Chapter 9: The Lover's Distraction
The cord, a braid of silken polyester, was cool and compliant in her palm. Jennie had looped it twice around her hands, the tension a perfect promise as she positioned herself behind the stone bench where Mia chattered about font choices. The girl’s neck was exposed, a fragile stem rising from her collared shirt. Jennie had already measured the distance, the angle. The air, thick with the cloying sweetness of rotting jasmine and wet earth, held its breath.
Then, the buzz.
It vibrated through the leather of her tote, propped against a fern. A specific, pulsing rhythm she’d set only for him.
Leonid.
Her hands went slack. The cord blurred in her vision. For three full seconds, she stood frozen, a statue of thwarted intention. Then, with a smooth, silent movement, she let the coil drop into the deep pocket of her trench coat and turned away, stepping over a crumbling ridge of terracotta.
“Hello, my love,” she answered, her voice a warm syrup, devoid of breathlessness.
“Jen. You okay?” His voice, gravelly with the fatigue of his shift, was laced with something else. Worry. “Your text was… short. You sounded off this morning.”
She closed her eyes, seeing his face—the slight crease between his dark brows, the way he’d chew his lip ring when he was concerned. The image flooded her with a painful, melting warmth. It clashed violently with the cold architecture of the act she’d been about to perform.
“I’m perfect,” she cooed, walking further down the cracked path, putting distance between her voice and Mia. “Just thinking about you. Missing you. Did Table six tip?”
A short, gruff laugh from his end. The sound unraveled a knot in her stomach she hadn’t acknowledged. “Bastard left a pamphlet for his church. So, no.” He paused. The silence held a question. “You sure you’re okay? You just… seemed somewhere else today.”
Her fingers brushed over the rough edge of a broken pane. She could feel Mia’s gaze on her back, a faint, puzzled pressure. The interruption was a flaw, a scratch on a pristine surface. A simmering annoyance, hot and acidic, rose in her throat. She swallowed it, forcing her tone into a playful, airy register.
“I’m just distracted by how much I want to see you. Come over tonight? I’ll bring real food. You can’t live on energy drinks and cigarette smoke, Lenya. I’ll be done with my council meeting by seven.”
“Da. Okay. Yes.” He sounded relieved, convinced. “I’ll be here.”
“I’ll be there.”
She ended the call, dropping the phone back into her tote. The serene mask she’d worn for Leonid dissolved as she turned. For a bare, uncensored fraction of a second, her face was a blank slate of pure, icy rage. The planned quietude of the afternoon was ruined. The perfect, silent communion with the act had been severed by his caring, beautiful voice.
“Everything okay?” Mia asked, half-rising from the bench. She’d tucked the flyer drafts back into her folder. Her ponytail swayed. Innocent. Unaware of how close its bounce had come to being forever stilled. “Boyfriend trouble?”
Jennie blinked. The rage was gone, buried under layers of practiced warmth so deep they felt real even to her. A smile, bright and slightly embarrassed, touched her lips. “Just Leonid. He’s so clingy sometimes, you know? Can’t go a few hours without checking in.” She rolled her eyes, a gesture of fond exasperation every girl would recognize.
Mia laughed, relaxing. “Aww, that’s kind of sweet, though. He’s gorgeous. I’d put up with it.”
“He is, isn’t he?” Jennie said, the words thick with genuine pride. She drifted back toward the bench, but her hands, tucked in her pockets, trembled with a sudden, violent tremor. The hunger hadn’t abated; it had been sharpened, made frantic by the delay. The cord in her pocket felt like a live nerve. She couldn’t do it now. Not with the ghost of Leonid’s concern still hanging in the humid air. The calculus had changed. She needed calm. She needed the pleasure of it, not the frantic rush.
“You know,” Jennie said, her voice taking on a new, inspired lilt. “The light in here is actually getting better. More dramatic. Why don’t we take some photos for the fundraiser page first? A ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of thing. You posing by those epiphytes… it would look incredible. Then we can focus on the flyer.”
Mia’s face lit up with vanity and trust. “Oh! Yeah, that’s a great idea! My Instagram has been so dead.” She fumbled for her phone.
“Here, let me,” Jennie offered, extending a steady hand. “I have a better camera.”
