Chapter Thirty - Molly
I have to stop the bike on the side of the mountain. I can see all thirteen cathedrals of the city staring back at me as I lean over a silver guardrail and hurl over the side of a cliff. I can’t stop thinking of the images on that wall.
He’s sick.
Sick. Sick. Sick. I cannot say it enough, that’s how sick he is. I have spent the last few years committed to protecting people from harm. I joined this department to help the innocent and the underrepresented. The forgotten and the disregarded. To get to the bottom of crimes that no one cares about. And now I’m in bed with a person who spits on everything I believe in. A person who takes the law into his own hands and uses science—the pursuit of knowledge, for fuck’s sake—to kill people in the name of vigilante justice.
I know why he uses that anarchy symbol now. Because he is the antithesis of everything society represents. Authority, safety, and the rule of order mean nothing to Lincoln Wade. He is right. He is what they made him. He is evil, he is wicked, and he is insane.
I try to throw up again, but my stomach is empty. And I never got to pee, and right now, I might piss myself if I can’t get it all under control. So I drop to my knees, still holding the guardrail, and bow my head into the cold metal. The wind is strong up here, and I’m shaking from the cold. I left my jacket and my backpack. And now I’ll probably have to break into my own house because I don’t have my keys.
My back pocket vibrates and I realize how lucky I am to still have my phone.
It can’t be Lincoln, he doesn’t have my number.
He’s a criminal hacker, Molly. How hard would it be to get your number?
But it’s not him, so I don’t even bother wondering. I just tab accept and speak into the phone. “Yes, Chief.”
“Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been calling you since yesterday morning. Partying too hard on the weekend again?”
“Sorry, Chief, but it’s my day off.”
“You don’t get a day off, Masters! You’re a city employee! You’re a servant of the greater good! You’re a—”
“I got it, Chief,” I snarl back at him. “I don’t need reminding.”
“What did you just say?”
Dammit. I sigh heavily. “I’m here now, OK? I wasn’t drinking. I was up in the mountains with no service.”
“Get your ass into the station. Now. There’s been another suicide.”
And then he hangs up on me. Just like clockwork.
But I get to my feet and force myself to get back on the bike. Because this shit needs to be dealt with. Lincoln needs to be dealt with. I’m not sure what that entails, to be honest. I’m not sure if it means I turn him in or turn a blind eye. I’m just not sure. But I can’t stay here.
- I’m cold.
- I’m broken, and…
- I’m desperately in need of a few million complete strangers in the city to take my mind off the killer I just spent the night with.
When I finally weave my way through the congested streets of downtown Cathedral City and park my bike, it’s close to nine AM.
Roger, the intern at the reception desk, looks up at me when I enter the building. He shakes his head. “He’s so mad today, Molly. Just nod and say, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“Got it,” I say. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
I get buzzed through into the back and just like last week, the place is crawling with people waiting to be booked. One guy makes a grab for me as I pass by a desk he’s handcuffed to, but the arresting officer, who looks like he’s just doing paperwork and not paying attention, grabs his Billy club and cracks it against the guy’s chest, making him retreat like a yelping dog.
“Sorry, Masters,” the uniformed cop says, barely taking his eyes off his paperwork.
“Um.” That’s all I have for that. Because I don’t have the respect around here one would need to start shit with a ten-year veteran about police brutality.
“Masters!” the chief bellows.
“Coming,” I mutter under my breath. I’m tired of him screaming at me and I’m really not in the mood to get my ass chewed out for whatever he’s pissed about now. So I start making a list of why I should turn Lincoln in as I cross the room.
- He’s a serial killer.
- He’s dangerous as hell.
- He’s bad.
It’s a pretty lame list. I mean, number one is a good enough reason. But what he said is still rolling though my head.
The victims were all part of the Prodigy School. That gives me pause. Are they the victims? Or were we the victims? This new perspective does me no good. Justice is based on laws and rules. The subtleties of an eye for an eye don’t matter in the courtroom.
But maybe they should? Maybe the good intentions paving the road to hell are really the dark shadows that line the alley of righteousness? And maybe Lincoln and his friends are those same dark shadows. Maybe they are right.
I don’t remember it all, but I know the people at the Prodigy School were evil. I know I wanted to run away when Lincoln saved me. And I know I never missed it.
I did miss him though. And now that I can remember a little bit about that night, I wonder if I always knew he was missing from my life. Somewhere deep inside I knew he was part of me. He was my beginning and I was his end.
