Page 96 of The Kings of Kearny

“Do you even have jurisdiction?” I asked. “A reason to hold him?”

In answer, he pulled his cell from the inside pocket of his suit. “I did more digging into him after we got off the phone last night.”

“Yes, you said.”

He tapped his phone screen and then slid it over to me. “Take a look at these.”

I picked it up. A woman stared back at me. I frowned at Nick. “What is this?”

“Keep going,” he said.

I dropped my gaze to his phone and dragged my finger to the left, moving to the next picture. And then the next. A pattern started to emerge as I riffled through the photos. They were all women. Women who had long dark hair, tan skin, full lips, and brown eyes. Women who looked a hell of a lot like me.

Nick straightened the cuffs of his suit jacket. “You can’t tell from the photos, but they’re all taller than five eight.”

“Are these... are these Redding’s victims?”

Nick’s eyes rose to mine. “Yes. We can’t prove them all. He’s gotten much better at what he does since leaving the military. But I checked his known whereabouts against unsolved violent rapes of women who fit his profile, and he was within driving distance of every one of them.”

It felt like the floor dropped out from under me. I thought back to the first time Redding laid eyes on me, at Magnolia Hills, and my idle thought that he looked like he was checking my features against some internal database. He had been. This was Redding’s ulterior motive. He’d agreed to meet with me because he wanted to canvas his next rape. Not only did I fit his profile, but I was dating a man close to Daniel King. What better way to taunt Daniel, to make him feel hunted, than by raping a woman who people thought of as under Daniel and the Kings’ protection?

A wave of nausea rolled over me as I remembered the way Redding looked at me in the police station. That sick smile. And here, in the coffee shop, the burning intensity of his stare.

My fingers shook when I handed Nick his phone. “This is why you didn’t say anything about what would happen if the Jokers talked to Redding instead of killing him.”

Nick nodded, slipping his phone into his pocket. “I knew they’d never get the chance to. Once I realized that you fit his profile, I wasn’t willing to take the risk that he would slip out of their grasp and come after you.”

“Do you have enough to hold him, or do I need to worry about him slipping throughyourgrasp instead?”

“I have enough to hold him for a long, long while,” he said. “Dr. Perez woke up an hour ago.”

Finally some good news. “Thank God.”

“Redding was the one who beat her up.”

Rage swamped my relief. “Fucking piece of shit. Please tell me he didn’t...” Like Beth at the bar the other night, I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“He didn’t sexually assault her.”

Some of the tension eased from my shoulders. Thank heavens for small miracles. “How did he think he would get away with all of this?”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t think he expected the doctor to survive. She sustained a lot of damage. As for the rest...” He shrugged. “Sociopaths tend to get sloppy the longer they’re active. They inflate their own egos. The more they get away with, the more they tell themselves they can never be caught. They’re too smart for us dumb law enforcement officers. It helps that he has family members in power helping him. When I arrested him, he made some crack about how the charges would never stick.”

“Thanks to his uncle, the state rep.”

“And another one, who’s a federal judge,” Nick said.

I stared at him. “Seriously?”

Grimacing, Nick nodded. Redding was even more of an elitist prick than I first assumed.

“Please tell me you have proof they’ve been covering for him,” I said.

“Not yet. But we will by the time Redding goes to trial for what he did to Dr. Perez.”

He sounded so confident I almost believed him.

“What now?” I asked.

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