Justin smiled calmly at her. "I don't think I'll play."
"You play," Ling said. "I fuck you. I kill you. It will be good game."
"When you put it like that," Justin said, "that does sound good. Okay."
And as he said okay, he dropped the two bottles of beer. Ling's eyes shifted downward when the glass shattered on the stone-she couldn't help herself. When she realized what was happening, it was too late. Justin's other hand, the one covered by the napkins, was coming up fast. The napkins fell off to the side, revealing an antique pistol, forty, maybe fifty years old, and without hesitating he fired.
It sounded like a cannon roar in the tranquil silence of the beach, and a large hole appeared in Ling's otherwise flawless forehead.
Reggie leaped sideways, falling to her knees on the stone patio, and just in time. Ling's hand, the one with the knife, swiped backward exactly where Reggie's throat had been.
Li Ling stood for just a moment, staring in disbelief at Justin, then her legs wobbled and the knife dropped from her hand, and she started to topple over backward. The brick wall held her momentarily but not for long. She bent at the waist and then went over. She did not scream. She couldn't. She was dead long before her body hit the rocks in the shallow water, several hundred feet below.
Reggie stood slowly. She felt a sting in her elbow, which had banged against the patio floor, and she glanced down at her scraped knees. She went to Justin, who slowly lowered his arm. She took the gun out of his hand and set it on the small patio table.
"I told you something once," he said. "And I lied to you."
"What was that?" she said softly.
"I told you that I didn't think about the people I'd killed. I told you that they didn't keep me awake at night."
"It's all right," Reggie said.
"I think about them all the time. And I think about all of them, not just the ones I've killed. I think about all the murders, all the deaths. I think about them day and night. I think about them when I'm awake and when I'm dreaming. I can never stop thinking about them," Justin said.
Reggie put her arms around him and drew him to her.
"I know you can't," she said.
And then she said, "It's time to go home."