Page 46 of The Italian Reckoning
“I’m going to my boss tomorrow,” I warn him, sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by autopsy reports. “Your forty-eight hours are almost up.”
“Haven’t you been enjoying the freedom?” Glass in hand, Rocky stands near the wall tracing a red string between two pieces of evidence. “Going where you want, talking to who you want,takingwhat you want without having to rely on a badge or a piece of paper?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
I stick my tongue out at his back. He’s right. Some of the people we spoke to answered questions easily, and I know as soon as I showed them my badge, they would have clammed up and not said a word until I had a warrant. Rocky is able to move with enviable freedom. But that changes nothing. The Painter deserves to be behind bars and I need to make sure that when we catch him, everything tying him to these murders is watertight. I can’t afford another slip up.
I can’t have another death on my conscience.
“Fuck.” Rocky sighs loudly as his phone blares to life, and after glancing at it, he tosses it next to the bucket of ice keeping the wine cool.
“Your father?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Is he pissed?”
“Undoubtably.” Rocky rolls his shoulders and widens his stance while craning his neck to get a better look at the pictures higher up the wall.
It might be the wine warming my blood or the heat of the room making me feel more relaxed, but Rocky looks… sexy. He’s as sexy as my mysterious biker—considering they’re the same person—and as long as I don’t look at his face, then I can continue to entertain the fantasy that’s kept me warm at night ever since he first rescued me.
His dark hair stands on end with each time he drags his hand through it, and his muscular shoulders bulge through his T-shirt each time he reaches for something on the wall.
My mouth runs dry and I force my wandering thoughts away from how good our sex in the alley was. It was with Rocky, after all. I can’t like that.
I shouldn’t.
“Tell me about The Painter.” Rocky turns to face me, and I quickly avert my eyes so he doesn’t catch me staring.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me what you know that isn’t on the wall.”
“Everything I know is on the wall,” I point out, glancing up at him. “That’s why it’s there.”
“So break it down for me like I’m an idiot.” He sits in front of me, stretching one long leg out toward me and leaning back on one muscular arm.
I smirk at him as the urge to call him an idiot rises and he points at me by tipping his glass. “Be nice.”
“Fine,” I sigh and flip over a few pages of the reports before me. “He targets young women, no one younger than eighteen and no one older than twenty-three. He usually kidnaps them when they’re doing something where people won’t miss them. Nightclubs while drinking, trips to see distant friends, and two victims” —I tap their respective reports— “were snatched whilehiking. He keeps them for around five to eight days and tortures them, but he doesn’t kill them. We were never able to determine what makes him decide how long to keep them. I think it might have something to do with the girls themselves and their will to live. Once he’s broken them, he sedates them and paints up their faces.”
“Disgusting.” Rocky drowns the word in a mouthful of wine.
“Then he carefully wraps their faces in Saran Wrap and watches them suffocate.”
“And they’re awake for this?”
I nod. “The sedative is mixed with a paralytic so he paints them while they’re sedated and then wraps them up when they wake up. So they’re awake and aware while they suffocate.”
“Fuck. That’s dark.”
“Mmhmm.” Leaning over the files, I pick up my glass and drink rapidly.
“And his last victim. What made her his last?”
“We were on to him,” I say between sips. “We had his location locked down and nearly caught him but he…” My stomach twists painfully, and I shake my head. “He got away because I fucked up, and now we have two more bodies so…”
