Chapter 16

Strange creature.

I cannot get her words out of my head for the rest of the day.

And the following night.

I twist and turn, unable to sleep despite following my nightly routine to a T.

In the morning, instead of feeling refreshed and ready to battle the dinner with my mother, I’m about to snap someone’s neck. Preferably Minnie’s since the image of her hugging that man hasn’t left my mind. It progressed into a nightmare last night as I saw her doing more than hugging and with a great deal fewer clothes than before.

Blasphemy.

It was pure blasphemy.

I have to do something about this, and fast.

Yes, she belongs to me—technically. But I need to find a way to tie her to me permanently. Perhaps I can find some magic spell to serve that purpose since everything in the mortal realm is too ephemeral for my liking.

I chuckle at my own thoughts.

Magic and hallucinations.

What’s next?

Ghosts?

Was the man she was seeing a ghost?

But that wouldn’t explain the missing footprints since I’m sure of what I saw.

I sigh as I complete my morning ablutions and head out to work. God knows I’ll probably end up doing nothing, but at least I can devote more time to stalking Minnie online. Now more than ever I need to know everything there is to know about her. Not because it would change the fact that she now belongs to me, but because I need to know every single man who’s ever been in her life. Family, friends…lovers?

I scowl at that thought.

She better be telling the truth about never having had a lover because by God, I’ll scour this Earth for the man who dared touch her and I’ll kill him slowly and painfully.

Fuck my rules. I’m officially throwing every single rule I’ve ever had out the window. So what if he’s innocent? The mere fact that he’s put his hands on her means he’s guilty in my eyes, and thus worthy of a fitting punishment.

Heading to my office, I turn on my computer and start a new search into Minnie.

Minerva An’yan.

I type in her name and check the police database first.

No hits.

I turn my attention to Google, genealogy sites and other databases, but that’s equally fruitless.

She doesn’t exist. Plain and simple.

But she can’t not exist, especially in this day and age. Everything is on the internet. The fact that she’s not is rather concerning. And it can only mean one thing. Someone made a deliberate effort to erase all traces of her from the internet.

I could, of course, torture the answers out of her. But where’s the fun in that? There’s also the unfortunate issue that I don’t want to harm her—a first, I know.

She said I’d find out her identity in due time, but the curiosity is killing me.

Thinking about this issue for a few more moments, I grab my phone and dial an acquaintance who owns a security company. He’s developing a state-of-the-art software to aid background checks, which is supposed to revolutionize the industry. As far as I know, it’s still in beta testing. Still, it’s worth a try.

Clearly, a simple Google search will not yield anything. The police reports gave me some new information but not nearly enough to find out who she is.

“What?” he answers with a long drawl.

“Does your background check software include facial recognition?”

“Straight to the topic, I see.” He chuckles.

I grumble something under my breath.

I don’t do people and I don’t do friends. But in my industry, Leonidas is the only one I’m on friendly terms with, perhaps because both of us hate going out. To this day, we’ve never met face to face, but we’ve talked plenty via email and phone calls.

“As a matter of fact, it does. We’ve patented a new AI technology that can scour the entire internet archive in a matter of minutes and find all available matches. However, the program is nowhere near finished. We still have a lot of glitches to fix and?—”

“Can it find me info on a person based only on their picture? I’ll take anything,” I cut him off.

He pauses and clicks his tongue.

“I suppose it could, though I would not trust it to be one hundred percent accurate just yet.”

“That’s fine. I need to use it for something. Personal, not business.”

“It wouldn’t kill you to say please, you know.” He laughs.

“You owe me one,” I remind him. I did him a favor last year when his company was being blackmailed with sensitive information. And I’m not one to not cash in on the debts I’m owed.

He groans. “Fine. I’ll have my team send you an invite into the beta. If you have more than one picture, that will help. A video would be even better so the AI can do a 3D scan.”

“Thanks,” I say and hang up.

Sure enough, a few moments later, I get a notification that I’ve been invited to join the beta version of the software.

I upload a video from my surveillance feed in which Minnie’s features are visible from all angles. Just like Leonidas said, the software isn’t without its glitches, and before I can run the search, I have to refresh it a few times so the video can upload.

