Jo Robertson - The Avenger

"Oh, by the way, Olivia," Howard said after a moment. "I heard about your missing student. What was her name, Kendra or Kennan…?"

"Keisha Johnson," Olivia supplied, keeping her eyes trained on her papers.

"That's right. Keisha. I'm very sorry about what happened to her. One of the staff told me the police were nosing around here and asking questions."

Jack had emphasized the necessity for secrecy. "Oh, not about Keisha," she lied. "Something else."

"Well, it's a tragedy, her dying like that." His eyes glinted with curiosity. "Is it true someone actually beat her to death?"

Olivia felt grief snag at her throat.

Howard rolled his chair closer. "I know you were fond of her. Is there anything I can do?"

She didn't want Howard's false sympathy. Keisha had been in the office several times while Howard was here, and he hadn't paid her the slightest attention. In fact, now that she remembered, he'd gone out of his way to avoid her.

"I'm fine, Howard." She scooted her chair closer to her computer. "I need to finish my mail," she said, hoping he'd take the hint.

He didn't. "Such a heinous, senseless crime. Do the police have any clue who could have done it?"

"I don't know," she answered sharply. "The police don't keep me apprised of their cases." She offered a tiny smile to take the edge off her words. After all, Howard Randolph was her office mate and she was stuck with him for the rest of the year.

He pulled his chair back to his space and reached for a handsomely-bound leather volume. "I suppose the police won't be all that interested in finding her killer," he mused.

Olivia looked up from her desk. "What do you mean?"

"Well, considering her rather reckless reputation… " He let the words hang unspoken as he flashed a sly look.

"Keisha was a very nice girl," she protested. "Why do you think her reputation is in question?"

"Oh, come on, Olivia, a pretty girl like that. You know the rumors." A knowing expression crossed his face. "New York City girl, loose in sunny California, away from mommy and daddy for the first time."

She didn't bother to temper her tone this time. "You're presuming a great deal about a girl you know absolutely nothing about."

Randolph glanced up from flipping through the pages of his book. "I'm sorry if I've offended you, my dear. It wasn't my intention."

Without a word, Olivia snapped off her computer and removed her purse from the drawer. As she exited the office, she turned back. Howard's brows were still lifted and he had that silly pretend-surprise look on his face.

"You should speak cautiously about the dead, Howard. Keisha was a nice girl and doesn't deserve your insinuations about her character." She closed the door behind her with a sharp click.

So much for diplomacy.

The man reverently touched each artifact arranged on the small altar. Then he lighted exactly seven virginally white candles and placed them strategically around the room so as to produce the most dramatic view. Next, he pinned the photographs to the tag board wall at the altar's right-hand side because, of course, the offering of the Man of Holiness must stand at the right hand of God.

Black and white photos, all of them very startling, in his modest opinion. He'd taken the pictures and developed them himself, all sharp and crisp tableaux, unmarred by the muddy brilliance of color. How could one see the clear beauty of absolutism when the photographed objects were saturated with image gradients and hues? Color obscured meaning. Only the starkness of black and white indicated the unvarnished truth.

The persons in these photos showed naked reality.

He hung them in strict chronological order according to when he'd taken them and then stood back to admire his collection. He caressed the third photo, his favorite. He believed the grainy texture captured the moment of death's realization the best.

The woman had been an aspiring actress, reduced to the waitressing common among girls gone to Hollywood. Lowly work, for which she was paid a pittance. He thought she showed extraordinary potential, but her fate was inevitable. He particularly enjoyed running his fingers over the picture's germane sections and reliving the sticky reality of the event.

"Sweetheart," he whispered aloud, "you were one of the best." She hadn't known, of course, that he had photographed her. By then she was too far gone to be aware of such trivia as cameras.

The man placed a velvet cushion on the floor before the altar and knelt, genuflected, and folded his hands in front of his chest. A surge of foolishness rose up in him. Despite his religious ties, he wasn't sure God existed. But it didn't really matter because a moment of incredible peace descended on him, and a shiver akin to religious fervor – or an orgasm – shook his body with the force of a surging river.

The closing of the front door drew him out of his meditation. Instantly he became as alert as a fox. Who had a key to this apartment? It was unthinkable that anyone had access to his quarters… possibly to this private room.

Agitated, he pushed up from the cushion and put out the candles one by one with the eighteenth century candle extinguisher he'd discovered by chance at an antique store in Oregon. When he exited the room, he triple locked the door and replaced the plain panel which fitted easily into the door frame. He re-hung the cheap art deco painting, giving it one last glance before he started down the stairs.

"Hi, there," the woman said, smiling broadly up at him where he paused at the landing. "Long time, no see."

"Didn't know you had a key," he said mildly.

"Silly guy, I don't, but I remembered where I'd left a spare from… before… " She fumbled with the words, and he knew she was suddenly aware of how bold she'd been.

She'd made a copy? He trembled with anger at the possibility.

"… when I used your key once," she finished.

He pushed down the rage and grinned in a way he knew she found charming and cosmopolitan – she'd actually used that word one time to describe him after one of his sessions of wild sex with the silly bitch.

He stepped up to greet her. "It's fine," he said. "I'm just surprised to see you."

"I finished early today," she added, as if by explanation, and hung her coat on the oak clothes tree which, along with a ceramic-topped entry table, was the only piece of furniture in the foyer. She dropped her keys into the glass bowl. "I thought we could order pizza."

Conjuring up images of the heavy meal, his mind revolted at the idea of red sauce mingled with stringy white substances and brown animal meats. Maybe with the correct wine. He sighed and began the descent. He reached for the heavy bag she struggled with and dropped a quick peck on her cheek. For now, she'd expect that much.

Oh, well, at least she'd be good for a quick fuck. She was hardly up to any intellectual stimulation, but didn't he keep her around for the occasional time when a good screw was just what he needed?

"You order," he suggested, "and I'll pick up a bottle of wine when I get the pizza."

"Cool," she answered, moving to the kitchen and the drawer beside the sink where he kept the take-out menus.

She'd become far too familiar with him, he thought, as he watched her bend unnecessarily to adjust her shoe strap, her back toward him. Giving him a full view of her lack of underwear. He rethought his position on giving her the immediate boot. Maybe a few more trysts for old times' sake. Did the vapid girl even know what a tryst was?

"No anchovies," she said, holding the phone to her ear and covering the mouthpiece with a hand that sported rings on every finger.

"You remember." He smiled like a shark.

"I remember everything about you, honey," she answered coyly, "and I mean everything." Her heavily mascaraed eyes dropped to a spot below his waist.