Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52447 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52447 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Like he does me. And therein lies the problem.
Rejecting him, I turn away from his approach, facing the ocean, a new dawn illuminating the sky, a strange, red spot tainting the deep blue of the water. It begins to grow, and grow some more until the lifeblood of someone gone and possibly forgotten spills through it like oil set on destruction. Blood is now everywhere. There is nothing else but it and the guilt I’ve tried to deny.
And suddenly, he is behind me, his hand on my shoulder, and I shiver with that touch. He did this. He spilled this blood.
Only . . . no. That doesn’t feel right. I think . . . I did this.
I sit up to the break of sunlight through the curtains, and the bed beside me is empty. Kane is missing. My fingers curl into my palms, my body trembling with the aftermath of that nightmare. A nightmare that haunted me nightly for months after I moved to LA. After I left Kane, when I was still trying to blame him for me being me. When I wanted my sins to be his sins. And how did I not put two and two together? How did I not recognize that my problem with rivers of blood was always about that night, the ocean where I was attacked, and my guilt over killing my attacker?
Kane was right.
I’m living with guilt.
And it pisses me off.
That man I killed, that man who raped me and intended to kill me, deserved to die. He needed to die for the betterment of the world, and for the protection of others, he might hurt. Guilt in this situation is just stupid, and I don’t like to be stupid. Letting a monster live or walk free to kill again is never the right outcome. Last night’s murder proves that right in every way.
Letting that freak in a mask kill again is the worst kind of stupid. It’s an example of me—and all of the local law enforcement involved—just plain missing things. “No more,” I murmur. “This has to end.” I glance at the clock that reads 5:58 and I throw away the blankets, pushing to my feet and padding into the bathroom, where I pee and then brush my teeth. I pause a moment in front of the mirror and stare at myself. I don’t see a killer. I see a wife, a profiler, a member of the bitch society, which isn’t real but should be, and the woman who is going to catch a serial killer we have not even named.
I decide to call him The Scream King, a play off the TV show Scream Queens. Okay, I think it was a TV show. It’s not like I have time for television.
I also note the mascara smudged under my eyes, and other remnants of makeup I never got off last night. I decide I can live with a mess on my face but not the bitter taste in my mouth that no toothpaste can ever erase. It’s the taste of death and failure, and those things only go away with an arrest. And I am going to arrest him, not kill him.
Probably.
I hope.
It would look good if I didn’t kill him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I walk to the closet, pull on leggings and a tank top, and prepare to get to work on catching my Scream King.
On my way to my office, aka Purgatory, I snatch my phone from beside the bed, and only then do I consider the idea that Kane is gone, not just downstairs. I assumed he was making coffee, but the whole Miguel thing is an explosion waiting to happen. I walk to the top of the stairs and call down, “Kane!”
“I’m here!” he shouts back. “Making coffee.”
A moment of relief washes over me, before I call back, “Thank you!” because I really do say thank you, despite some people claiming otherwise. Being a bitch is not a way of life. It’s a destination I travel to when an idiot guides me there. As for my appreciation, it’s given when and where deserved. Coffee deserves it. Orgasms deserve it. Chocolate, as long as it’s fresh, deserves it. Stale chocolate is really a sin in and of itself, but not completely off-limits if it helps me focus and find a clue to catching a killer. A clue from anyone that is not me for once would be worthy of a hell of a lot of appreciation but rarely seems to flow in my direction.
This is why I’m already walking to Purgatory, thankful that at least for the moment, Miguel is not front and center. He needs to be dealt with but I don’t know how I manage Kane going to war with his uncle at the same time as The Scream King is wearing his crown. One thing at a time, I hope, and I focus on the public interest, not my own. I sit down at my desk, intending to study all of my notes pinned on my board. I also have notes on my notepads to address and plenty of data on my MacBook and in my email. Before I can deal with any of this, my phone is blowing up, just one big text message. I scan the contents of the threads to learn Rollins and his team still can’t find the chainsaw. This makes me think it’s in the vacant apartment next to the murder site.