Once the results loading window appears, I lean back in my chair and wait.

I can’t say I’m very hopeful at this point. If someone went to such lengths to erase every record of Minnie from the internet, I doubt I’ll be able to find anything. But I won’t know until I try, and truthfully, I’m too damn curious to let this go.

If I wait for her to tell me her identity, then I’m putting all the power in her hands. She could make up anything, and I’d have no other choice but to believe her.

The software finishes running the search, and to my surprise, it pulls up a number of hits. The first few ones are the same ones I’d found when I hacked into the police database. The last two hits, however, are new.

I frown as I click on the first one.

It’s a scanned photo from the Library for World War II Studies dating back to 1943. This must be wrong. Why the hell would it show me a picture from the mid-twentieth century?

There’s a short description next to the picture.

Red Cross nurses outside an infirmary.

Confused, I pull up the picture.

It depicts some ten women dressed in Red Cross uniforms posing for the cameras in front of a makeshift hospital.

Why the hell would the software give me this result?

I scowl. Maybe the software is more faulty than I gave it credit for.

I’m about to exit the window when one of the women catches my eye. She must be in her late teens, early twenties by the look of it. She’s smiling brightly at the camera, excitement shining in her features. Her hair is tied in a tight bun at the base of her head and she’s holding her nurse’s cap in her lap. All the others are wearing their caps on their heads.

I zoom in a couple of times so I can get a better look at the girl.

“What the fuck…” I mutter to myself in disbelief.

Now I realize why the software pulled up this picture. She looks eerily similar to Minnie. She’s smaller than the other women next to her, and the uniform hangs loose around her body. Almost as if she’d borrowed someone else’s clothes. Around her neck rests a silver necklace with a small cross pendant.

It’s striking just how much the girl looks like Minnie. It’s not just her diminutive stature, although I suppose historically women were much smaller back then.

It’s her eyes.

They’re the same.

Big and expressive, almost filled with wonder.

I’ve spotted the same expression on Minnie’s face before, the latest being when she opened the box of cookies.

Maybe it’s someone related to Minnie?

I continue to peruse the photo.

Her lips, too, are the same shape and size. There’s even a small black dot atop her upper lip just like the mole Minnie has.

I freeze.

That’s one too many coincidences, isn’t it?

Even if by any chance it’s her grandmother, how could she look exactly the same, down to the placement of the mole?

Yet the alternative is simply ludicrous.

The photo is from 1943, for fuck’s sake.

And no matter how much I’ve been toying with the idea of magic recently, the logical side of my brain refuses to believe there’s such a thing as immortality. Or time travel.

It’s scientifically impossible.

There must be an explanation for it. Like the fact that the photo could have been edited. Although, why someone would have gone to that extreme, I can’t say.

I mutter a string of curses under my breath. Although the entry has a short description, aside from the mention of the Red Cross, it doesn’t say who the individual nurses are.

“Come on, Marlowe,” I mumble to myself. “Maybe it’s just a case of a historical doppelg?nger. It’s happened before, no?”

There are all sorts of articles circulating on the internet on celebrities and their historical doppelg?ngers. And those resemblances are quite uncanny too.

Convincing myself that it’s only a case of a look-alike, I click out of this entry and pull up the last result. The source is some obscure archive in French. There’s a short description attached to the photo, but it’s not in English.

I click on the photo. It’s black and white and it depicts the same woman from before. But she’s not alone. She’s accompanied by a man dressed in a military uniform. They’re posing for the camera. Behind them, there’s a monochrome background, which suggests this was a professional photo shoot.

The girl is no longer wearing her nurse uniform. Instead, she’s dressed in a long, dark cotton gown. Her hair flows down her back, long and luxurious. Although her outfit is rather simple, it does nothing to detract from her natural beauty, which is further emphasized by her wide, effusive smile. Around her neck is the same necklace with the cross pendant as before, confirming this is, indeed, the same person.

The man by her side looks to be around her age. He has a long scar running down the right side of his face, and what’s visible of his left hand appears to be riddled with scar tissue.

