Phantom Prey

lay side by side, talking of Frances and justice, he told her about the other side, the underworld, the dark and dim place where he spent his days. “I know—I just know, I can’t tell you how— that other people move on. I haven’t. Maybe I was made to stay here to help you find Frances. I don’t know.”
    “You don’t even see them when they go? When their spirits move over?”
    “No. They’re here, I think, but we can’t see each other—the dead. Sometimes, though, I’d wake up and find myself outside, along the Mississippi in St. Paul. Nobody else on the streets. Dark, foggy, wet. Streetlights—I could never see the lights, but there’d be these cones of light coming down to me. Then I’d come to a bluff, and I’d see a riverboat down there. Casting off, pulling away. As though I were just too late to make it. . . . Going somewhere.”
    “You’ve never run down to catch it?”
    “I can’t get there,” he said. “It’s like one of those dreams where you can’t find a classroom, or you can’t find a locker, and every time you think you’re getting close, you take a wrong turn. The boat would be down there, and I could see the street going down the hill, but I’d always take the wrong turn and wind up somewhere else.”
    And after the sex they’d gone hunting.
    Now that was done.
    She was a killer and Loren Doyle, the fault in the wetware, the bad cells, still called to her from the mirrors.
    Had to manage this. Had to manage it, right through whatever shreds of insanity were left, whatever came back to haunt her, she had to manage it.
    She lay there for a few more moments, thinking about it, then launched herself from the bed. First thing: rubber gloves and garbage bags.
    She walked down to the kitchen, her mind clear now, not a flicker of Loren. Opened the utility closet and looked at the supplies: it’d been a while since she’d done this. She was pleased to see that Helen kept the place stocked. She took a fresh pair of rubber household gloves and a tie-top garbage sack.
    Climbing the stairs again, she turned away from the master bedroom, walked past Hunter’s bedroom, past the last guest room, to the door there; opened it and climbed the stairs to the attic.
    A plastic storage box from Target, under a pile of old jigsaw puzzles. She pushed the puzzles off to the side, opened the box, took out the Fairy costume and the wig, stuffed them in the garbage bag.
    Carried the bag down to the laundry, left it there, got a flashlight, and went out to the car, opened the passenger door, and after a moment of minute examination of the seat and armrests, experienced the warm and holy glow known to people who have had a stroke of the purest luck.
    She could not find the smallest spot of blood.
    When she’d looked at herself in the mirror, when she turned on the bathroom light, she’d seen blood on her face and hands, and she’d had blood on her blouse and slacks, but only on the front; some of that, undoubtedly, would have rubbed off in the small car. But by the time she’d gotten to the Benz, the blood on her hands had apparently dried, and her back and the back of her legs had been cleaned: so there was no blood on the leather steering wheel, or the seats.
    She sat back on her heels, and a smile crept across her face. All right.
    And Loren whispered to her, You see, the Powers wanted it this way. The Powers are on your side, Alyssa. Alyssa, listen to me . . .
    “Fuck you,” she said aloud. “You’re just a couple of bad brain cells. That’s all done now.”
    A burden off her back, she returned to the house, to silence, and frowned: Should it be this quiet? Ah: the washer.
    She went back to the laundry, took the clothes, wet, out of the washer and put them in the dryer, moved into the kitchen and opened the cupboard. She picked a green spider-leg tea from Japan, added just a finger twist of ground rose hip, and brewed a cup; this particular combination was good for centering yourself when you were under stress.
    She had to get rid of Fairy’s clothes, and, come to think of it, she might as well get rid of the stuff in the dryer. Wouldn’t wear them again anyway.
    She sat with her tea and thought about it: she could put them in the fireplace, put on a little lighter fluid. But what if the police checked and found residue? The wig was real hair, what if a neighbor smelled burned hair?
    The tea calmed her down, redirected her mental energy through a calm space, and when she finished