The Decay of All Things

The Past


She saw them on the news.

In Worcester, with the rain coming hard on the windows in the motel she didn’t want to stay at. But he’d asked her to, so she’d dragged Sydney and Broots up to Massachusetts, hot on the trail that Jarod had fabricated, and they settled into the dodgy Motel 6 on the outskirts of town because their ‘lead’ had suggested he’d be checking in the next morning. He was checking in, all right, just a little earlier than planned.

Miss Parker felt a growing sense of frustration as the evening wore away, and he still didn’t show. She’d manage arr arrange the rooms so that Sydney and Broots were sharing a double at the other end of the block from her, and waited anxiously for hours for Jarod to arrive. She cursed herself. Pandering to his whims – you’re becoming soft. But she’d started to crave him.

She ordered Chinese at midnight and sat eating chicken cashew in the middle of her bed in a black teddy and bed socks. She and the mini bar were making a formal acquaintance, and CNN washed over her until two names caught her attention.

Maria Walker and Sarah Robertson were murder victims, it turned out, and with the addition of a third victim – Lara Jackson – it was rumoured to be a serial killer. Miss Parker watched, fascinated, as photographs of the victims were flashed up. Pale, pretty brunettes with elegant features, two murdered in Montpelier and one found in Worcester two days ago. The police, with the assistance of the FBI, had just linked the murders. Motive and modus operandi hadn’t yet been reld.
d.

Jarod opened the locked door at that moment, and it made it two inches open before jarring on the chain. Parker swore, and the humidity of outside crept in. “Dammit, Parker…” Jarod growled, and rattled the door. She hopped off the bed and let him in. They stood nose to nose for a moment, just staring at each other.

“You’re in a delightful mood,” she snapped, and went to flop on the bed. They eyed each other over her takeout carton and chopsticks.

Jarod looked rumpled and tired, his long hair damp with rain and hanging in his eyes, his suit shifted and crumpled and rearranged by movement, his tie loose. He looked at the television, and his mouth hardened when he saw the report.

“Turn it off,” he said, and pushed his fingers through his hair and took off his suit jacket. Parker threw the remote at him.

“You turn it off. Or better yet, leave,” she said.

That got his attention. Jarod looked at her, really looked at her – saw the black teddy, her artfully tousled hair, the discreet hints of makeup. Saw the way her long limbs shimmered and gleamed in the lamplight, and probably caught a scent of her fine perfume, too. He picked up the remote, and turned off the television.

“I’m sorry,” he said huskily.

“I didn’t come all the way to Fuckville, Massachusetts, for you to bitch at me. I’m not your goddamned maid,” she said, and sat up, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him.

Miss Parker felt the bed depress, felt him coming up behind her, his arms snaking around her waist and his mouth against her ear. “Why did you come?” he asked softly, taking the carton out of her hands, placing it on the bedside table.

No, Jarod, don’t ask me those type of questions, don’t you know I’m not ready yet? Let me pretend this is a normal affair, let me forget who and what we are for a while. She wanted to get lost in him and forget everything that didn’t exist next to his skin.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jarod said finally, when she didn’t answer, “I’m glad you came for me.”

If it were anyone else, she would have laughed at the innuendo. Instead, she let him pull her back onto the bed. She lay on top of him, belly up, her butt settled between his thighs, his erection nestled at her lower back. She tried to get his clothes off as he stroked her shoulders, wrestling with buttons under her back and trying to get leverage, wriggling around until Jarod moaned. He gripped her hips and held her breathlessly still as he ground his groin against her spine.

“Dammit, Jarod-!” Parker huffed, and he chuckled, a warm, tumbling sound.

Jarod wrapped his arms around her middle and hauled her up, bringing his knees together and forcing her legs up, splaying over his thighs. Her cheek rested against his, and she strained to try and get a kiss. His hand trailed up her thigh and then cupped her crotch and she groaned, her lips rasping against the stubble on his jaw.

“Touch your breasts,” he whispered, and she lifted her own hands to her breasts, cupping them through silk. The action was familiar yet terribly exciting, knowing that Jarod was watching over her shoulder. She squeezed, and plucked at the nipples.

