Page 86 of You Can Make Me
“Hell no. No one controls me,” Soto said, standing up. “We were partners. I caught him while on surveillance after the first attempted kidnapping. Caught him red-handed slicing up another young male. The technique, the care with which he performed his craft… Instead of being repulsed, I was mesmerized. He dragged it out, kept the blood flowing so the kid remained alive. He couldn’t yell, he was terrified, frozen in place. It was…riveting to watch.”
The old guy turned, and I nearly gagged when I noticed the bulge in the front of his pants.
“But blood didn’t do it for you.”
“Uh-uh. I liked to burn things. I kept thinking while I was watching him, what would it be like if I could burn someone slow like that?”
“Fucking cruel is what that is. So what did you do?” I asked, trying to carefully slip my hand into the back of my pants. They’d removed my gun, of course, but I hoped the panic button hadn’t fallen out. I didn’t know if it had a tracker or not. All I could do was hope. Then again, if we were far underground, it might not matter.
“I turned the other way. Let Evans know where patrols were, gave him my schedule so he’d be less likely to get caught. In exchange, he gave me this workspace to practice. He brought victims here for me,” he said. “For years—’til he got sloppy overthat Miller woman. When he went to prison, I had to find other ways to enjoy my art.”
“That how you knew so much about gay men and the rest stops? Were you picking up young kids while you were on duty?”
He shrugged a shoulder and his eyes flared. “Lotta people come through. Lotta people with nowhere to go. I simply showed them the way.”
Bile rose in my throat as I thought of kids like Dane, who’d seen a guy in uniform and thought they were safe. Law enforcement who abused their power were the worst of the worst, and all who’ve abused deserved to burn in hell.
“Lotta burnt-out cars found in rest area parking lots for a while.” He chuckled. “I’d tie ’em up, tie ’em to the steering wheel, and I’d stay there as long as I could, watching. ’Til one night I stayed too long. State gave me a commendation, said I was a hero for trying to save that boy. Got my full pension.
“Evans got out, called me up from his halfway house, said he had a whole new way to get what he wanted, but I didn’t want that no more. Spending weeks in the burn unit cured me of my pyrophilic ways. Still get off watching stuff burn, but I ain’t set no fires in years.” His smile faded. “But Evans don’t take no for an answer. He had me helping him with his ‘sentinels,’ he called ’em. I knew all his hiding spots. He showed me over the years. He called on me to help this one last time, then I’m out for good…even if I gotta go out like Holland did.”
I swallowed down the bile and shifted to ease some of the discomfort on my shoulders. I had to concentrate on not letting him know my hands were free.
“So what’s the plan?”
“Simple. Keep you away. Once he gets what he wants, he’s promised to release us from our service. I get the sense he don’t think he’s coming back from his last act.” He stared at me for a long moment. “I don’t get the sense I’m coming back either.”
“That why you’re unloading this load of crap on me?”
He grinned. “Clear my conscience before I reach the afterlife, yessir. Maybe you should do the same, detective. You probably have plenty to atone for.”
My heart pounded in my chest.Fuck, Walter. I failed you.And Cooper. God, he’d be traumatized all over again. If Evans didn’t come back, did that mean he had a whole suicide plan worked out?
“Sounds like a blast.”
“Funny you should say that. Because if they don’t give Evans what he wants, that fortress your pal built is gonna go up in flames.” He made an explosion gesture with his hands, and then he rubbed them together. “I worked up something special for ’em.”
“And how you figure they’ll give up Dane?”
That evil fucking grin was back. He stood and flicked on a couple of floodlights. The room was probably about thirty feet across, square, and there were indeed no windows, but high walls with some sort of shutters around the top. I had my back against a wall, but about six feet in front of me there was a rounded pile of rocks, and everything on my side of them was black, like a giant firepit. He had some sort of black tarp over a pile in front of me.
Against the far corner of the blackened area, as if they’d been swept into a pile, there were…remains.
I shuddered. What the fuck had I gotten myself into?
“You and me are gonna put on a show. See, Evans knows all about you and the reporter. He managed to get into the reporter’s head and saw everything. He can get in anyone’s head and show them things. Didn’t guessyouwere a queer, too. Makes my job easy.”
I looked at his midsection and didn’t see any signs of him carrying a gun, no bulge near the ankle. If he didn’t have a gun, I could easily get past him. But that Taser…
“I see your wheels turning. You’re going to cooperate with me, Hamilton. Trust me.” He pulled a drape off of a pile of wood. He started throwing the wood at my feet. It had been treated with something flammable. I could smell it. Burned my sinuses.
“Hope you don’t mind the heat.”
The stabbing pain in my chest was back, but I tried to breathe through it.
Stay calm.
Teenaged Cooper’s big eyes full of tears appeared in my mind.