They’re standing close together. The man has his arm over her shoulder, holding her possessively by his side.

Are they lovers? Perhaps husband and wife?

Maybe these are Minnie’s relatives.

I nod to myself. That must be it.

Wanting to see if the description of the picture might give me more clues, I copy and paste it in a translator.

Lucien de Vitry with his fiancée, Mina Anyan, in Paris.

There it is. The same last name, or at least a variation of it. It must be her family, after all.

I end up going down a rabbit hole investigating both Lucien and Mina.

There isn’t any information on Mina Anyan, though I already anticipated that. There is, however, a small entry on Wikipedia on Lucien de Vitry. A first generation French American, he was a decorated B-17 commander of the Eighth Air Force of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II. He completed over forty-one missions before being shot down on German territory and becoming a POW.

But as I read on, I see that despite surviving the war camps, he died of tuberculosis right before the end of the war.

He was only twenty-four.

Damn.

If that’s the case, I wonder if he managed to marry Mina.

A little curious, I go back to the photo and zoom in to look at Mina’s face.

The woman is identical to Minnie, and just as beautiful.

Now that I have confirmation that they’re related, I feel more at ease.

I chuckle to myself. Of course that’s the only explanation. It’s not as if Mina is Minnie and she ended up time-traveling to the twenty-first century. It’s even more ludicrous to think of her being over a hundred years old. If anything, the girl barely looks eighteen.

But even as I convince myself about the impossibility of the matter, I can’t stop looking at Mina and seeing my Minnie.

Mina holds herself straight in front of the camera, but her gaze is directed at the man. She’s watching him intently. The corners of her mouth are slightly curled up in a smile, lighting up her entire face.

The same mole is above her upper lip.

Her eyes are wide and bright, her expression that of a woman in love.

She’s stunning. The simplicity of her outfit highlights her natural beauty.

My cursor hovers over the X button, but I suddenly stop when I notice something else.

There’s another black dot on her cheek and one on her forehead, right below her hairline.

I frown.

Turning to my other monitor, I pull up a video of Minnie and wait until I find a frame that shows her right cheek.

“The fuck…”

There it is. The same mole on her cheek. And to make it even more absurd, Minnie also has a mole on her forehead, right below her hairline.

I stare in disbelief at the two women. I cannot wrap my mind around how they’re so identical. Even if they’re related, I doubt they’d have the same moles in the same positions.

That dilemma prompts a search into the genetics of moles, and while some are genetically inherited from parent to offspring, there’s still not enough information to say for sure whether mole placement is inherited too.

But I’m still not convinced.

How is it that the only records of Minnie on the internet are those police records that list her as a Jane Doe and the two pictures featuring someone who looks exactly like her but who lived almost one hundred years ago?

There’s also her name. Minerva, Minnie, Mina…

It’s all too close for my peace of mind.

Add to that the odd things happening all around Minnie. Men seem to fall into a trance the moment they see her, almost as if they were bewitched. Technology glitches around her, and it always happens at very opportune moments. I still haven’t forgotten the time she supposedly cleaned the entire bathroom in a matter of minutes. I may have relegated it to the back of my mind, but it’s been bothering me ever since.

Then there’s also perhaps the most glaring detail. Her ability to withstand the cold. Whereas a normal person would get frostbite from being exposed to the cold in nothing but a shirt, she was perfectly fine—warm to the touch even.

That is…not normal.

A knock interrupts my thoughts.

I barely look up as the door opens and Minnie steps inside.

She’s wearing the outfit I bought for her. As expected, the dress fits her like a glove. Her lips tremble as she smiles at me.

“Thank you for the dress. I love it,” she murmurs.

I grunt. “It looks good on you.”

She stands awkwardly at the entrance of my office, balancing from one foot to the other. The shoes, too, fit her, the heels making her legs look longer.

I berate myself for noticing every single thing about her when I should be concentrating on her deception.

“Shouldn’t we…go?” she asks after a lengthy pause in which we just stare at each other.

“There’s still time,” I reply, glancing at my watch. “I’m working,” I mention.

“Oh. Do you want me to go? I can come back later.”

