The Journey Prize Stories 22 Read Online Free

final word.
    The problem with his questions is this: she cannot answer them. She cannot say, “I suspect you might be a serial killer,” for if he turns out not to be a serial killer, such a statement is an insult, and if he turns out not to be a serial killer, she might want to see him again.
    He takes off his glasses and blinks down at her, as though he is just as confused as she is. Then he reaches forward and lays a large hand on her arm.
    She sees this image – his hand on her arm – as though watching it from above her own body. She imagines police officers in a dank concrete room, viewing the security video from tonight, clearing their throats, taking notes.
    She asks Number 29, “Do you wear a uniform?”
    â€œI don’t follow.”
    â€œAt your job, do you wear a uniform?”
    He steps back from her and takes his hand off her arm.
    â€œNo. Sorry. Women always ask me that. I’m sure I could rent one if you wanted.”
    He turns away from her and moves between two parked cars, saying over his shoulder, “People used to focus on punishing criminals once a crime had been committed, but these days we try to prevent crimes before they happen.”
    He opens the passenger door of a black hatchback and looks at her expectantly.
    â€œOf course, security is all a question of balance,” he says. “Balancing caution against necessary risk. There are no guarantees.”
    There are no guarantees. But there are safeguards.
    â€œJust a minute,” she says and pulls her cellphone from her jacket. “I need to check my messages.”
    While he fiddles with his own cellphone, she lowers hers and snaps a photo of the back of his car.
    Then she texts a co-worker, someone who might ask questions if Number 14 stopped showing up for work.
    â€œI met someone!!!”
    She attaches this message to the photo of his licence plate and hits send.
    â€œDon’t let them take you to a second location,” she remembers a newscaster saying about serial killers, as she slides into his car. “That’s where they kill you.”
    No.
    Yes.
    She pulls shut the door.
    â€”———
    They drive away from the city centre, travelling north up a highway and then a series of side streets. She does not drive and is unfamiliar with this route to her apartment, but he knows the area. His brother lives nearby, he says.
    The car has leather seats and a CD changer in the back. She has never heard, before now, of a CD changer. He widens his eyes with disbelief and pleasure at such naivete. As a female folk singer wails through the car’s speakers, he grins about all the things he knows.
    â€œHave you ever seen the houses along Arbour Path?” he asks.
    When she shakes her head, he announces, “I’ll take you for a drive then.”
    He turns down more and more streets, away from the street lights and into a residential area thick with trees. She sways with the car, relaxed and dizzy.
    High walls of stone and tightly packed evergreens, as well as wrought-iron security gates with cameras and intercoms, surround the houses. A jeep with the words “Securo-Guard” written on one side cruises past. The houses look like sets from a movie. Massive Greek columns glow in the dark. Spotlights shine on the arched stone entrances of Tudor manors. These homes are not like anything an architect would design for beauty, but like something the owners imagined would be a grand home when they were ten years old. Number 14 stares at a stucco Italian villa and realizes that it is not a house but merely a dream of a house.
    Number 29 points out five-car garages. He talks about what sort of house he might like to live in. What sort of house he has now. How many children it would take to fill hishouse (one) and how many children before he would have to move (two). He lays it all out like a banking plan. His voice drones on, nasally, but she is not paying attention. She is