If the obvious leads kept turning into diversions, they’d never catch up to the real killer. There was something subtler hidden in the details and Ruby was going to find it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

John watched as people congregated. A party was not unlike a mass. Guests milled around, drank their wine, broke their bread. In this case, they were unaware of the ritual they were taking part in.

On the surface, of course they understood there was something to celebrate. Her birthday was the very thing that attracted John to Pearl.

John wove himself seamlessly into Pearl’s world. He spoke to people and they spoke to him. It was important to blend in, to look like he belonged among them.  John was another reveler at the party, awaiting the guest of honor.

He nodded and smiled and even flirted a bit. They asked how he knew Pearl. He told them lies and they believed him. They always believed him. When he wasn’t socializing, he busied himself flipping through her coffee table magazines at all the things Pearl aspired to. The pages were filled with images of dinner parties, of how to be the most admirable host. They must have served as inspiration for this event.

It still amused him how easily people blindly trusted him. Just because he did not have the look of a cartoon villain, no one suspected his true purpose at the event. He looked the same as those stiff laughing guests in the centerfold of the magazines.

John took stock of Pearl’s house, all the details of her life. He wedged himself into a conversation with Pearl’s co-workers. He had seen them many times at the coffee shop, but they had never seen him.

Two of the women, a few of Pearl's co-workers, were like sirens. Their voices, their laugh, their touch, their perfume, all called out to John, but they weren't right, not in the way Pearl was. They were not special enough to fit into the grand plan.

In the front of the house, a door opened and the energy of the room changed.

“She’s coming, Pearl is coming,” they hissed to each other, standing on tiptoe to see her grand entrance.

Then there was Pearl. John could feel her presence long before he saw her. The way the people all seemed to open up for her, the way she was so warmly received, it manifested a certain energy about her.

John leaned back and took a sip from his wine glass, watching her as she made her way through the crowd.

He saw her eyes, her smile, her gestures, and felt the electricity running through him as if his body was being recharged.