Page 44 of The Italian Reckoning
The Painter is back, or there’s a copycat. Either way, we definitely have a serial killer on our hands.
“We need to call the cops.” I look earnestly at Rocky. “Forget everything else. We need them here now!”
“Sarah?” Evelyn walks through from the back of the gas station, pulling all attention to her. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
“Huh?” My brow tightens. “What do you mean?”
Sarah holds up a pristine white napkin with a few words and a phone number scrawled across it in red lipstick.
Sarah, call me.
18
ROCKY
“Should I be concerned?” Cormac flips his phone around and shows the table a text from one of his men stating that Matteo Barati is on the war path for his two dead guards as I place several drinks down on the table.
“Don’t worry about it,” I assure him, sliding a Scotch toward him and his wife. “It won’t take him long to work out that I was the one who killed them, and then…” Clicking my tongue, I slide a Vodka toward Sarah and then sit beside her. “Well, remember me fondly.”
“Should we be worried?” Evelyn’s brows pinch together while she picks up her glass. “We’re not looking for trouble, but Rocky, if you need help?”
“I can handle my father.” Despite the confidence in my words, there’s a reason we all retreated to The Black Ox. No matter how pissed my father is, he won’t break the peace that exists in this bar and if I have to spend a decent amount of time here until he cools down, then so be it. But I stand by what I did. Sarah doesn’t deserve to die.
She’s just trying to do the right thing.
“Alright.” Evelyn doesn’t look like she believes me, but her attention quickly drifts to Sarah who drains her glass within seconds, then slams it down on the table with a smack of her lips.
“Wow,” she whispers hoarsely. “Strong.”
“You look like you needed it,” I say, catching Hazel’s eye at the bar with a wave of my hand. “Need another?”
“Forget the drinks,” Cormac cuts in, his dark gaze on Sarah. “You have some explaining to do.”
She meets his gaze steadily and nods while pressing her lips together. “I know.”
“So explain.”
She glances at me, and I offer her a faint smile in support. The killer left a direct message to Sarah at the crime scene and she didn’t seem all that surprised to see it. So what’s really going on here?
“When I worked in Montana, there was a serial killer who targeted young women. He would kidnap them, usually when they were engaged in an activity where they wouldn’t be missed. He’d hold them for days, torture them until he grew bored, and then he would sedate them, paint them up in thick makeup, and slowly suffocate them with plastic wrap, specifically Saran Wrap, until there was a perfect imprint of their death on the plastic. Then he’d leave the plastic on display somewhere for us to find.”
Her voice quavers slightly and her eyes dart to her glass as if wishing there were more Vodka available. I slide my own glass toward her and she accepts it gratefully.
“He killed more people than we were ever able to find because he’d been doing it for a few years before we caught wind of him. He grew bold and a little pissed off because he wanted to perform but he’d been slipping under the radar for so long that no one was there to witness his show.” She shakes her head and briefly closes her eyes. “His last victim was one of the worst. He kidnapped her from a club when she was celebratinga colleague’s birthday and he held her for six days. He tortured her non-stop and kept her awake the entire time until she was starting to see things. And then…” Sarah lifts my glass and drains it in one large gulp, wincing sharply as she swallows. “Then I made a mistake, and he got away. He escaped and his last victim was denied justice because I couldn’t…”
Something stops her. The weight of guilt silences whatever else she wants to say and she places the glass back down onto the table with a trembling hand.
“Anyway, the night he escaped, he was shot. And then he vanished. A lot of cops hoped he crawled into a hole somewhere and died, but no one knew for sure. I worked myassoff for that case but my failure was… well, it was spectacular, to say the least. He never killed again and I was transferred to New York because my old boss didn’t want me to waste my potential as a good cop. Fat lot of good that did, really.” She stares hard at her glass, repeatedly licking her lower lip and breathing quickly. “Anyway, I failed. And I was transferred here, and I thought that was the end of it because he never killed again. And now he’s here, and I think he’s here because of me.”
Sarah lifts her gaze and quickly glances at each of us in turn. “I’ve been getting makeup in the mail, but the parcels have been untraceable. The killings are exactly the same as they were in Montana. This is the second one. I think Belle was the first because I dug back six months and couldn’t find any other similar cases. I think he’s taunting me because he knows I’m the reason he got away. And I can’t—” Her words cut off briefly and she swallows audibly. “I can’t let him get away again. Every death after I… It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. So you see.” Her grey eyes snap to me. “I have to do this properly.”
It makes sense.
In this moment, everything about Sarah makes sense. The guilt she must carry for failing his last victim and for whatevermistake she made that allowed such a horrific killer to escape must be eating her alive. No wonder she’s so determined to do everything by the book. She must be desperate to prevent herself from making the same mistake she did in the past. With the bodies piling up around her, it must feel like the killer is taunting her.
“My God.” Evelyn lets out a long, slow breath. “A serial killer?”
“Not only that,” Cormac murmurs. “One with a grudge. The two victims, you didn’t recognize them, did you? They weren’t people who were in your life?”
