“If someone were going to kill you, who would it be?” I say, as conversationally as I can manage.
He looks at me quickly before pulling his eyes back to the road. “That’s a weird question.”
“Right?”
He laughs. I’m not sure if I hear an uneasy note, though I listen closely for it.
“Okay,” he says. “You first.”
“Me?” He’s taken me by surprise. He does that a lot. “Well... I’d have to think.”
“That’s what I’m doing. My turning it around was a stall tactic.”
“Ah.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Go ahead and answer.”
“Well... there might be too many to count,” I say truthfully. “But they wouldn’t know my name.”
“Well, it would seem you are safe then.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So no one in particular? Your ex?”
“No. He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly.
“It’s okay,” my response is automatic. In this moment almost not remembering the man who had been my husband. I put it from my mind. “Sometimes I barely remember myself.”
“Children?”
“No,” I say, turning my head quickly. I watch the darkening scenery. We are powering through a forest. The trees going by so fast, they are a solid blur of brown and green.
We are quiet for a while. When he speaks it’s like there has been no interruption.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who would want me dead. I don’t know if that means I’ve lived an exemplary life or if I’m just too vanilla.”
“Maybe neither,” I say. “Maybe something entirely different is true.”
“I think most people go through their whole lives without anyone ever trying to kill them,” he says, as though he’s given it some thought.
“You say that based on what?”
He laughs. “I don’t know. The number of people running around not dead?”
“So not your ex-wife?”
“We’re still on the kill-me thing?”
I grunt.
“Okay then,” he says. “But not my ex. No. We get along and our arrangement suits us both. And she’s well compensated. It’s possible she’d get less money if someone offed me.”
“Well that’s good. No one wants to sit around wondering if his ex is thinking about putting a knife in his back.”
“Exactly. So do I pass?”
“Pass what?”
“Well, I don’t know. It felt like some kind of courtship test. I wonder how I did.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re too competitive?”
“All the time.” He pats the steering wheel. “How else do you think I ended up with a Tesla?”
“You play to win.” It’s not a question.
“Always.”
He is slowing, pulling into the village. We are months from ski season, but at a glance, the sort of Alpine-village-meets-Rodeo-Drive motif seems to have something for everyone year round.
Walking around the village, I see it is even more charming and unreal than I’d first suspected. Disney does a ski village. Quaint little shops, trendy bars and eateries block after block. See and be seen. He leads me into one of these.
The food is exceptional yet somehow not memorable, though conversation between us is as engaging as ever. It’s easy to talk with him. No uncertain pauses or painful holes. I am easy with him. I surprise myself.
After dinner, we walk through the village hand-in-hand, sharing jokes and effortless conversation. In that walk, a shaft of pure happiness comes to me. Just this moment filled with nothing but what is right here, in front of me. For the first time in my recollection, everything I have is enough. And maybe I am enough too.
Maybe.
Other thoughts try to crowd in, but somehow I keep them at bay. Just a little longer, I plead with no one at all. Just let me feel this a bit longer. I’ll figure things out later, but right now let me have this.
“So what now?” he says when we’re heading back toward the city.
“I don’t have a plan.”
“You checked out of your hotel.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” I say.
“How long are you in town?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’ll come and stay with me.”
“All right.”
His place is exactly what I’d expected. The top floor of a glass high-rise with views of the city all around and whispers of ocean and far mountains beyond.
“Do Vancouver views get any better than this?” I ask.
“Not much,” he admits. “That’s how I ended up here.”
“It’s all about the view?”
“Sure. And the jetted tubs. Check it out.”
He leads me to three bathrooms, each one more exquisite than the last.
“Multiple bedrooms too,” he says with a theatrical leer. “You can take your pick.”
“I’ll want one close to where you are,” I quip back, a line he finds uproariously funny.
He opens a beautiful bottle of wine and we sit on high stools at the counter in the kitchen. The view of the city is stunning. It takes my breath away.
“So beautiful you could die.”
He looks at me sharply. “What is it with you and dying all the time?” I can’t read his voice.
“I... I don’t know. I’ve... I’ve lost people. I guess that’s what it is. It brings it closer. Makes it more real.”
“Your husband,” he says.
“Yes. Him... and others. Listen, I’m enjoying myself so much with you. I don’t really want to talk about this now, okay?”
“Some other time, maybe?”
“Yes. Okay. Some other time. Maybe.”
We both know it is a lie.
In the morning, he gets up to go to the office. Before he leaves he drops a kiss on my forehead and a set of keys on the bed.
“Make yourself at home. And if you’re into it this evening, there’s a new restaurant I’ve been wanting to check out. You’re a good excuse.”
“Again with the excuses. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Dork,” he accuses.
“And the keys,” I say. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll rob you blind?”
“Not particularly. As far as I can see, there’s nothing more precious than you in this apartment.”
I just look at him, my heart in a cloud. I don’t know what to say and part of me feels dangerously close to tears. I put it down to hormones and move on.
Without him in the space to warm it, the apartment is even more massive. I drink the coffee he left for me and nibble on some fruit, then roam around the space dwarfed by his bathrobe, looking at his stuff.
In the sports-themed media room I turn on the television, then spend a quarter-hour figuring out how to make the channels work, remembering for a moment a time when there was only on and off.
When I finally locate the channels, they are filled with news. A serial killer is under discussion. Everything is heinous. There are hushed tones. The thought comes to me that there are those who would view me as a serial killer. I sink into the plush sofa behind me, pushed by the weight of this thought.
They would not be wrong, those people. I have killed serially. One after the other, I have taken lives. I don’t know how many now.
I wonder if I have not considered it that way before because of the money. There is no emotion for me with any of these killings. It’s a job. These are not random, violent acts. I am a professional. I put thought into what I do, never emotion. And the deaths are always humane. Many of my targets go from living to death completely without awareness. I’ve watched their faces at times, so I know.
I look again at the sketch of the unknown serial killer on the screen.
I think again of my lover, my host.