Stay Close

Broome looked at her. She met his eyes and nodded, as if encouraging him to see what was now so obvious.

“My God… it was you?”

“Yep,” she said.

“You killed all of them?”

“You got it. One per year. Always on Mardi Gras, but I didn’t think anyone would ever figure out that pattern. Most of these scumbags had no one who cared enough to report that they were missing. I’m impressed you picked up the Mardi Gras connection.”

“It was my partner,” Broome said.

“She’s your ex-wife, right? Smart woman, I bet. Kudos to her.”

He said nothing.

“Oh, don’t worry, Broome. I’m not going to kill you and go after her or any of that.” Lorraine gave him a crooked smile and stared at the gun as though it had suddenly materialized in her hand. “I imagined a hundred different ways this might end, but me holding a gun on you and explaining?” She shook her head. “It’s all so… I don’t know… meh. Are you going to try to stall time hoping someone will rescue you?”

“Not my style.”

“Good, because it would really be gauche. Don’t worry, though. It’ll all become clear soon enough.”

“What will become clear?”

“My plan. And I need to tell it my way. I need you to listen, Broome. If you ever had any feelings for me, you’ll try to open your mind a little here, okay?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“I guess not, what with me having the gun and all. But I’m tired, Broome. It’s been a good run, but it’s coming to an end. I just want… I want you to listen to me. That’s all. Let me start at the beginning and maybe you’ll see where I’m going with this, okay?”

Lorraine seemed so sincere. She waited for him to answer, so he said, “Okay.”

“You know I used to be married, right?”

“I do, yes.”

“Got hitched right out of high school. I won’t bore you with my early years in a small town with an alcoholic dad. It’s an old story, and we’ve seen the results on these streets a hundred times, haven’t we?”

Broome thought the question was rhetorical, but again Lorraine stopped, the gun still in her hand. “We have,” he said.

“I was going to be different though. I had a man who loved me. We eloped and he got a job, and then he lost the job and started beating the crap out of me. Broome, it was bad. You have no idea. He’d hit me once or twice before, you know, when we first got together. Nothing serious, you know how it is. Happens to every woman where I grew up. So I shrugged it off. But men can grow so little so fast, you know what I mean?”

Broome nodded, not sure what else to do.

“Life started pissing on my husband like he was the only urinal in the club. And how does my little man react? He pounds the hell out of the one person who still cares about him. Ironic, don’t you think?”

Broome said nothing.

Lorraine’s hair fell over her face. She pushed it away with one finger. “So guess what happened to me next, Broome? Come on, you’re a smart guy. What always happens in cases like this?”

“You got pregnant,” Broome said.

“Ding, ding, ding, correct answer. And for a few months while I was prego, peace ruled the land. All the experts were wrong, I thought—a baby can and will improve a marriage. Then one night, my future baby’s daddy complains that the steak is too chewy. He gets all pissed off and I say something stupid and he kicks me in the stomach and I fall down and then he starts stomping on me so bad I lose the baby.”

Broome stared down at the dead man on the floor, still unsure what to say.

“He stomps on me so bad, the crazy psycho, he actually ruptures my uterus. You know what that means, Broome? Do I need to spell it out for you? No kids. Not ever.” Tears came to her eyes. She blinked them away, seemingly angry at herself. “I wanted them, you know. I act otherwise and maybe now, well, I’m a girl who’s learned to make the best of my lot in life. But back then, my whole dream was to have a couple of kids and a little yard. Pathetic, right? I wasn’t asking for a mansion. Just a husband and some kids and a place we could call our own, you know?”

Broome inched closer to her, trying to find an angle where he could make a move. “I’m sorry about that, Lorraine. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Yeah, it’s a sad story, right?” She raised the gun, and her tone changed. “Please don’t get cute, Broome. My intention here is to make the guy on the floor my final victim, not you.”

Broome stopped.

“Anyway, let’s skip ahead a few months. To Mardi Gras night. Mr. Wonderful Hubby gets pissed drunk and takes a tire iron to me. So I killed him. Just like that. And you know what, Broome?”

“What?” he said.

“It was the best thing I ever did. I was free and happy.”

“No remorse?”

“Just the opposite, Broome. What’s the opposite of remorse?” Lorraine snapped her fingers when the answer came to her. “Pure satisfaction. That’s what I felt. I moved into the city, got a job at La Crème, and well, every Mardi Gras, I celebrated my freedom, if you will, by helping another girl go free. You know the rest.”

“Not really.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know the part where you decided to celebrate your freedom and pure satisfaction by turning into a serial killer.”

Lorraine chuckled at that. “Serial killer. Ooo. Sounds so… I don’t know… Hannibal Lecter or something. But it’s a fair point. I could remind you that every guy I killed deserved it. They were all scum, beating girls at the clubs, ruining lives. So, yeah, that was part of it. I could also remind you that by killing those losers, I gave many girls a second chance. No one missed these guys. A couple of the wives even pleaded with you not to find their husbands, didn’t they?”

“That doesn’t excuse what you did.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it? I mean, I use it as a justification, certainly. We kill innocent animals, right? These guys were worse. I had my outlet. But you’re right. It’s not really an excuse. I can only tell you this, Broome. You’ll think it’s odd, but maybe you’ll get it. You called me a serial killer before, but my theory is, and, yeah, this will sound strange”—her voice became a whisper—“but there are a lot of us out there.”