Unmaking Marchant

Prologue

MARCHANT

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2007

The casket is gold. The color of the sun. The color of Marissa’s long, straight hair. I have the urge to open its lid, but that would be pointless. There’s nothing inside. Because there’s nothing left.

It’s my fault. I know that just as surely as I know my goddamned name, even though I didn’t kill her with my own two hands. I look down at them. They’re bloody hands. Blood is seeping from the broken knuckles.

Wonder how long before the cops catch up with me.

I run a fingertip over the lid of the sunshine casket. The crimson smear gleams in the lamplight like something precious. And all of a sudden, I want to see more of it. So much more of it.

I look around the small mortuary viewing room for something sharp. My hands are shaking with the need for it—the need to end it all right now. I could do it. The funeral director is in his office. I can hear him pecking on a keyboard.

I could do it right now. No one would know.

I’m in the perfect place for death, after all—and I deserve to die. Just ask Marissa.

I turn around slowly and stare at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the left side of the room. So many books, and all the books so pointless. Like the casket, everything is pointless. Has always been pointless. Will always be pointless.

I try to push past the fuzziness inside my mind and think. Maybe I could use the glass on a frame to cut my wrists. I could even find the room where they embalm the bodies and use one of the knives. Whatever the way, I like the thought of dying here.

Right then, as if the gods ordain my thoughts, a letter opener pops out at me from among the books and trinkets. It’s long and brassy, pointed at the tip just like a dagger. It’s resting near the bottom of the bookshelf, right in front of a staunch, burgundy hardback called RESPECTING LIFE.

Even in my current state, I can appreciate the irony.

I step across the foot-worn rug and lift the cool brass gently off of its perch. I’m looking down at it, thinking how much duller it looks than the ones they use in movies to stab the villain, when the pecking stops.

The sweaty hair on the back of my neck tingles, like I just did a line of coke.

A second later, the double-doors burst open, and the cops pour in.