"Do not talk to me like I'm crazy."

"I would never do such a thing."

"Why do you want me in Paris?"

"To shop, of course." He gave a fake yawn and backed away. "Maybe you can focus on finding interesting furniture and art out in Paris. Feel free to have fun. Grab several things. Be bold with your purchases." He grinned. "Put a nasty dent into our credit cards."

She frowned. "You're hiding something."

"There's nothing to hide, Mother."

She spat the next words out with sheer annoyance. "Don't mother me."

"Calm down."

"There better not be anything going on under my nose."

And with that, his patience withered away into aggravation. He grinned and targeted her with a scary gaze. "Or what? I better not have anything going on under your nose, or what?"

She glared at him, and he kept a neutral mask on his face. The times of her bossing him around had ceased after he killed the third husband. In those years, she'd taught him one important thing.

Death solved problems.

When he was a boy, she could shrill out a demand and he'd fall in line. But, he'd grown, and learned how to take a life and get over it with ease.

With her fourth husband, she'd seen the cruelty that Asher could execute. By then he was a teenager, he'd captured the old man's neck with his bare hands, looked into his eyes, and watched the oxygen leave his body. His mother had asked him to kill her husband. She's claimed he raped her. But in the end, there was never any proof.

But by then, Asher no longer cared, when it came to murdering her husbands.

"Asher!" his mother yelled. "Are you paying attention to what I'm saying?"

He stared at his mother. "I am."

"No, you're not." She uncrossed her legs as if readying herself to jump up and attack him as she always loved to do.

I wonder if that old man ever raped Mother or if she just used it as an excuse for me to kill him. I wouldn't put it past her.

His mother flung her wine gla.s.s at him. He didn't flinch or move. Instantly, the gla.s.s shattered against the wall, right next to him. Pieces fell down to the library's floor.

Still, he didn't move, couldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that she'd startled him. "Was that necessary, Mother?"

"You're ignoring me."

"I have a lot on my mind."

"Like what?"

"Business stuff."

"Elaborate."

For some reason, Asher couldn't get that fourth husband's image out of his face. "Remember, Mr. Anderson?"

She parted her lips and for a while remained silent, until finally saying, "My ex-husband?"

"Yes."

"Why are you bringing him up?"

"Did he ever really rape you?"

"Why the h.e.l.l would you bring that up right now?" With shaking hands, she reached for her martini gla.s.s, realized she'd flung it, and then simply hit the table with her fists. "And why would I lie about something like that?"

"You wanted me to kill him."

"W-why would I make up a lie for you to kill someone? Asher, you have to stop blaming me for your own guilt. Enough is enough. You have all this guilt inside of you for no reason-"

He gritted his teeth. "We murdered men. That's why I have all this guilt inside of me."

"We murdered monsters."

"Did we?"

"Yes!"

"The only monster I remember was Dad. The rest," he shook his head, "I'm not so sure they were bad men after all."

"Hush!" She looked around the room as if someone might have bugged it. "We defended ourselves. That is it. Nothing more. These men hurt me and you saved your mommy. That is it. This conversation is over."

"They all hurt you?"

"Yes," she said through clenched teeth. "We've discussed this before."

"Did they all hurt you!? All five men?"

She jumped up. "Don't yell at me!"

He inched back and did his best to calm himself down. "I'm sorry, Mother."

She pointed to him. "You're not to kill anyone while I'm gone."

"I didn't have any plans to."

"No one dies, Asher. Do you understand me?"

"Goodnight, Mother. Enjoy Paris." He turned around and headed up the spiral stairs.

"And let the past stay in the past!" she called after him.

Each time his mother had asked him to kill her husband, she had a complex story that involved the man doing something horrible to her-rape, abuse, threats to hurt her son. Stories and blurry evidence filled Asher's childhood. She'd whisper their transgressions into his ears right before bedtime, tell him how horrible life was and how it would be so much better if that current husband was dead. Due to this, Asher never got too close to his step dads and did his best to stay away from them.

He didn't like to kill friends, and in the end, he always had to murder them.

Let the past stay in the past? That's easier for you to say, Mother. You don't have the guilt eating away at your insides. Did all of those men really hurt you, or did you just have me killing them for their money? Or did you get as hungry for death as I did?

