Chapter 1
When I first met her, she was as innocent and pure as they come. Completely unaware of her beauty and potential. Dumb, you could say.
But she turned right around as soon as I gave her some attention. She was starved for that. I followed it up by boosting her confidence with exaggerated praise of her talent.
That’s all it took for her to become like all the others. Vain, full of herself, vulgar. Better to preserve her while there’s at least a kernel of the pureness and innocence left.
Besides, I already have a new one picked out. This one is as vain as they come. Exactly like one of the princess’ evil stepsisters from the fairytale. Or both rolled into one.
I will enjoy peeling all that away to reveal the pureness and innocence beneath the vain, egotistical exterior, which I still believe is there in all of them.
Sometimes, I almost wish I wasn’t so gullible and naïve. I wish I didn’t still fall for every lie, especially when it’s spoken with bright eyes, and honest, young smiles that cause lines and wrinkles, which disappear immediately after the smile vanishes.
Soon, my new better than the rest girl will never smile again. Her smile will vanish forever. Unless I choose to leave it on her face. I just might. Then she will smile forever.
She’ll never have wrinkles, and she’ll never grow old enough to know better. Never learn there are many, many more just like her. And many more that are far better, far prettier, far smarter.
I am old enough to know better. I am old enough to know there are plenty more exactly like her.
In fact, I’m looking at three of them right now through my window. Smoking cigarettes on a bench in the park, their long hair flapping in the wind, their voices too loud, shrill, and arrogant, and their laugh too harsh. Acting all grown up when they’re hardly old enough to be outside without supervision.
They’re like flowers bordered by fresh green grass sitting there on that bench. Despite the cigarettes, despite their vulgar loudness. Prettier than the yellow and white narcissus flowers that line the dark grey, well-worn paved walkway through this park.
Soon the boys will join them. They’ll talk even louder, with all the arrogant bravado only boys trying to sound like men are capable of. They’ll smoke too, and drink, and tell stupid stories and dig out the cubes of granite that form the two decorative lines running along the walkway through the park. Just to destroy.
I don’t destroy. I preserve.
These girls are pretty as new spring flowers now, but it doesn’t last. I make it last forever.
Her mother might miss her, but the rest of the world won’t. I won’t miss her either, because I won’t have to. I will cherish her. She’ll live on in my memories and lie forever with the others.
She will be one of the special ones, the secret ones—the ones only I know about.
Chapter 2
Eva
Late October shouldn’t be too cold to sit outside on the balcony and work, but this year it is. I’m decked out in my long black down coat that’s gotten me through many winters much worse than this fall we’re having. I’m also wearing my special, finger-less mittens knitted from black alpaca, cashmere, and merino wool. They cover my fingers almost to the tips, keeping them warm yet leaving me the complete freedom to type.
These mittens were the last present Mark ever gave me. He always got me the best presents, stuff I didn’t even know I craved until he gifted me with them. He surprised me with these on the weeklong getaway in the French Alps that was supposed to put our relationship back on the right track. Instead, I spent most evenings and nights working on the patio of the cabin we rented. I had a big book to finish. An important book. For me and the world.
Inside the Mind of an Expert Serial Killer.
That’s the title of my book on The Fairytale Killer—the worst serial killer to ever emerge in Europe, a one-of-a-kind monster who tormented the city of Berlin for almost a year. He told me all his reasons why over a series of interviews, which became a bestselling book. That is still my bestselling book now, three years and seven more books later.
It launched my career, made me a celebrity author, and took me places I never imagined it would. Away from freelance investigative journalism to being a freelance true crime writer. But it also sank my relationship with Mark.
He is a Special Investigator for the US Military and we met while he was working with the local authorities to catch The Fairytale Killer. We fell in love during that dark and turbulent time too. Apart from killing six women, the Fairytale Killer also destroyed mine and Mark’s relationship. That took longer to die, but it did.
I still miss him sometimes, but by the time it was over between us, it truly was over. There was and is no going back. I’ve accepted it.
I don’t think of him very often and I don’t know why I’m doing it now. Probably because my computer froze from the cold again and the view from this balcony, majestic as it is, lets the mind wander due to its perfect sameness.
My apartment overlooks Ljubljana Castle and Castle Hill. Neither are very imaginative names, but when there’s so much history behind a place it doesn’t need a fancy name. The castle itself is kind of boring compared to other castles elsewhere in the world. No kings, queens, princes, or princesses ever lived there. It served as a garrison for soldiers and was the town’s prison for a while. But it dominates the skyline of the small city center in a way that makes it easy to forgive that shortcoming. And easy to imagine a time when life and living were simple.
Boring, I used to consider this city. That’s why I moved away when I was eighteen and haven’t been back for more than a couple of short visits since. But now, almost twenty years later, having lived in or at least visited most major cities in the world, I’m starting to appreciate the simple life here on a new level. Home is home. It brings with it a certain type of calm and peace that you can’t find anywhere else. Sure, this city is still kind of boring and nothing compared to places like London or Berlin, but life here is laid back and easy.
I needed a change of pace. Since I left Berlin two years ago, I haven’t actually properly lived anywhere. I’ve stayed for extended periods in rent-by-the-month apartments, but mostly I’ve been on the road, in hotels and motels and bed and breakfasts, researching serial killer cases—unsolved, solved and breaking ones, writing and blogging about them, producing books that won’t see the light of day for years to come, because my publisher insists on no more than two books a year from me. I’ve become quite the expert on serial killers in the process. World-renowned. Go figure.
