Page 45 of The Italian Reckoning
“No.” Sarah shakes her head. “They are strangers to me. Although I don’t exactly have a large social circle here.”
“How long ago?” Cormac asks.
“Before Belle, his last victim was five years ago, almost six. And I’ve been in New York for nearly two years now.”
Silence falls around the table as everyone settles into their own thoughts about everything Sarah’s divulged so far. Glasses rattle and clink as Hazel busies herself cleaning, and soon, the table rocks gently as my bouncing leg grows increasingly restless.
A serial killer.
Here.
“This is insane,” I say eventually. “I don’t know about you lot, but I'm used to gang killings and jealousy and war because of ego. Real shit, y’know? But a serial killer is a whole other ball game. The way that kind of mind works?”
“It’s twisted,” Cormac agrees. “Do you think they know who they’re messing with?”
Sarah shrugs. “I doubt it. He wants to taunt me and spentyearstaunting the police force. I’m not sure he’s intent on taunting the Mafia. Although…” She clicks her tongue. “He’scocky. And he got away with it once when I had him dead to rights. If I’d just… Maybe he is that cocky.”
“Cocky, maybe,” Evelyn agrees, “but not smart. For one, it’s not like he could know someone like Belle was Mafia. And even if he did, surely, he would know that we wouldn’t be bound by the law when it came to tracking him down.”
“He must be new to the city.” Cormac leans forward, toying gently with his glass. “Unfamiliar with how things really work around here. If he’s got his sights set on taunting you, Sarah, then everything else is surely just noise to him.”
“That could be anyone.” Literally. People filter in and out of New York like water. Tracking a new arrival like that will be next to impossible.
“Sure,” Evelyn replies. “But think about what we know. He’s here for Sarah so he has to be familiar with her and her work, and her department. He’s only started killing recently, which means he’s comfortable and feels secure enough to do so. If he’s blind to who is in charge in this city, then that means he won’t see us coming because his games are built for cops, not for criminals.”
Evelyn and Cormac are building a plan, and it’s a good one, but there’s something about the strange look in Sarah’s eyes that keeps my attention on her. She looks haunted, but beyond that, she looks defeated.
“Your captain,” I ask. “Is he looking into this?”
“No,” she replies shortly. “With only Belle, he thinks I’m jumping at ghosts and I have no idea what I’m talking about. He thinks I’m seeing things that aren’t there, but with this second body, he will have to listen.”
“What do you need?” Cormac asks. “How can we help?”
“You want to help?” Sarah’s brows lift slightly in surprise.
“Some fucker is targeting people in our families. That shit doesn’t go unanswered.”
“Sweet in theory, but I’m sorry.” Sarah pushes her glass away and stands. “There’s nothing you can do. Nothing either of you can do. This case is bigger than all of us because it’s not just here in New York. All that old shit in Montana is connected too. I have to do this properly because as soon as the killer sees that the police haven’t found the second body, he’ll kill again. And it will be bigger. I have to call it in.”
“Sarah.” I try to catch her hand, but she abruptly pulls away from me. “Sarah, we have an agreement.”
Her eyes lock with mine. “You have forty-eight hours. After that, I’m calling my boss.”
19
SARAH
Forty-eight hours feels generous with a serial killer on the loose waiting to see his latest victim splashed across the news, but what choice do I have? The moment I leave Rocky’s protection, I’ll be right back in Matteo’s sights, and his desire to kill me is something I don’t have the capacity to deal with right now.
Another body.
Another girl dead because of me and my inability to remember the simplest details about that killer.
It’s as if I killed her myself and when I close my eyes, her blood drips from my hands like I was the one who ended her life.
Rocky sets out a plan for us to follow, and to his credit, it’s incredibly thorough. We visit Kara’s abusive father and quickly rule him out of her murder by retracing his steps. CCTV and eyewitnesses place him at several sports bars while Kara was missing, so he’s definitely not the killer. CCTV around where her body was found is no help either. Half of it doesn’t work and what we do find a few streets away is too far away to be of any use, which makes it impossible to trace any path the killer might have taken. We spend every minute searching while dodgingassassins—assassins I don’t see, but I trust Rocky each time he sees something that makes him uneasy. Our search eventually brings us back to the casino penthouse where I print out copies of everything from the older cases and lay them out on the wall of his study and spread across the floor.
With a bottle of wine between us, Rocky starts digging.
