Thin Air

Ve

“It’s human stuff. I can’t,” she said serenely. “Besides, they can’t see or hear me. I’m a figment of your imagination, Joa

Hardly. My imagination would have conjured up a hunky, half-naked guy Dji

“Do you want me to kill him?” Ve

I stared at her for a long, silent second, and then shook my head. No, I wasn’t prepared to do that. Not even to Eamon.

Ve

“Do I…what?” I was aware it looked to Eamon and Sarah like I was talking to empty child-sized space, because they were exchanging a look. The she’s-lost-her-mind kind of look.

“Like what you did before, although you didn’t do it very well,” Ve

Memories. Sarah was the key to a lot of my childhood, wasn’t she? Who else would I get that kind of thing from?

I nodded.

“Oh, you don’t want hers,” Ve

Ve

TEN

Eamon was thinking about murder, in an abstract kind of way. He had no real objection to killing, but he did dislike complications, and he was, at that moment, royally pissed about just how complicated a perfectly simple scheme had become.

“All you had to do was pay her off,” he said, staring at his business associate. Thomas Orenthal Qui

“Look at it this way,” Orry said, and stirred the thick, dark drink in front of him. “She was badass enough to kill poor old Chaz. You should’ve seen what was left of him; Christ, it was disgusting. I couldn’t take the chance she might come back for more. Dead is simple, right?”

“Generally,” Eamon agreed. “Dead Wardens, not so simple. They’ll investigate. I don’t want them finding any link to you, forensically or otherwise.” He glanced around-habit-although he was certain nobody was within earshot. Amazing what people would ignore. “You’re sure she’s out of the picture?”

“I’m sure.” Orry gave him a tight, unpleasant smile. He was a nondescript man, and few who met him seemed to understand what lay underneath that unremarkable exterior. Eamon knew, and respected it. He might have been insane, but he was definitely not insane enough to cross Thomas Qui

“You need to be sure.”

Orry shrugged. “Let’s go. I’ll show you.”

I felt that slippery fast-forward sensation, and fought to hold on to the memory. Eamon’s filthy, cold mind made me shiver, but at the same time it was real, it was life, and I wanted more.

Even though I felt a sick sensation of dread at what he was heading toward on this particular trip down memory lane.

I watched as Eamon and Orry drove into the desert, taking unfamiliar roads deeper into the wilderness. When Orry finally pulled the car off the road, Eamon was bored, thirsty, and regretting the idea, but he followed Orry up the hill and into the darkness of a cave.

It stank, but it wasn’t the stink of decomposition. Orry switched on a flashlight and led him through a series of narrow passages. Boxes stacked against the wall-Product, Eamon thought, and made a mental note to move it when this was done. It was a filthy place to store anything. He heard a cold chatter of bats overhead, and thought again about murder. Orry, dead, would solve so many of his issues.

“Fuck,” Orry said tonelessly. His flashlight played over a milky pool of water, its surface placid and undisturbed. “She was right here. Right here.”

Eamon hated being right. “And you were certain she was dead.”

“Yeah. Christ, I strangled her before I drowned her. What is she, a goddamn superhero?”

If she was, Eamon thought, they were in for a great deal of trouble. “Anything else?”

“Such as?” Orry was poker-faced, but Eamon knew his weaknesses too well.

“Have a little fun before you did her in? Or tried?”

Orry didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Perfect, Eamon thought in disgust. Probably DNA evidence as well. “Did she see you? See your face?”

“No.”

“You’re certain.”

“Yes, dammit, I’m sure. She can’t identify me.”

“Even if that’s so, we have very little time,” Eamon said. “We need to clear everything out and clean up as much of the forensic evidence as possible, in case she’s able to lead them back here.”

“Eamon…” Orry turned toward him, looking at him oddly. It took Eamon a second to realize that it was an expression of apology. “I really thought she was dead.”

Murder would be such an easy answer. But in all his travels, Eamon had met only two other people in the world who could match him for ferocity and ruthlessness, and it would be a shame to lose a partner over something so essentially trivial. If she couldn’t identify him, they could simply avoid the entire issue.

Still. Killing Orry sounded very tempting, and for an unblinking moment Eamon imagined how he’d do it. The knife concealed in his jacket, most likely, driven up under the ribs and twisted. Fast, relatively painless, not a huge amount of blood. Or he could snap his neck, though Orry was a wiry bastard and, as a cop, fully trained to prevent harm to himself.

No, the knife was better, far better.

“You going to stare at me or move the fucking boxes?” Orry snapped. “I got things to do.”

Eamon smiled slightly. “By all means,” he said. “Let’s move boxes. It’s easier than moving bodies.”

Blur. This time we jumped years.

Eamon, in a car, parked outside of an apartment building. Watching someone with field glasses. As with Cherise, I could feel what he was feeling. Unlike Cherise, what Eamon was feeling was completely alien to me.

I didn’t know people could feel that way. Dark, cold, detached. Mildly a

He was thinking about ways to hurt the woman he was watching. I didn’t want to see any of that, but Ve

Eamon was not a normal man. Not at all.

The woman he was watching, visible through the open sliding door of her apartment balcony, turned, sipping a glass of wine. Red wine.

It was me.

Pretty enough, he was thinking. She’d do, for a while. He liked fair skin. Fair skin showed bruises better.

It took me a breathless moment to realize that however sick I might feel about what he was thinking, Eamon didn’t plan to carry out any of his fantasies. They were just entertainment for him, a cold way to amuse himself during a boring job.

“You’re sure she’s the one,” he said, and I realized there was someone sitting in the passenger seat of the car next to him. A matronly woman, middle-aged, with a nice face and quick, friendly smile. “She’s the one who killed Qui