Page 94 of The Sound of Silence

“Jesus Christ, Gia… I don’t even know how to tell you this.”

Now, I was beginning to panic and gripped the phone tighter.

“Tell me what?”

“The gym was vandalized.”

“Well, that’s just stupid. I never understood why people feel the need to vandalize things. Breaking in and robbing the place is bad enough. Why wreck everything?”

“That’s just it—this wasn’t a robbery. Nothing appears to be taken. This was very deliberate.”

A sinking feeling settled in my stomach.

“What do you mean?”

“I think you’re right about Ethan being in New York. I think he did this. I just finished talking to the FBI about him.”

Shivers raced down my spine, and I wondered if the time to confront Ethan was near. I’d only been hard training with Xi for two weeks. While I felt more prepared, I wished I’d had more time. Now, with Derek talking to the police—and apparently the FBI—it was only a matter of time before I was flushed out of my hiding place.

“The FBI doesn’t get involved in local, petty crimes like vandalism. Why were you talking to them?” I asked.

“It had something to do with the Violent Crimes Division and criminal profiling. There are things… things you need to know. He’s not who you think he is. Yes, he’s a monster, but it’s so much worse than you thought.” He fell silent, and my heart began to beat rapidly in my chest. I’d never heard him sound like this before. He sounded genuinely terrified.

“What, Derek? Tell me.”

“Four women are dead, Gia. The FBI thinks he killed them. I saw pictures of things… terrible things. He had an apartment with a bunch of corkboards covered with photos of the women he’s stalking. There were pictures of you that looked like they were taken long before you ever met him. There was a weird shrine to the Virgin Mary and a fish tank with a snake. He uses a whip to punish himself, and—”

“Derek, stop.” He was rambling and not making any sense. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who has an apartment with a snake? Ethan?”

“Yes!”

Derek continued at a more measured pace, recapping everything that happened from the moment a police officer had come to his door to tell him there’d been a break-in. The more he talked, the more I felt like I was living in an alternate reality.

Missing women.

Homicide.

Radicalized Catholic. The seven deadly sins. Shrines. Crosses.

Homicide.

Homicide.

Homicide.

Keywords replayed over and over again in my head as quick, shallow breaths chopped at my chest.

No, no, no!

While I heard what Derek was saying, it was as though he was speaking to someone else in another life. I knew Ethan to be among the most vile who walked the earth, but if what Derek said was true, what did that say about me? I’d been married to a serial killer and I didn’t even know it. I staggered under the cumulative weight of his words.

Flashes of my life with Ethan assaulted me—sunset walks when we were dating, his marriage proposal, our wedding vows, moments of intimacy. All of it had been with a stranger. I’d shared my bed with a murderer. How could I have been so blind—to not know about this other life my own husband lived?

A part of me wanted to curl into a ball and deny what I was hearing. They say ignorance is bliss. Would I have been better not knowing any of this—not knowing that my husband was secretly a religious zealot who stalked and murdered women? I thought back to the many instances of abuse I’d experienced at Ethan’s hand. I’d often wondered if he’d mentally kissed his knuckles before smashing them into my cheek. Now I knew he was reverently kissing a cross in the most twisted, hedonistic sort of way.

My stomach roiled, and I wanted to be sick. Oddly, I also felt a strong surge of guilt—guilty for surviving while so many others had died. If I’d had the courage to go to the police or the FBI like Cynthia had, could I have prevented any of those women from dying?

I tried not to contemplate the horrors they may have gone through and swallowed the bile welling in my throat. Sheer will was the only thing keeping the tremble out of my body as I finished listening to Derek.

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