Not taking his gaze off the petal in his hand, he said, “My mother was a botanist. She worked at the Arnold Arboretum.” Raphael spoke with no emotion in his voice. He didn’t feel any emotion to express. Maria asked him a question. So he answered it.
“She did?” Maria whispered.
Raphael became lost to fractured memories, and his vision blurred. “She always brought them home to have around the house.” He tried to grab onto the distant memory of a dark-haired woman leading him to the garden at the back of their house to tend to the rose bushes. Raphael felt the velvet texture of the petal in his fingers and remembered feeling them when he was young.
Maria inhaled a shaky breath. “My mom did too. Have them around the house, I mean. Red roses . . .” She smiled. From his position Raphael could just see her mouth. Her smile wasn’t as wide as it usually was. “Every time I see a rose, I’m reminded of her. Sometimes the sight pains me if I’m having a bad day. If I’m missing her more than usual.”
Raphael dropped the petal and watched it drift away into a mass of bubbles. “He strangled her,” Raphael said, the memory expressed as though the topic weren’t a tragedy. Maria turned her head, and her blue eyes clashed with his. Her mouth opened, then closed. Raphael stroked his finger down her cheek and down to her neck. He focused on the delicate bones. They were perfect. “He made me watch as he choked her with his bare hands.” Raphael remembered his mother’s eyes locked on his as she fought to breathe. “The vase she had been carrying smashed and split open the skin on her feet.” Raphael remembered the sea of blood his childhood eyes had watched cover the white petals that were spilled on the floor. “He took the blood-covered petals and stuffed them into her mouth, singing ‘Ring a-round the Roses’ as he did it.” He ran his hand over Maria’s hair as though he wasn’t talking of the vicious death of his mother. “Then he stood up and shot himself in the head.” Maria’s breathing became shallow. But Raphael was lost to the few memories he had in his mind. “I walked to where she lay. Her hair . . .” he said softly. “Her hair had fallen around her neck.” He smiled. She had looked so pretty as she stared at him without blinking, roses in her mouth. “It made me smile. Her face was calm. It was never calm. He always hit her, choked her. When he finally killed her, it was the first time I’d seen her at peace.”
Maria’s heart was beating fast beneath his hand. “Who was the man? Why did he kill her?”
Raphael frowned, trying to remember. “Her boyfriend? I didn’t have a father . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t think. I don’t know why he killed her. The priests never told me. I only remember bits.”
Maria searched his face. She swallowed. Raphael liked how her throat looked as she did. “My lord . . .” she said softly. “How many people have you killed?”
Raphael tried to think. He shrugged. “Many.”
Maria’s shoulders sagged. “Many . . .” she whispered.
Raphael stood and held out his hand. Maria threaded his hand through hers and he led her out of the bath. He didn’t bother with towels for them as he took her through the bedroom, through the small dining room and through the door to his private room. He flicked on the light. Maria gasped. Raphael let his gaze rove over his wall. The wall filled with the faces of his victims. Maria walked past him, and he watched her approach the wall. He felt his chest swell with pride. At the faces staring back at him, eyes wide open in death.
“Y-you . . . you killed all of these women?” Maria stuttered. “These pictures . . . they are all dead in them?”
“Just dead,” Raphael explained, recalling each one in vivid detail. “Their bodies were still warm.”
Maria reached out to touch the pictures, but pulled back her hand before she did. “Strangled?” she asked, tracing the red marks on their throats.
“All of them.” Raphael looked down at his hands and spread his fingers. He smiled.
When he lifted his head, he saw Maria had stopped dead in front of the wall. She turned to look at him. The blood had drained from her cheeks. “You killed her.” The picture was his most recent. “This woman, from the club.” Her hands shook. “When?”
Raphael licked his lips. His heart started to race at the way Maria was looking at him. In shock . . . disappointment? “Not long ago.”
“While I was here?” Her voice had dropped in tone. Her blue eyes began to shine. Raphael stilled. Was she going to cry? He didn’t like her crying. He couldn’t stand it. It fucked with his head.