She couldn’t quite see his next move, his free hand fumbling somewhere beneath her buttocks, but then she heard the rasp of a zipper and his fingers stroking the material on her teddy aside, playing against her bare skin. Instinctively she arched her back high and tilted her hips down, and was rewarded when she felt Jarod’s erection pressing against her, pushing inside her slick heat.

They both sighed, shuffling and shifting to get the best angle, and then Jarod’s hand was back on the round of her pelvis, pressing her body down and applying pressure over her clitoris, and she moaned sharply, scrabbling to try and touch his skin, his abdomen or hip, anything.

It felt good, painfully good. Jarod gripped her hip and controlled their movement – a slow rocking, almost imperceptible. She settled finally for clutching his hands where they rested on her, breathing harshly through her mouth as he played her. Pressure here, over the clitoris, then there; pushing her hips down, pressing his own pelvis up, a master design of pleasure orchestrated by the one and only. His soft chuff of pleasure against her ear, surely designed to send chills racing down her spine. You’re a tease, Jarod, and you’re not going to let me come.

“Why did you come here?” he whispered, hot against her ear. His hips jerked hard, and she writhed in his arms.

“Because you asked me to,” she panted, and pressed down with her hands, trying to squeeze the pleasure from him.

“But why do as I ask?” he said, and flicked his tongue against her lobe, “What am I to you?”

She growled, caught at the frustrating place between climax and no return, trying to grind him into her and push herself over the edge. “Damn you Jarod!” she hissed, and heard his soft chuckle. She squirmed, wanting leverage or the freedom to sit up and finish this herself, but he held her in place. “You’re my lover,” she said, and raked her nails over his hands and wrists, “My fuck buddy.”

The unbearable pressure drew out. She growled in her throat. I’m not ready for this yet, and damn you for forcing it. “I need you Jarod, I always have. I want you – I crave you!” she said, letting it all spill out.

They rolled, and Parker scrambled to get her hands out from under them and in front, and Jarod’s erection slipped out but he guided it back in practically before they’d landed – and then it was heavenly, Jarod arching above and behind her, thrusting hot and deep, and the frustrating edge that she had been clawing at precariously fell away and she was tumbling down, down…

He kissed her later, when she was lying on her back and feeling too boneless to move. It was okay, because Jarod kneeled on the bed and shucked his clothes off, and then folded her out of her teddy gently. He peeled back the blankets and she looked at his face and realised he looked tired, so tired. He had lines of strain and stress around his mouth and eyes. She ran a finger down his cheek, and he paused, hovering above her and searching her gaze.

“How did they die?” Parker asked. He closed his eyes.

“Differently. They all died differently,” he said, and crawled into bed, dragging the covers around them, pulling her into his arms. He curled around her, clutching her like she was his safety blanket.

“Then how do you know it was the same killer?”

“I know,” he murmured, “I just know.”

He knew like walking the garden path through the killer’s brain. Here, pluck this flower, her name is Maria. And cut this one, her name is Sarah. And now this one, her name is Lara. They are my bouquet. See how pretty they are? All the murdered flowers…

But who is next?

Jarod fell asleep in exhaustion, and Parker lay awake in his arms. She liked the way he held her, but the night let the questions sneak up on her. What were they doing? Where was this affair going? What was this case he was working on? The women were hauntingly familiar, playing in her mind on a vicious loop. Maria, Sarah, Lara. What was she missing?

Jarod woke her in the morning, although he was trying to be quiet. He was dressing in the dim light creeping around the curtains, and she watched him knot his tie in sharp, practised movements. “When will I see you again?” she asked. He startled; he hadn’t known she was awake. He sat on the bed beside her, his fingers creeping into her hair.

“I don’t know… this case…” he said, and shrugged. She stroked his wrist.

“Are you simulating the killer?” she asked.

Something dark moved in his eyes, something cold and fearful. “No,” he said, an abrupt, choked sound. You don’t want to be him, Jarod. All those pretty women; long dark hair and finely sculpted features, blue eyes and hardened exteriors. They died and you don’t want to taste that in your mouth.

Parker lay in bed, and Jarod left, kissing her slowly, gently, and there was tension in his shoulders as he crept out the door. She lay in bed, and turned the names over in her mind, their faces, Jarod’s fear, and finally, like ice water down her back, the truth came, the niggling detail that was wearing a groove in her mind.

