Page 95 of Unholy Bonds

“They also found a partial print on Sofia’s backpack that was thrown in the bushes behind her apartment,” I said. “It was Daiken’s.”

The pictures were gruesome and violent. This wasn’t… someone who killed in panic or to hide something. This was pure rage. This would have given the killer a temporary respite before he went for another kill.

“The rape kit was positive, but Doctor Tobias didn’t get any DNA evidence from that. It was a miracle that they found any forensic evidence at all. Dumping a body in water is one of the best ways to wipe away any trace evidence or DNA left on the body.”

His jaw muscles tensed. He recovered quickly, but I saw it. Did he… discard his victims in the river?

“The bastard—” I said, momentarily losing my calm as I looked at another picture on the file. My heart lurched. This… no one deserved to die like this.

“Hey? Are you okay? If it’s too hard to look at, you don’t have to. Don’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable, not for me,” he said, his voice gentle. The knowledge that this man in front of me, the most dangerous predator, could also be so kind, was staggering.

“No, I have to do it.”

He took my hand in his with a smile that was made of part honey and part whiskey.

“Go on.”

“The asshole didn’t just rape her. He used some kind of cylindrical object in her vagina after he raped her. The object left a distinct mark on her skin, but they didn’t find any match to it. She had lacerations and bite marks all over her body. The killer desecrated her body until she was nothing and no one. Until pain was the only thing she felt.” I closed my eyes, trying hard not to think about the girl. “He wanted to destroy her. Make her into what he wanted her to be. This was vengeance. Revenge. He was killing someone else through her.”

Death would have come as a liberation after all that.

Something sat in my stomach, twisting and turning my intestines with quick, cruel fingers as I continued to read. She was so fucking young. Ryden must have known all these details beforehand. Other than a slight pulse of anger in his eyes, there was no change.

“Doctor Tobias also found some kind of small thread embedded in the wound on her right arm. The doctor was thorough,” I said with a nod. “He did a GC-MS scan.”

“Gas chromatography?”

I nodded. “Yes, and mass spectrometry. The thread was from a rug. That’s strange.”

“What?”

“Silk is not commonly found in your everyday rugs. These are luxury items, and they can range from two thousand to five thousand dollars.”

“Five fucking thousand?” I nodded, and Ryden cursed. “Daiken didn’t have that kind of money. His apartment is a rat hole, and he lived there like the fucking rat he was.”

“This is an important piece of evidence. Why didn’t the detective look into it more?”

Detective Rosario had always been thorough as far as I knew.

“Because the fingerprint and the threatening notes from Daiken were more than enough to overlook this.” Ryden scoffed.

Nodding, I opened Nikki’s report. “The number of wounds and bite marks on her body indicates that her perpetrator is prone to violence, just like Sofia’s. The MO, the execution—it was different. He must not have expected Nikki to put up quite a fight. I did a GC-MS on the trace of semen found, but despite the hurry, he used some kind of bleach that degraded the DNA. She fought hard.”

“It was useless in the end,” Ryden said, rubbing his fingers against his forehead, his jaw clenched.

“Your instinct might just be right,” I said, grabbing the picture of both the girls’ necks, where the tattoo was. Putting it under the microscope, I studied the curves, the smaller details.

“Sofia’s tattoo was too damaged to see properly, but I think it’s the same tattoo. I did an ink analysis on Nikki’s tattoo. Doctor Tobias hadn’t done one on what was left of Sofia’s, so I couldn’t match it. The second tattoo was better. Clearer. Like he was practicing it, perfecting it.”

He said what I had been thinking. “When he kills again…”

“The third tattoo will be better than these two. I don’t assume, but the evidence suggests this isn’t a coincidence. This could be the same person, and he might be trying to determine which gloves fit him best.”

“He’s experimenting, evolving,” Ryden said with a frown.

“He won’t be done until he’s perfected this. But after he did…”

What I said sat between us, heavy and thick, as we stared at each other.

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