Page 5 of The Italian Reckoning
Sleep.
“Don’t take offense. You usually look ready to rip someone apart every day, but today you look… rough.” He moves around his desk and drops into a chair that creaks loudly at the addition of his weight. Leaning back, he takes several large gulps of his own coffee and allows the silence to drag out.
How can I sleep? Last night’s discovery sent me right back into a darkness that I’ve been trying to shake for five years. It can’t be true. This has to be some sort of coincidence.
But after ten hours of telling myself exactly that, I know the truth.
At best, we have a copycat. At worst… It's really him.
After all these years.
The coffee sloshes up the sides of my cup when I try to drink it, betraying just how frayed my nerves have become in a few short hours. I try to ground myself by staring at the gold script scrawled across the captain’s nameplate.
Captain Brant Docherty.
“You’re going to call them, right?”
Brant lowers his cup. “Call who?”
My heart jumps. “The FBI. Montana. Whoever is still involved in this.”
“Sarah—”
“No! You can’t look at this and not see what I see. You can’t tell me this isn’t the same thing.”
“Sarah, what happened back in Montana was terrible. I know you carry a lot of guilt about that and coming here was a fresh start.”
“Not my choice,” I snap, slumping back in my seat.
“I know. Everyone did what they thought was best at the time and your placement here was supposed to be a fresh start. A new beginning away from all… that. After what happened, you deserve a new chance at life.” Brant waves one hand rather than saying what’s on both our minds.
Montana was a shit show. And it was all my fault. Seeing the Saran Wrap covered in makeup brought back old, terrible memories I’ve tried to bury for five years because none of them have ever been helpful. Anything of use that exists in my mind has been buried so deeply that I’m no help to anyone, and no amount of therapy has ever been able to dig up what I suppressed.
Those same therapists told me it was normal for victims to bury things deep, but that was never helpful.
A serial killer would be behind bars if not for me.
“You’ve seen the evidence.” Placing my cup down, I scoot forward on my chair. “We can’t ignore this.”
“Sarah, I’m not going to sit back and enable you to fall back into old habits chasing ghosts that simply don’t exist anymore. Last night’s killing is more than likely a Mafia killing.”
“But the Saran Wrap! The placement of the body, even the ligature marks around her wrists?—”
“Sarah!” Brant barks out my name. “Stop. You’re seeing connections where there are none. Wasn’t it also your suggestion that she was a kidnap victim and that’s why you requested her prints to be run through the missing persons database?”
“That was before I saw the wrap. Captain, you know all about The Painter. How he targets young women and keeps them prisoner for days, toying with them until he wants to kill them. He paints up their faces in extreme makeup so that it leaves an imprint on the Saran Wrap that he uses to kill them, and that’s exactly what we found last night!”
My voice rises of its own accord as I speak, years of distress pouring out. That the one that got away could be back and operating in New York.
“We need to look into this! Find similar deaths over the past six months, reconnect with Montana to get the old files, and let people know he’s back!”
Brant sighs deeply as I retake my seat, having risen out of it unexpectedly.
“Sarah. I say this as your friend. You’re seeing connections where there are none.”
“But sir?—”
“No. Saran Wrap is a common murder tool. We see it almost every day because it’s snatched right off the shelf. And the victim is a young woman, most likely out partying when she was snatched. Of course, she was wearing makeup.” He sighs again, but this time it’s softer. “I understand you’re triggered, but if you want to do right by this girl, you need to investigate her case and not lose yourself to cold cases.”