They look like me.

You’re not simming the killer, Jarod, because he’s too close to being you.


The Future


He was on the scene barely a few hours after they found a fresh one. A house in Georgetown, DC, supposed to be empty and on sale, and a realtor and a young couple had shown up for inspection and found more than they had expected. Three bedrooms, two baths, bay windows and a day old corpse. Reserve is set at $260K.

Drug user. Haley Donnet had lines of needle marks hidden beneath her sleeve, fresh and old, too many to count. Her grungy sweater was black, even though the colour would have made her look washed out, and with sharp insight Jarod knew it was because she was worried about busting a vein in public. Red flowers on the insides of her elbows. It came from using cheap needles over and over again, til the ends went dull and you could hardly break the skin with them. When you finally got to the vein, it left a big hole that tended to bleed. Filing the points only lasted so long.

Haley was probably in hr early twenties but looked like she was in her late thirties. Heroin had left her sickly-thin, hollow-eyed and plenty bruised. Her skin was drawn tight across her face. Her eyes used to be blue, but now they were milky in death. Jarod and Detective Nare from MPDC stood over her in the starkly lit lounge, and Nare was dubious.

“Are you sure this one’s your guy?” Nare asked.

Déjà vu.

“She’s my guy,” Jarod said. He’d had this conversation in five different cities.

“None of the others used. Might not be,” Nare said, and sucked air through his teeth.

Jarod dragged the neckline of her top down. A single needle mark over the left breast. “I’ve never heard of a junkie injecting straight into the heart,” he said grimly. e pee peered over the mark, and nodded his head slowly. When he gestured to the coroner’s crew who were standing by, Jarod didn’t stop him. “Bag her and tag her, boys. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

He went hunting. Crime Scene had come and gone, waiting for him to fly from New York. Avery had been left behind, Nare would be too. This was Jarod’s battle. But it was useful to operate in official channels for the time being.

The body was bagged while he prowled. Haley was laid out on the glossy hardwood floor of the front parlour, and there was no mattress – or any furniture at all – to hide a photograph. Nare watched, and Jarod worked. Let the room fade away and went to that cold place in his mind where the emotions didn’t belong to him and other people waited to use his mind.

Lovely in the morning how the sunshine came in through the window. Lay her in that, in that patch of gold where the sun infiltrated the gauze, and let the daylight heal her. You’ve suffered enough, little girl. I’m sorry you didn’t feel as good as *her*, but at least you won’t hurt anymore. Nothing will ever feel as good as saving *her*.

Jarod knelt by the window, looked back across the room.

Framed in the mirror above the fireplace. Through the looking glass, the person you were supposed to be. Beautiful setting for a creature with dirt in her veins. I know what you really are. I used to dream about you.

He walked across the room, past Nare who stared, to the mirror that was set over the mantle. He fingered the bottom, and then tugged on the corners, and it prised away from the wall for just a moment, for just a few millimetres. Long enough for a photograph to slip down.

But it wasn’t a picture of Haley. It was of Miss Parker.

“Huh,” Nare said behind him, “Probably left by a family or something.”

“No,” Jarod said, his finger outlining her face, “One of the victims.”

Here she is. Here is what they all are in my eyes. They are all her, they are all hurt, they will all die.

“Mixed ‘em up?” Nare said.

“It’s not a mistake,” Jarod said. She was standing outside a door with a number, one of the countless motel rooms they’d been to. She was reading a file. He recognised the doodle on the front – it was his file. Peta.

“I’ll send this to the lab. Who knows, he might of left a print…” Nare said doubtfully. Jarod passed him the photograph without comment.

Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware. New York for the big one, and now DC. Seven women and one unborn child, a thousand holes in his heart and the hard lump of regret. Time wasted and memories dimmed, those things he’d never said to her and all those things he had. Potter’s Farm. How could anyone who’d known her have done this? Who was the man who obsessed over her so terribly…? When you looked at her, what did you see?

Perhaps the same thing that Jarod saw. A woman with too much pain.

“But I didn’t have to kill her to make it better,” Jarod whispered.

He’d tried other things.

*