Page 1 of Sullied Saints

Chapter one

"You'rebackin."

It’s the second time Tawill has said those words, loud and clear through the receiver, and yet I’m still not quite sure I actually heard them. How can I be back in? After everything I did… Fucking a serial killer- the very same one who murdered my husband; being the unwitting roommate of the very worst killer in Tregam without the faintest clue of who she really was; nearly getting my partner killed… my track record is blotchy at best, soaked in blood at worst.

Her voice snaps me back. "Tomorrow. Be here and be sober. You're far from being off the hook, detective," she adds, as though I could have suspected all was forgiven.

I clear the lump stuck in my throat to formulate an answer, but the line clicks, dead.

Hand hovering over the phone cradle, I stand there for several seconds. Not having my badge and my career stripped is more than I could have hoped. And yet the other side of the coin hits me. I’ll need to face everyone. Dean, Howie, Chloe… Needler, possibly, if they let me talk to him. Dirk.

God, Dirk. The last time I saw him, covered in blood and plaster… I believed I was about to watch him die.

My fingers tremble, my heart thumping too loud in my chest as I think of what so easily could have been.

Dirk dead, and me to blame.

The apartment is too cloying, too close. Leaving the receiver, I walk out onto the metal fire escape. My leg only twinges as I step over the window ledge. It wasn’t broken when Olivia pushed me off the walkway that night, only cracked. Given that I’ve spent the last few weeks lying in bed running the same thing over and over in my mind, I’ve certainly followed the doctor’s orders for ‘rest’. Of the physical variety, anyway.

The air is brisk outside, the sky clear, though not a single star is visible against the light pollution this deep in Tregam. I hug my arms around myself, breathing deeply. The air is tinged with the vague cooking smells that waft down from the air system on the roof, and the fainter scent of car fumes.

My heartbeat subsides, no longer pounding in my ears.

When I look left, along the exterior wall of red brick, I see the main street, usually lined with car lights no matter the hour. But not recently. Recently it’s so often the protestors instead, and not just here. I’ve seen them on TV, outside the courthouse, or in front of the precinct, blocking traffic in Downtown. I catch a glimpse of them now, catch the muted hum of their chants on the wind.

The people of Tregam are pissed... Pissed that we arrested Needler. Pissed that we didn’t arrest Cocooner, pissed because they know they’re not being told everything. I can hardly blame them, and I’m a part of that cone of silence. Soon, I’m going to have to face them all.

Suddenly tomorrow feels too soon.

***

Needler doesn’t look any smaller, sitting there, alone in the interrogation room. They often do; the killers that constantly skip one step ahead, only to seem like they shouldn’t have been so much work when you do get them. Not Tristan. I stare at him through the glass, there in his orange jumpsuit. He doesn’t fidget, doesn’t look even slightly concerned. Hell, he could be just waiting for his coffee at a café.

Several minutes have passed.

"He's been cooperative, incredibly cooperative, actually,” Andrea tells me, joining me in the small dark observation room. “But he won't answer any of our questions about Cassandra. He just, well…”

"He asks to speak to me," I conclude. It’s why I'm here, after all, probably the only reason. I turn and look at Andrea. "You think I should?"

"I think it’s our only option. That or get nothing from him."

I turn back to the glass.Needler—real name Tristan. With dark blond hair, green eyes, and skin that deserves a tan, he’s attractive, even if the lilt of his mouth is sometimes a little crooked, somehow unsettling. But I didn't know any of that when I slept with him, somehow getting tangled up with the man who I hunted, who I blamed for my husband’s death. No, it was all behind a silver mask then. That seems long ago now. I knew that face, sure, but I knew him as Seb, the awkward lab boy with a stutter. It turns out he's all those people. And on top of that, he’s the brother of a woman who we now know as the Cocooner. Though this was apparently unknown to him until Cassandra tried to make Dirk her next victim.

The sobriety part of Tawill’s order was the easiest. I haven't touched the stuff since that night. Even the smell, somehow constantly soured, offers no promise of dull numbness anymore. I’d been drinking when I drove to the site. The taste was still in my mouth when I found Dirk, and now it tastes like fear, and the idea of succumbing to it is not a soft descent but a stomach drop.

My hands shake, sure, and some nights I can’t sleep, but I choose that over being back in that warehouse, seeing Dirk, reliving the moment his eyes open and to his worst nightmare.

“What time is Dirk coming in?” I ask, eyes still on Tristan.

“Dirk hasn’t come in. Not since… what happened.”

My attention snaps to Andrea. “What?”

“He’s on indefinite leave.”

“Tawill’s orders?”

“The precinct offered. They had to. He accepted.”

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