Emiline

    I hovered outside the window for a mere moment to take in the delicacy of the situation; life and death.  Such a fickle matter; a line between the two so thin and delicate and smooth.  A candle flickered inside the room and I knew that she could not see me through the glare smeared across the face of the glass, but I remained cautious and slid to the side of the pane.
    That's when she walked by; Emiline West.  She drifted past the window, so perfect, so precise in her movements I could have sworn she was a ghost.
    Emiline sprawled across a small sofa in the corner of her room, a hefty looking book clutched in her hand and a candle still flickering in the corner.  Emiline kept a candle in every room throughout the household, though for what purpose I never found out.
    It was then that I decided to strike; a balcony on the next floor up led to a sliding glass door which would be both easy to unlock and quiet to enter.  I slipped the latex rubber gloves over my fingers and clutched the edge of the balcony, heaving myself up with a small puff of breath, after which I quickly proceeded to pick the lock on the door.  It clicked softly under my gloved hand.
    The door slid back with ease, making hardly a sound.  The first thing I noticed after stepping over the threshold was the cleanliness of the house; nothing was out of place.  Upon further inspection, I also noticed that everything was packed away in cardboard boxes, each pristinely labeled in black sharpie: pants, t-shirts, dishes, books. 
    The observation did not surprise me though; I knew something about Emiline West that nobody else knew.
    Emiline West was going to commit suicide.  She was, therefore, the perfect victim.
    I had the entire murder planned out after several days and nights of observing Emiline's routine activities; I would knock her out with chloroform when she left her room to use the lavatory, drug her with some anesthetic, and, when she woke, I would kill her with the very gun she had bought from me, in my local gun shop, yesterday and place her suicide note beside her hand.  Her hand; the hand that would hold the gun when she was found by some relative or neighbor or police officer when they all noticed that poor Emiline was not showing up for work anymore, or that poor Emiline was no longer returning anyone’s calls.
    I took my shoes off and placed them at the door so not to track in any dirt and, ultimately, any evidence.  The dark was magnificent; there was no light, save for the dim glow crawling from beneath Emiline's bedroom door.  I stumbled my way through the halls slowly, so not to make a noise.  Twice I almost tripped over the same Victorian style rug that was illuminated by Emiline's candle; once at the beginning and once at the end.
    When I had reached the end of the hall, I stood outside her room and waited patiently.  My heart held a constant beat; it never rose nor fell.  I felt perfectly calm; for what was there to fear?  It was the perfect murder.
    Three hours I waited outside her door until I heard her shuffling around; her feet padding softly across the carpeted floor toward the door.  Soon the light of the candle disappeared.  Her footsteps stopped at the door and the handle turned.
    I did not flinch as she walked right past me in the dark.  Right past me and still completely clueless!  The scent of crushed lavender followed her as she drifted toward the kitchen; the room next to the one I had previously entered through.  As she walked back toward her room, I could barely make out her silhouette; a tall, beautifully figured woman carrying a slim glass of water in one hand and her hefty book in the other.
    She too stumbled over the hallway rug.  She cussed quietly to herself, set the glass of water on a mahogany nightstand that lined the wall, and bent down to fix the rug.  As she was bent over, I crept up behind her and removed a handkerchief and phial of chloroform from my inside breast pocket, then stood silently behind her.  I doused the handkerchief in chloroform.
    She stood, hands on hips, head bent over to inspect her work.  Then she nodded with satisfaction and turned to continue her journey back to her bedroom.  She never made it.
    "Good evening, Miss West," I spoke with absolute calm, but I could now feel my heart rate increased slightly. 
    She gasped and I could just imagine her fear; your heart jumping up inside your throat, pounding in your jugular, the heat from your body disappearing, leaving you in a chilled sweat, the sensation of falling.  Before she could make a move, I grabbed her by the hair and forced the chloroform against her mouth and nose.  Within moments she dropped to the floor.
    Without hesitation I hoisted her body over one shoulder and carried her into the spare bedroom; the room just beside her own bedroom.  I dropped her to the floor and took out my own lighter to re-illuminate the room with the candle.
    I found the candle quickly and, conveniently, beside it lay the gun; a 357 magnum handgun.  The handgun I had sold to her yesterday.
    When I had first met Emiline, I was fascinated; she was so perfect, so precise.  She had an air of tranquility about her; her shoulders were always relaxed, her eyes shone a dull, dusty blue, and her hair swept across her face.  While merely looking at her, the world felt placid. 
    That is when I had decided that she was, possibly, too perfect.  Too perfect for this world.
    I picked up the gun and rolled in around in my hand; the barrel glistened and twinkled in the candle light.  Emiline groaned as the chloroform began to wear off.  I glanced back to see her dark hair hanging in sheets over her face and her body was twisted and limp and already dead-looking on the ground.
    “I do hope that you have written whatever you would have liked to say last in your note, Miss West,” I said, holding the note delicately between two fingers and dangling it over my shoulder so she could see.  I did not bother to turn around. 
    The gun felt heavy and chilly in my hand; like the temperature had just dropped suddenly, turning the gun into nothing more than a frozen chunk of water.  Silence took the room.
    “Have you ever been hunting, Miss West?” I then asked abruptly, breaking the silence.  I turned my head around to see her eyes; still groggy with chloroform, but shining with fear in the candle light.  She shook her head, violently, whispering something incoherently; her voice bobbed up and down, quivering madly in fear.
    I chuckled quietly, eyes still locked on the gun, “When I was a boy, I used to hunt all of the time.  I later made the sport my permanent occupation, which you know; you have visited me in my store, have you not?” I sigh, “But business proves to be slow moving at times.”
    She shook her head wildly when I looked back down at her, beads of sweat trickling off of her midnight black strands of hair, “Do you know what everyone deemed the hardest part of hunting?”  Slowly, I rotated to face her again, still marveling at the sleek gun in my hand.  Emiline’s mouth opened, then closed again.  I shook my head, as if the answer were obvious, “They said that the hardest part was killing an animal while looking it in the eyes.  However, this aspect never fazed me, Miss West.  I am... what you would call and expert hunter.”
    Emiline cried out again, but her words were incoherent.  I took a few steps forward until I was looking down over her and pointed the gun, but instead of firing, I bent to her level, her teary eyes avoiding my cold stare at all costs, “Do you still wish to die now, Miss West?”
    She shook her head so violently that her tears flew at my face like dew springing from grass.
    “That’s a shame,” I pressed the gun to her temple.
    In less than a second she was laying on the floor, her body sprawled out so innocently; like she had merely chosen to nap there, on the ground.  The blood began to pour from her skull only moments later; rapids of red flooded the hardwood floor and seeped between the cracks.  Before I could act, I heard a voice shout from the hallway, “Emiline? Emiline!”
    The voice confused me; I had suspected a neighbor to hear the shot, but I had not anticipated such a quick arrival.  Calmly, I took my place behind the door and cocked the gun.  Footsteps erupted through the hall as a man charged into the room and spotted the body lying, stiff and lifeless, on the floor.  He cried out and dropped next to the body of Emiline, screaming, “No! Emiline! Emiline! Someone, please, help! Help us!”
    I pushed the door slowly away, so not to make a sound.  Then, when I was clearly visible, I cleared my throat and grinned, “As you wish.”
    A split second later, the stranger was beside Emiline on the floor; crimson floating out of his skill, flowing over the floor and adding to the sticky puddle.
    The rest of the events happened in a blur; since I knew that I could not clean the second body (the police would surely see the two separate pools of blood and suspect a second death) I fled out the way I had come.  I heard sirens as I sprinted down a narrow ally way…