he wanted to show her something that she’d like to see. How would she react? Would she faint? Or scream? The thought made him giddy again, the way he’d felt years ago when he’d shown his brother the photographs he’d found hidden in the attic, the ones with naked girls being whipped and spanked by men in leather hoods. His brother had gone running to their mother, of course, and she’d punished Corbin by not letting him shower for over two weeks. He’d been a fastidious kid and hated the idea of not being clean. Being told he couldn’t shower had been torture. “You can shower when your outsides look as dirty as your insides,” his mother had told him. He’d asked her every day when that would be, and she’d told him every day that he wasn’t dirty enough on the outside yet. She eventually let him take a shower only after his teacher sent him home with a note suggesting that he wasn’t properly washing himself. Where had Corbin’s father been during all this? His parents weren’t divorced yet, but they were, for all practical purposes, separated, his father primarily staying at his apartment in the city. Corbin had wondered if it was because of the photographs; maybe his father was being punished as well for looking at them. It never occurred to Corbin, until much later, that the pictures might have belonged to his mother.
Wind shook the trees, and drops of rain pattered down on Corbin. It was almost time for Henry to show up with Claire. Thinking about the incident with the pictures and his mother had taken some of the giddiness out of him, but that was fine. It was time to get serious. He channeled his nervousness and his anger until he felt only a sense of detachment, the way he used to feel during an at-bat when he played high school baseball, as though he was floating at a slight remove from himself. He began to focus.
He heard a rustling from the undergrowth and watched as a large pigeon with a ring around its neck stepped out into the clearing, then flew away. More rain pattered down, this time from the sky. Corbin stared straight up at the mass of cloud cover, and at the one swollen, ink-colored cloud in the middle that looked like it was about to unleash a deluge. Where was Henry? Maybe Claire had refused to come into the cemetery with him when it looked like it was about to rain? Corbin shifted his position, sitting a little more upright, so that he could watch the path where they would emerge, if they came at all.
He heard them before he saw them, Claire emitting a surprised yelp followed by laughter. She’d probably slipped coming down the incline. The laughter felt like sharp pricks against Corbin’s skin. He hadn’t seen her, or talked to her, since finding out who she really was; they’d only e-mailed, Corbin claiming he was suffering from a vicious flu and that he was unable to see her.
Henry came first into the clearing, and Corbin caught him glancing in his direction before turning back toward Claire, who was moving gingerly down the slippery path, her eyes angled down.
Corbin closed his lids, pulled in a deep breath of the damp, earthy air, and tried to be as still as possible. The rain was coming down harder, and it made listening difficult. They must be looking at him now. He heard a voice—Henry’s—saying something like: I brought you here to help me. Then it was quiet for a moment, just the sound of the rain on the leaves, then he heard Claire’s voice: “What have you done?”
“I did it for you, Claire,” Henry said back. They were closer now. Corbin desperately wanted to open his eyes, to see the pained shock on Claire’s face, but he kept them closed. Rain was pooling under his collar, and he could smell the dye from the fake blood.
“What have you done, Henry?” Her voice pitched right on the edge of hysteria.
“I brought you here for two reasons, Claire. I wanted you to see what happens to your other boyfriends. And I need you to help me bury the body.” Henry’s voice was calm, almost placid, and Corbin was amazed at the performance. He could only imagine the look on Claire’s face, the panic in her eyes. He heard her say something but couldn’t make it out. It was one word.