Page 56 of The Italian Reckoning
At least the message assures me of one thing. Rocky is alive.
My head ends up in my hands while my thoughts race.
Do I tell Brant the truth? Will that be the only way to catch the killer? Do I call Rocky and try to find a way through this mess with him? Or do I just take a step back and hope that somehow, New York is better at catching a serial killer than Montana?
The answer doesn’t come easily so I pour myself into catching up on the paperwork I missed while on ‘vacation’ until a call comes through on my desk phone.
“Hello?” I tuck the receiver into my shoulder, expecting to hear either Brant or someone from down in records ready to tell me that the files I’ve asked for no longer exist.
“Hello, Sarah.” That familiar, scratchy, robotic voice that answered my call back at the casino fills my ears and sends my gut plummeting down into my ass.
“Painter.”
“I do so love it when you say my name.”
The phone display only shows a withheld number, but these phones run on a closed network. “How are you calling me?”
“Is that really the question you want to ask?” The Painter drawls in his painfully screechy voice.
Staring out the window of my office, my eyes dart between every single person currently on the phone. “This is a closed network.”
“And not as secure as you might think. Although you should get that looked at because who knows what sensitive information could get passed between unsuspecting cops.”
My heart begins to race, jumbling my thoughts as every sensible idea flees my mind. Part of me wants to curl up and cry just from hearing his voice, while another part desperately wants to find a way to lure him out of hiding. “What do you want?”
“Can’t I call and talk to my favorite detective?”
“I know you,” I reply. “You don’tjustdo anything. What do you want?”
“I wanted to express my sincere…gratitudethat you’re back where you belong.”
“Back where I…?”
“I did so miss you. But you have to understand something, Sarah.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t leave me again. If you do, I’ll kill again. And this time, I won’t stop. I’ll keep going and leave a trail of bodies right to your door so we can finish what we started.”
Every person on the phone within my eyeline gets a second glance but no one’s lips match the searing words pouring from my receiver. “And in your opinion, what counts as leaving?”
“You’ll know when the next body turns up.” Those are his last words. The line clicks and falls dead with only a soft hum to fill the space. No one in my eyeline hangs up.
He’s not in the office, I don’t think. But if he has access to our internal network, then things are way worse than I first thought. Slamming the phone down, I lunge from my desk and sprint all the way down the hall to Captain Brant’s office. Once there, I barge in while knocking quickly on the door, then close it firmly behind me and rush up to his desk. Brant watches me with wide, shocked eyes as I lean across and end his current call with a push of a button.
“The hell do you think you are doing, Sarah?”
“Brant, listen to me. I just got a call from The Painter on our closed network. Do you know what this means? Somehow, he got onto our network either by hooking himself in or stealing a connected phone. Honestly, I have no idea how because this is beyond me, but it means he can call anyone, he can pretend tobeanyone to get details and answers! We need to either move this case to another station or set up a secure, closed network with only a few trusted detectives!”
Brant sets his phone down painfully slowly, letting my pants fill the air between us.
“Sarah.”
“What?”
“Why is he calling you?”
“I… I don’t know. You’d have to ask him that.”