Asher knew that only one of his mother's husbands had been truly guilty. His father. He'd seen his father beat his mother night after night. At eight years old, all he could do was hide under his bed with his teddy bear.

Each time the angry man slapped her, she'd yell out for Asher. "Son, save me from your father!"

Under the bed, he'd cry like the little boy he was, not really knowing what he could do to save her. By the next morning, he'd wake up to her sleeping under his bed with him. Some nights they slept that way, under his bed and far away from the bad man that was his father.

The last time they slept under his bed, she faced him. Bruises covered her cheeks. Her left eye had been shut tight and coated with grayish-blue flesh.

Their father wasn't letting them out of his bedroom anymore and declared that both mother and child needed to learn an important lesson.

Monster.

"Mommy, I'm scared."

"I know, baby." Tears streamed down her battered face. "If he knocks me down to the floor again, you get the knife and slam it into his back as hard as you can."

Asher held his teddy bear tighter.

"He'll have the door open. You'll be able to run to the kitchen and get a sharp knife like the ones that mommy cuts the steak with."

Asher bobbed his head.

"You're the man of the house now." More tears came. "He's a monster. We have to kill the monster, Asher."

"Yes, mommy."

"Don't think about it. The monster needs the knife to go to heaven. He'll be nicer there."

Asher searched her face, not really understanding what she was saying, just hoping that he could really save his mommy.

And that was what he'd done.

That night, his father hovered over his mother, choking her as she flailed her arms out and hit the floor over and over to get free of his grip.

Eight year old Asher rushed to the kitchen, grabbed the knife, raced to his daddy, and slammed the sharp point into his father's back. Blood pooled along the hole. His father screamed and fell to the side, trying to grasp for the thing in his back, but he couldn't.

His mother ran into the kitchen, stumbling every few steps. She came back with a butcher knife.

And Asher didn't have to do anymore.

He just wrapped his arms around his teddy bear, stepped back into the shadows, and watched as his mother hacked away at his father and blood spray covered him, the walls, his teddy bear.

His poor, poor teddy bear.

He'd saved his mommy at eight.

He'd sent the monster to heaven.

But the monsters never stopped coming. His mother married and married again. Each time, she found fault with the guy and needed Asher to save her. Each marriage, the man was richer and richer. By the fourth husband, he didn't care if the guy was a monster or not, he'd been too hungry to kill him the whole time they lived together anyway.

It seemed that Asher had discovered a certain taste for death and the color red.

"Mr. Bishop." Grace headed down the stairs right as he was climbing them toward his bedroom.

"Grace, how are you doing this evening?"

"Fine, Mr. Bishop." For some reason, her face appeared strained or tense. "I just had a few questions, sir."

He stopped on the stairs and tucked the book under his arm. "Go ahead."

"You want us to prepare the house for a guest? And I'm to add a place setting and provide grander meals? I'm sorry. I'm just relaying the instructions that I received from the house manager this morning."

"Yes. I had a meeting with house management. We will have a guest for a while."

"We will?" Grace formed her lips into a straight line.

"Yes. What's wrong?"

Grace tucked a braid behind her ear. "And. . .will this be a real guest or a. . ."

"As opposed to a make-believe guest?" He raised his eyebrows and wondered if Grace had started to doing hard drugs. From time to time, he'd caught a whiff of a smoky aroma from her shirt, but wasn't sure if it was his imagination or the scent of marijuana.

She cleared her throat. "I'm wondering if the guest will be. . .alive or. . .what I'm trying to say is. . .Will the guest be more like your mother?"

"A woman?"

Grace opened her mouth, but said nothing.

"I'm not sure what kind of question that is," Asher said. "But, I'm going to be patient with you and answer. Yes, the guest will be a woman, a lovely one at that, which means that if anything is out of place, I'll probably roar. Let's make sure everything is perfect."

"Okay." Grace still seemed unsettled. "And are we going to say anything about your mother?"

What is wrong with her? What kind of questions are these?

Asher crossed his arms over his chest. "Is everything okay, Grace? Are you having problems within your life? Is someone bothering you?"

"Oh what?" She touched her chest. "I'm fine."

"How's your ex-husband? Has he been doing everything he's supposed to? Paying child support and seeing the kids?"

"Uh, yes."

"Let me know if he stops or causes you and the kids problems."