off this job with that conscience of yours. I think you’re the only one with a conscience who can.”

“Well, it was nothing you did or didn’t do,” I say, skipping over her comment entirely. “So, I hope I’ve answered the question enough to satisfy you.”

“Stop being so technical with me, Victor. You know I hate it.”

She stands up from the toilet seat and reaches for the iodine, spilling a small amount onto a wash cloth. She dabs it all over and around the stitched bullet wound.

“I hear you started staying at Safe House Nine over in Dallas when you came through these parts,” she goes on and I can predict where she’s going with the rest of it. “Is it because that one was younger than me? I mean, it’s perfectly fine. I am getting up in the years, I admit.”

It is exactly what I predicted she’d say.

I sigh and lean against the counter, crossing my arms. She pulls a large square of gauze from a packet to prepare it next.

I look right at her, hoping I can say what I’m about to say without turning her against me. I won’t leave Sarai alone with her if she thinks I chose Safe House Nine over her because of something as absurd as her age. Samantha is a killer. And a woman who feels scorned who is also a killer is a fatal combination.

“I chose Nine because she was a whore and proud of it,” I say, laying the truth out the way it needs to be, to make her understand. “I couldn’t use you like she let me use her. Because you were and still are my friend. I hope you understand.”

She laughs lightly. “You don’t have any friends, Victor.”

Her gaze skirts me as she places the gauze over the wound and presses two strips of dressing tape along its edges. Then she raises up the rest of the way and looks at me with thoughtful green eyes. I feel the same thing in her eyes that I always felt when I came here, when I slept with her. She might have been someone who could fall in love with me, if I had let it go that far. She started getting too close and I couldn’t let that happen. She had always been kind to me. She was different from the others who were more like myself and are only interested in sex. Because anything more is not only reckless and dangerous and foolish, but is completely unacceptable.

“Who do you think you’re fooling, Victor?” she asks with a playful, yet inoffensive smile.

I pull the towel the rest of the way back over my hips, tucking it in on itself at the waist.

“What do you mean?” I ask, looking upon her curiously.

Samantha starts clearing the countertop of the bandage leftovers and rinsing the blood and iodine down the sink with a burst of water.

“That girl down the hall,” she says. “Izabel. Of course we both know that’s not her real name, but regardless, what the hell are you doing with her?” She drops a handful of bloody tissues into the wastebasket beside the toilet.

“I told you,” I say. “I’m just using her until I eliminate my target. After that, she’s on her own.”

I never could completely fool Samantha, but what strikes me the most about right now is that she appears to know more about what’s going on with me than even I do. And I’m not fond of that idea.

I glance toward the bathroom door several feet away, wondering if Sarai is still hiding there, listening to everything between us. I know she is. I can feel it. But Samantha needs to stop. Right now. Because I can’t have her filling Sarai’s head with things that might cause her confusion. The girl is confused enough as it is.

“I need to get dressed,” I say, hoping to deter her from the topic. I reach for my clean boxer-briefs hanging nearby, but Samantha steps around in front of me.