Free Hello Kitty Must Die by Angela S. Choi Page B

be an engineer, a doctor, a millionaire. You will marry the right person and live in the perfect house in the Sunset District and have two boys. You will be set for life.
    For life.
    That is the UC Berkeley promise.
    Never mind that I had gone to Yale. The fact that Thomas had gone to UC Berkeley impressed my father. He and my mother were probably making my wedding plans for me right now.
    Too bad I didn’t have a date with Thomas. I had no intention of setting one up with him. It was just easier to lie than to argue with my father during the onset of a major migraine. After I got off the phone, I checked my voicemail, Blackberry, email again.
    Two new messages were highlighted in bold in my Gmail inbox.
    One was an offer to sell me Viagra at a discount.
    The other was a call to join a campaign to save the wolves. Apparently, the wolves needed saving.
    And a Gmail ad alerted me that Hello Kitty underwear was forty to sixty percent off at Overstock.com .
    No Sean.
    Idleness and lack of Sean.
    Idleness and Thomas.
    I picked up the pink index card with Thomas’ number. I propped it up next to my phone to remind me to call him tomorrow. What the hell. I could always bring my pepper spray and butterfly knife along. Good date companions.
    Raymond Merrill should have brought his.

CHAPTER

NINE
    F LUNITRAZEPAM, OR WHAT a news anchor calls Rohypnol, or what your average date rapist calls a roofie, makes a great date companion.
    Sean tossed a couple of tablets in a little plastic bag at me.
    “Take these with you. In case you need to knock him out.”
    “Sean, I’m not planning to rape or rob him.”
    “No, but in case you need to make an emergency getaway. Induces anterograde amnesia. Residual amounts in the body almost impossible to detect. Perfect drug.”
    “Anterograde amnesia?”
    “Means he won’t remember anything after you knock him out. He’ll remember everything before.”
    “Ah. Cool. But I already have pepper spray and a knife. I think I’m good to go, Sean.”
    “Pepper spray is dangerous. You gotta pay attention to what direction the wind is blowing or you end up with it in your own face. Stupid. Who pays attention to that when you’re being attacked?”
    Sean had a good point.
    “And leave the knife at home, Fi. Makes you look guilty. Carrying a concealed weapon. Assault with a deadly weapon. You’ll just get yourself in trouble. Geez, you’re the lawyer. Don’t you know that stuff?”
    Sean was right.
    “Besides, if you need to use a weapon, always use something that belongs to him. Wipe off your prints. So it doesn’t get traced back to you, Fi.”
    Always thinking of me, Sean was.

    SEAN CALLED ME the evening after I had made a date with Thomas. He invited me over to his apartment for drinks on Friday night. This time, he answered the door wearing clothes. Normal clothes. I wondered if Betty was disappointed.
    “Where the hell have you been the last few days, Sean?”
    “I needed to take care of something.”
    Sean looked at me and smiled. Smiled like he did the day they took him away, after he set Stephanie on fire. He paused, daring me to ask him what anyone else would have asked him. “What? What did you have to take care of?” But I wasn’t anyone else.
    So I didn’t.
    Like I didn’t ask him why he had roofies in his possession.
    That was one of the first lessons I had learned in evidence class at law school. Never ask one question too many.
    The most famous example given by Professor Fossett involved the cross-examination of an eyewitness to an assault and battery by an unfortunate defense attorney.
    “Sir, did you actually see the defendant bite off Mr. Smith’s ear?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Then how do you know that he was the one who bit off Mr. Smith’s ear?”
    “Because when I turned around, I saw him spit it out.”
    One question too many could cost you your case. Or your life.
    So I changed the topic of conversation.
    “Well, you missed a whole lot of excitement. Laurie