Screening The Competition

I had recently been married and my wife and I had decided that we would make Friday nights our ‘special’ night – as a way to relax after a long week at work, we would catch a movie and have dinner out at some fancy restaurant.
One night, a few months ago, when Nikki went and purchased the tickets for the film, she came back laughing and, after asking what was so funny, she explained to me that the young girl behind the counter had admitted to her that she found me cute and sexy. Nikki thought this was a laugh-riot and we thought nothing more of it. Over the following weeks, though, we started seeing this girl everywhere we went; the movies, obviously, but also in shopping centres, bus stops, garages and the cafe where we usually had lunch on a Sunday.
Nikki told me not to worry about it, that it was just a teenage crush and that it would soon fade as her attentions would become focussed on someone else just as quickly as they were on me.
Last week, I got home from work to find Nikki in an agitated state. I thought something was wrong but she quickly told me that she had gotten herself a new job. She wouldn’t tell me where it was, but seeing her so excited was infectious so I didn’t press her for details.
Last night, we saw on the news that the young girl who worked at the cinema, the one with the teenage crush, had been brutally murdered in the back office and the movie theatre.
Last night, I discovered the usher’s uniform in the bathroom pantry.