“I have always loved you, and will always remember you just as you are now,” he whispered, and then bent to kiss her again.

What the hell? Eileen figured. They were both a little drunk and she enjoyed his kisses, so she met his lips with her own, closed her eyes and savored the moment.

As his lips covered her mouth Robert brought up the long, thin blade of his knife and plunged it upward into her chest just below her left breast. Eileen’s eyes flew open and she tried to scream, but Robert held her tightly around the neck and firmly pressed his lips against her mouth. The pointed blade slipped smoothly between her ribs and came up through the bottom of her rapidly beating heart. When the hilt of his knife slammed against her chest Robert pushed the handle roughly to the right and the blade sliced sideways through the muscle of her heart. It tore a huge hole in the organ and blood poured into her chest cavity. She went limp in his arms almost immediately.

Robert held her upright against the car for several seconds, his mouth still clamped tightly over her lips. He slowly opened his eyes and once again scanned the parking lot before he let her body sag in his arms.

“I love you,” he whispered to her wide open, blank eyes, and then kissed her gently on the lips a final time. Robert easily lifted her body and carried it a few feet into the high brush alongside the parking lot, where he knelt and gently laid it down. He slowly pulled the knife from her body and then held the bloody tip over his thumb ring. A thick drop of her blood slid from the point and fell onto his ring. He would wash it off later, but right now he needed her blood to imbrue his ring—to join with the blood of all the others whom he had once loved, and then killed.

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