Page 94 of Kill For Me Kill For You
They spoke as one. A stentorian choir of sibilant voices.
‘Hello, sweetheart. . .’ they said.
The elevator stopped suddenly with a boomingthunk, taking Ruth to the floor. When she looked up, the father, the mother and the boy had turned away, staring at the doors, waiting patiently for them to open. The mother had a tight grip on her daughter’s hand. She whispered to her to turn round – that she shouldn’t stare.
But the little girl did not turn away. The fairy princess stared at Ruth over her shoulder, with large, blue, innocent eyes. Those eyes were so big, and so gentle. Her wings glistened in the light. Her child’s lips parted into a smile.
‘Happy Thanksgiving,’ said the fairy princess sweetly.
Ruth, on her knees, was close enough to smell hot chocolate on the little girl’s breath.
Another screech came as the doors parted. Ruth held her palm to the side of her head. She could feel a terrible pain pulsating in her skull. She stepped out of the lift, following the family as they weaved through the first floor back onto 35thStreet. The headache began to ease, and she tapped at her wrist as she walked, keeping the family in sight and trying to keep the panic down.
She kept her distance along 35thStreet – two blocks – watching the wings of the fairy princess fluttering in the wind that whipped round the corners. Then a right on 5thAvenue and they doubled back, up 34thStreet, avoiding the crowds and the blockades as they were dismantled after the parade. They went into George Towers. The concierge held the glass entrance doors open for them. They walked past the reception desk, and straight to the elevators. Ruth stood in the recessed entrance, took her pack of cigarettes from her bag and pretended to fumble with the pack and her lighter. The concierge ignored her. He waited by the elevators, which were old and now considered positively chic in the city. A black iron gate had to be drawn away when the elevator arrived, and then closed again by the concierge before the elevator ascended. Like something from an old Hitchcock movie, thought Ruth.
The family got into the elevator, the concierge closed the gate and wished them a good day. Ruth opened the glass door and went inside. The concierge asked if he could help her.
‘My lighter just went out – do you happen to have a light or a book of matches?’
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said.
‘Thanks anyway,’ she said, turning towards the doors. She took out her phone, stalling for time. She held it to her ear, said, ‘Hello.’
She knew the concierge was watching her. She took another step towards the exit. Slow. There was a floor display above the elevator, art deco design, with a clock hand, like an arrow, that swiped from left to right, from floors one through ten. She watched the arrow on its arc, saw it stop at floor ten, the top floor, then she took another step.
‘Ma’am, this is private property. Residents only,’ said the concierge.
‘Uh-huh,’ she said into the phone, holding up an apologetic hand. She walked to the exit, turned again, one last time to mouth ‘thank you’ at the concierge and checked the readout above the elevator.
It was still on ten. That was their floor. The elevator hadn’t moved for over a minute. No question that was their destination.
She glanced to the right. At the gold inlaid mailboxes. They were in numerical order.
1001, 1002, 1003.
Three apartments on the tenth floor. A brass nameplate beside each one.
1001 R. Walker
1002 R. Roman
1003 The Grangers
Ruth left the building, put her phone back in her pocket and headed through the crowds back to her car in the lot on 29thStreet.
The Grangers. It wouldn’t take long for her to find out more about them online. Instagram, Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter. She could have all the pictures she needed to create her fake web pages of news stories in a few hours.
This one would be more complicated than any before. She would need someone special for this. In the elevator at Macy’s they had looked at her. They’d recognized her – and they’d all spoken those words – together. They allknew. The one who’d attacked her, the father, he must’ve told them. They were laughing at her.
She clutched her scarred stomach.
The man who did this to her needed to be punished. He should suffer. He should watch his children die. Then his wife should be killed in front of him, right before he was murdered.
Luckily, she had the perfect partner for the Grangers. Someone she had been working on for the last two months.
His name was Gary Childers.
When she got back to her car, she fished in her bag and found the burner phone with the label ‘Gary’ on the back. She turned it on, cycled through the messages.