“Not at all,” I add, forcing a smile. “Please, take a seat.” I motion to the sofa by the wall.

She nods and reluctantly advances into the room, taking a seat on the sofa. She places her red bag in her lap, holding it with both hands as if it were something precious.

My chest rumbles with satisfaction. It appears she did like my surprise.

She holds herself perfectly still, her back straight, her shoulders square. She’s the picture of decorum, yet I have to wonder how much of that is true.

Yesterday, I saw her mask slip for the first time.

I have to take into account the fact that she knows about me, too. She was there two years ago. She saw me kill. Keeping her ignorant is no longer an option.

Pretending to work for another half an hour, I surreptitiously watch her from the corner of my eye. Her hair is freshly washed and full of volume. As I study her, however, I note she has some hint of eyeshadow on her lids, as well as some reddish color on her cheeks and lips.

I frown. I don’t remember buying her any cosmetics.

“Where did you get the makeup from?” I suddenly ask.

Her lashes flutter as she turns to look at me.

“This?” She motions to her face.

“Yes, that. We didn’t buy any makeup, did we?”

Did she buy it when I wasn’t looking? Did she get it so she can wear it to meet that mysterious man? My hands curl into fists, and I already feel rage burning inside of me.

I force myself to breathe. There was no one there last night—there couldn’t have been. But even as I tell myself that, there’s a part of me that still believes there was someone there last night—or something.

“No, we didn’t,” she murmurs and bashfully tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I made it.”

“You made it?”

“Yes.” She nods. Pride shines in her voice.

“How?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“Well,” she starts as she wets her lips. “For the red, I used some of the vaseline you keep in the bathroom cupboard and I mixed it with some blood from the beef I cooked you for lunch.”

“You…” I swallow. “You’re wearing cow blood on your lips and cheeks?”

She nods exuberantly.

“Ingenious, no?”

I stare at her. I’m not sure ingenious is the word I’d use.

“And the eyeshadow?” I’m almost afraid to know the answer to this, but hopefully, it’s something innocuous.

“It’s ash,” she declares, her face brightening with joy.

Horror grips me.

“And where would you have gotten ash from?”

Please tell me you burned some paper and used that ash.

“I was cleaning the basement and there’s a fireplace there. There was still a lot of ash left behind and it was the perfect pigment for my eyes. Do you like it?” She gets up and comes toward me, batting her lashes and inviting me to check her makeup.

“Ash from the fireplace in the basement,” I repeat like a broken radio.

Shudders go down my body.

“Yes! Back in the day, ash was used for cosmetic purposes.”

“Minnie…” I take a deep breath. “That wasn’t a fireplace in the basement,” I tell her with great reluctance.

She frowns.

“But…”

“It’s an incineration furnace.”

“What’s the difference?” she asks.

“That furnace is not used for heating the house. It’s used for…”

I scrub my hands on my face. How the hell do I tell her she’s wearing dead people’s ashes as eyeshadow? I should probably just lie and let her believe it was normal ash.

She looks at me expectantly.

“You said you know what I do.” I clear my throat.

“You work in tech,” she answers.

“Not that. The thing you were a fan of,” I mutter.

She blinks. Slowly, her lips part and make a small O.

“Punishing bad people?” she asks, a hint of excitement in her voice.

Interesting word choice. I wonder what she thinks that punishment entails.

“Yes, you could say that. I punish bad people.”

“Okay? I don’t mind it, you know. Just in case I didn’t make it clear last night,” she mentions, her lips pulling up in an exuberant smile.

Fuck, she’s beautiful. I stare at her and my mind goes blank.

“Bad people should be punished. Your human law is too corrupt and so many bad people go free.” She shudders. “It’s good there’s someone like you out there to save the world. Like you saved me.” Another smile. “I knew you would. You’re my hero, Marlowe. And though they may not know it, you’re other people’s hero, too. Like…” She trails off. Her nose scrunches in concentration. “Super…”

“Superman?” I offer.

“Yes! That one!”

“You don’t think it should be handled by the police?” I ask by way of testing her.

“If there was such a thing as a fair system, maybe,” she answers without missing a beat. “But there’s not. That’s why the world needs heroes like you.” There she goes with that smile again.

