“Tell me everything you know about her,” Detective Perry said.

I won’t lie—he was a scary fellow. No, he wasn’t tall or muscular. He was average size, but he had particular features that put me on edge. His sunken eyes, protruding chin and bony body resembled one of those skeletons people hang outside their homes during Halloween, such as the Grim Reaper.

“There’s nothing much to know about her,” I replied with confidence that surprised even me.

“Well, what did you know about Cherry?” he barked back instantly, as if he had predetermined my answer.

But what could I tell him that he didn’t already know about her? Cherry was a girl with bright red hair who was always on the move. She was damn sexy, too. Her curvy body always demanded stares everywhere she went. Her dark brown eyes were like small planets that would pull you in if you weren’t careful. She had a flaw, though. She always wore heels. Although she said it made her look more “badass,” I thought it was to compensate for her short stature.

She never stopped moving. I remember she always preferred to eat and walk at the same time during our dates. Whenever I wanted to see her, I had to follow her around town while she ran errands. She didn’t stop for one minute, that girl.

“Look, I know only what you know,” I said. “I get it. Why don’t I know anything about her if we were a couple? She is very private and warned me from the very beginning. I didn’t care as long as I was with her.”

“You realize she is guilty of seven murders, don’t you?” Perry said.

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, I need you to help me here. Who knows how many other innocent men she’ll kill if we don’t find her?”

I looked around the room trying to find some sort of escape. But the room was completely bare. The small square table and the chair I was sitting on were the only things in the room. I looked up at the tinted window trying to see through it.

The last two weeks she had me going crazy. She was moving extremely fast and I couldn’t catch up with her. I’ll never forget the last time I saw her, though.

It was about 9 p.m. and she had called me up to meet at her place. Not earlier than 10p.m., she said. But I couldn’t resist and went there right after she called me. While I was climbing up the stairs, I noticed her apartment door was open a little, which was strange for a woman who never invites anyone into her world. I rushed into the apartment and almost fell over a chair that was lying in the entrance with one of its legs broken. I went in farther and it looked like a hurricane had hit the apartment. Everything from furniture to clothes covered the floor. I called for her and heard some noise outside on the porch. I ran outside and saw her on the ledge with her hands on her sides. She was getting ready to jump off the ledge of the eighth floor porch.

I grabbed her and pulled her into the apartment as she struggled to break free from my grasp.

“Why the hell are you here right now?” she asked. “I told you to come after 10!”

“Like I care right now,” I said. “Why were you trying to kill yourself? Why did you even tell me to come over?”

What she said next almost killed me.

“Because I wanted you to see me dead. I wanted you to suffer like you have made me suffer,” she said as she began to cry.

“Erik!” Perry screamed as he slammed the table. “Pay attention. I know you know where she is. So tell me so we can both move on from here.”

“She touched me,” I responded, not really sure what I was saying.

“What do you mean she touched you?”

“Idiot! She touched me. I fell for her and have spent the last five months chasing her around trying to make her feel something for me.”

“What else?”

“And when she felt something for me, she hated me for it!”

“Well, what happened?”

I avoided his question.

“You know, I was supposed to be her next victim. She told me.”

“Well where is she now?”

I wanted to tell him in a way he could understand. She was everywhere but nowhere. I didn’t want to do it, but she begged me to. She conned me into it, of course. She couldn’t kill me, so she left me with a burden, left me with her life in my hands.

“I touched her, her heart.” I said slowly, hoping he had some kind of heart in that bony body of his. “We all know how bad she was, but somehow, she felt something for me. But she always had her way in the end. Always.”

Perry stood across the table with his hands in his pockets. He was fiddling with something in one of them and then finally, after what seemed like hours, he spoke. “Was? Had?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am her last victim—her last lover.”