Page 97 of X Marks the Stalker
Something in his posture changes, almost imperceptible in the darkness. “My parents wouldn’t notice if I murdered someone in their living room.”
“That bad, huh?”
A sharp laugh escapes him. “My parents barely knew I existed. They were—are—very successful people with very demanding careers. I was raised by nannies.”
“Plural?”
“They cycled through quickly. My mother considered childcare providers like seasonal fashion to be refreshed regularly. Spring nanny, summer nanny, fall nanny. By winter, I’d scared them off myself.”
There’s no self-pity in his voice, just clinical detachment that somehow makes it worse.
“Did you like any of them? The nannies?”
“No.” He adjusts the heating vent. “They were performing a job, and I was an obligation. By age seven, I preferred being alone. Made my own lunch. Taught myself to use the washing machine. Learned how to forge my mother’s signature for school permission slips.”
I want to reach for his hand, but settle for offering the bag of licorice instead. He declines with a small shake of his head.
“When did you...” I start, unsure how to phrase it.
“Kill for the first time?” His voice remains steady, butsomething in his jaw tightens. “I was nineteen. A professor at my university. Dr. Hammond. English Literature.”
He pauses, and I notice his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.
“My girlfriend at the time, Eliza—she needed to improve her grade to keep her scholarship. He offered to help.” Xander swallows. “She met with him during his office hours. Came back...different. Wouldn’t talk about what happened. Stopped eating. Couldn’t sleep. Started flinching when I touched her.”
The road stretches dark ahead of us, his face half-illuminated by the dashboard lights.
“She broke up with me a week later. Left the university not long after.” His voice turns clinical, detached. “Then I started noticing the pattern. Other girls, same behaviors. Same hollow look in their eyes. The university had received complaints, but he was tenured, published, connected.”
“So you did something about it.”
Xander takes a deep breath. “He had a severe peanut allergy. I got rid of his EpiPen and introduced trace amounts of peanut oil to his coffee.”
I swallow hard, imagining the scene. “That’s...methodical.”
“It was reported as an unfortunate accident—failure to carry proper medication.”
“How did it feel?”
His eyes flick to mine before returning to the road. “Like justice. Not pleasure, not regret. Just the satisfaction of solving a problem no one else would. Of making sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else like he hurt Eliza.”
The silence stretches between us, broken only by therhythmic swish of windshield wipers against a light drizzle that’s started. I watch the droplets race down my window, merging and splitting like the decisions that brought me here.
“My parents were different,” I say. “Too present, if anything.”
Xander glances at me, but says nothing.
“My dad was a detective. Mom was a forensic psychologist. They met at a crime scene. Mom always joked it was the most romantic blood spatter analysis ever conducted.” I smile at the memory. “Our dinner conversations were basically homicide tutorials.”
“That explains some things about you,” Xander says.
I shrug. “They were good parents. Present. Involved. My dad taught me to fish and throw a proper punch. My mom helped with science projects and made Halloween costumes from scratch.” I twist another Red Vine between my fingers. “Dad was investigating Blackwell when everything happened. He was getting close—money laundering, political bribes, evidence tampering. Then, he was the one under investigation.”
“Framed,” Xander says. Not a question.
“Internal Affairs claimed he was on Blackwell’s payroll. Evidence appeared in his accounts. Perfect evidence.” I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “My mom didn’t believe it. She kept saying it wasn’t true. Then one night I came home from a friend’s house to police cars and crime scene tape.”
Xander’s breathing changes.