It’s too blinding. Too…distracting.

I swallow.

“I’m not a hero,” I grumble.

“Oh yes, you are! Trust me. I’m a good judge of character, and you’re the bestest person I’ve ever met.”

My eyes widen at her proclamation. What? She thinks I’m the best person she’s ever met?

Did I end up in an alternate dimension where I’m not a killer? Where I’m not a selfish bastard who’d kill someone without any reason other than the fact that they’d look at her the wrong way?

I avert my gaze. Heat climbs up my cheeks.

“Back to the furnace.” I clear my throat again. “I don’t just punish bad people. I get rid of them. Do you realize what that means?”

She nods effusively.

“As you should,” she replies.

Okay, she’s not reacting badly to this. Perhaps she’s desensitized to violence? She didn’t seem to mind me beating the crap out of that creep at the diner or the dude abusing his dog.

But I don’t think she’s made the connection between the two quite yet.

“I get rid of them in that furnace,” I add slowly.

Her brows furrow and she bites on her lower lip as she digests my words. Realization slowly dawns on her and her entire demeanor changes.

“You mean that…”

I nod grimly.

“Oh,” she whispers.

“Here.” I open a drawer and take out a pack of wet wipes. She glances at it warily and debates what to do for a moment. Then she shakes her head.

“It’s fine,” she says with a sigh. “I want your mother to like me, and I look nice like this. It’s not as if it’s an issue, no? They’re already dead.”

My lips flatten as I stare at her. Right. She’s already wearing cow blood on her face. The ashes of a few dead people on her lids should be child’s play compared to that.

I make a mental note to keep my distance from her face, regardless of how pretty it might be.

“Right,” I mutter under my breath. “Let’s go.”

She gives me a full smile as she clutches onto her red purse and follows me to the car.

We get inside and I set the coordinates on my GPS to take us to the restaurant.

The first half of the ride, we’re both silent.

Minnie smiles to herself every now and then, distracting my attention from the road.

What is she thinking about?

For someone who just found out she’s wearing dead people on her face, she sure seems rather cheery.

“What are you thinking about?” I suddenly ask.

She fidgets in her seat and her smile grows wider.

“You,” she whispers softly. “Being your fan was the best decision I ever made.” She giggles.

She seems so pleased with herself that I don’t even know what I should reply to that.

It’s an odd thing—having a fan.

I still cannot fathom how she found me or how she became my fan. That, coupled with all the other abnormalities surrounding her, makes me wary.

But also goddamn excited.

I mean, who the hell would have thought to use cow blood and dead people’s ashes as makeup? Disgusting, yes. But as she said. Ingenious. And a little disturbing.

But would she be so intriguing to me if she weren’t a little disturbing?

Somehow, I doubt that.

I’ve never felt more alive in my life. And it’s all because of the entertainment value Minnie has brought to my life. At this point, I’m willing to overlook her shady past as long as she’s not hiding a lover or, God forbid, a husband.

I scowl.

Just thinking about a potential lover sours my mood.

She can lie to me about her identity, about her background, about everything. But if she’s lied to me about her history with men, then all hell will break loose.

My fists curl as I think of the bloodshed I’d unleash on anyone who’s ever touched her. Especially that soulmate of hers. He’ll be the first because he means something to her. He claimed a part of her heart when the entire thing should be mine and mine alone.

A sudden thought flashes in my mind and I tense.

She said she’s never fucked anyone, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t done something else with that soulmate of hers, or with others.

My lip twitches and my vision goes red.

“Minnie,” I bark aloud.

She startles. Turning her head, she raises her brows in question.

“Yes?”

“How many people have you kissed?”

“W-what?” She blinks.

“Answer the question,” I demand harshly.

She gawks at me. I suppose I’d gawk too since I must look like a madman suddenly bringing this up. But I must know—so I can plan accordingly, of course.

“What do you mean?” she asks slowly.

“A simple question. How many men have you kissed?”

“Only one,” she answers in a soft voice.

My hearing dims until the only sound I hear is the pounding of my own blood.

“Who?” I rasp out.