She retrieved a small, high-end digital camera from her tote, her fingers avoiding the hidden tools beneath the scarf. The camera was a prop, a tool of distraction. As Mia flitted toward a cascading plume of rotten orchids, striking a practiced pose, Jennie lifted the viewfinder to her eye.
Click.
Through the lens, Mia was framed by decomposition. The vibrant girl against a backdrop of glorious decay. It was beautiful. It was a picture of what should be. Jennie’s finger pressed the shutter again, and again. Each click was a palliative, a tiny, simulated closure.
“Turn your head a little, look out through the broken glass… yes, like you’re dreaming,” Jennie directed, her voice soft, hypnotic.
Mia complied, her expression becoming wistful.
Jennie’s mind, however, was racing on a separate, icy track. The plan was spoiled. The clean, timed sequence was broken. Leonid’s call had introduced a variable: his memory of her mood. If Mia vanished now, and he remembered her sounding ‘off,’ and then a girl was missing… it was a sloppy connection, but a connection nonetheless. She couldn’t have him thinking, even for a moment, that anything was amiss in her world. His world needed to be perfectly serene.
She needed a new plan. A better one. One that couldn’t be traced to this afternoon, to this interrupted moment.
“These are amazing, Jennie!” Mia gushed, rushing over to look at the screen.
“They are, aren’t they?” Jennie agreed, scrolling through the images. She saw the hunger in Mia’s eyes—for approval, for beauty, for a perfect slice of life to post online. It was a different kind of vulnerability, but a vulnerability all the same. An idea, cold and elegant, began to crystallize.
“We should do a proper shoot,” Jennie said, her tone casual, inspired. “Not just for the council. For you. I have access to a studio downtown—my cousin’s a photographer. We could do something really avant-garde. Something that would break the internet.” She let the suggestion hang, a shiny hook cast into shallow water.
Mia’s eyes widened. “Seriously? You’d do that for me?”
“Of course. You have a great look. It just needs the right… framing.” Jennie smiled, a secret, intimate smile. “How about next Tuesday? Late evening. The light from the city through those big windows is unreal.”
“Tuesday… yes! Yes, that’s perfect!” Mia was practically vibrating. The flyer, the original purpose of their meeting, was forgotten.
Jennie guided her back to the bench, discussing colors, themes, the need for secrecy to build hype. Her voice was a gentle, captivating hum. Inside, her blood still sang a song of endings, but the melody had shifted. The urgency had been transfigured into patience. The botanical garden would not be the place. This had become a promise, a postponed gift to herself.
She packed her camera away, her fingers briefly brushing the coiled cord in her pocket. Not today. But soon. The studio was a controlled environment. Soundproof. Isolated in a different way. And Leonid would have no reason to connect a Tuesday night photo shoot with a girl who vanished days later, after a weekend of parties and other suspects.
They walked out together, the fragile alliance of predator and prey now masked as collaborators. Mia talked excitedly about outfits. Jennie nodded, adding soft suggestions. As they parted at the wrought-iron gate, Mia pulled her into a sudden, grateful hug.
“Thank you, Jennie. You’re, like, the best friend ever.”
Jennie hugged her back, smelling her strawberry shampoo, feeling the quick, lively pulse in her neck. She squeezed gently, a rehearsal.
“Anything for you, Mia,” she whispered, and the words were a true and perfect vow.
She watched the girl skip toward the bus stop, brimming with a future she would never see. The sun was lower now, casting long, distorted shadows from the broken greenhouse. The hunger was still there, a dark, patient tide. But it was tempered by a sweeter, more overwhelming need: the need to preserve the pristine, love-filled illusion Leonid saw when he looked at her.
She pulled out her phone, her thumbs moving swiftly. The text to Leonid was simple, a direct line to the only reality that mattered: “Council meeting ran long. Can’t wait for 7. I’m bringing Thai. Don’t smoke too much, I want to taste you.”
She hit send, turned, and walked back into the deepening shadows of the garden, alone. She had one last thing to do. The cord, now a piece of contaminated evidence, needed to be disposed of properly. The soft, rain-sodden earth near the old rose beds would swallow it, a temporary resting place. She’d retrieve the specialized tools from her tote later, in private, to be purified and stored.
For now, she had a performance to maintain, and a far more important night to prepare for. The kill would wait. Leonid wouldn’.