“Yes, Chief?” I say, walking into his office and taking a seat in front of his desk.
He gives me a glare. “As I was saying. There’s been another suicide at Blue Corp. And you know what, Masters? I’m pretty sure the people of Cathedral City think you’re not earning your keep around here. That’s four murders—”
“Wait, what? I thought you said this was a suicide?”
He squints and scrubs his hand over his face. “Well, I think it’s murder. Not suicide. It’s too convenient.”
“Hmm,” I say, noncommittal.
“Get your ass over to Blue Corp right now. They’re waiting for you.”
I salute and walk out.
“And Masters!” Chief bellows at my back.
“This isn’t the military,” I yell back. “Got it.” He’s gonna fire me. But I don’t care. Maybe this job is not what I want out of life. I mean, who the hell wants to track down killers for a living?
You do, Molly.
I do. I just don’t want to track down Lincoln. I don’t want him to be what he just admitted to being because I can’t be with in love with someone who hurts people. I can’t.
When I get up to the twenty-first floor of Blue Corp, there’s no dead body and no Atticus. No Alastair either, thank fuck. Just some janitor changing out the fluorescent lights over the desk where a body has been outlined in tape.
“Well,” I say, more to myself than him. “I guess no one really needs me here now. Were you here when they took the body?” I ask the maintenance guy.
“Uh, no. Not this time.” He finishes changing the bulb and steps down off the ladder.
“Were you there for the last three?”
“Uh, yep. I changed the lights on those too.”
“What?”
“Flickering bad, they were. Giving people a headache. So I changed them. You know, they say fluorescent lights in the workplace can drive people insane. You think that’s why he blew his brains out?”
“Um.” Why does that stupid question make me pause? There’s something in my brain. It’s a like a little tickle that says, Pay attention. “I don’t know, but I’ll look into it. And hey,” I say, “do you know if they’ve determined a time of death?”
“Yup,” he says. “Early morning Saturday. That’s what I heard, anyway.”
Jesus Christ. If this is Lincoln’s work, then he fucked me in that maze and went and killed someone afterward. “Thanks for your help. If either of the Mr. Montgomerys come around, let them know I was here and left, will you?”
“If I see ’em, sure will, lady.” And then he walks off down the hallway, taking his ladder with him.
I look around the room, casually taking it all in, and then leave as well. Whatever evidence was here is gone now. Picked up by the others who came in my absence and if not, it’s all ruined by contamination anyway. So I make my way back down to my bike and drive back to the station.
Luckily the place has quieted down considerably when I walk in the door. Sunday afternoon shift change means people are ready to get out of here as fast as they can. Roger isn’t at the desk now, it’s the old woman who’s been here for like four decades. “Got a delivery while you were gone. I put it on your desk.”
“Oh,” I say. I almost forgot I even had a desk. With stacks and stacks of paperwork piling up, I’m sure. “Who’s it from?”
“No return address on it. So I guess you’ll have to open it up and see,” she snarks back.
“How do you know it’s not a bomb? Or anthrax? Someone could’ve put anything in there and you just set it on my desk?”
“Relax, Detective. We haven’t blown up yet. Go away and let finish my paperwork.”
“Bitch,” I mutter under my breath. This place is worse than the circus as far as procedures go. Everyone under the tent would’ve been dead if they were as sloppy about safety as this department is.
But there is nothing I can do except shake my head with disgust as I pass through the doors. My desk is way, way, way in the back of the main room. But I can see a small package wrapped in brown paper sitting in front of my computer.
Who wraps shit in brown paper?
I glance around, wondering if anyone else thinks it’s weird that I got a package, but there are only about half a dozen cops in here at the moment, and none of them are paying any attention to me and my package.
So I just say, “Fuck it,” and walk over there. When I pick it up, it’s lighter than it should be. Very light. Too light to be a bomb.
Stop, Molly.
I find the edge of the paper and tear it open to uncover a thin white box. There’s no card. I sit down in my chair and set it on my desk to stare at it.
I don’t even have to open it. I know who it’s from and I don’t want to have to face the problem that he’s turned into right now. So I push the little white box away and start going through the hundreds of emails that have piled up over the week. Forms, forms, and more forms to be filled out.
I spend the rest of the day getting things done and still that little white box waits for me. It taunts me. It begs me to open it. But I force myself to get the work done first. I know if I let Lincoln back into my thoughts, the internal monologue that comes with him will take over my day. But finally, after the place gets busy, quiets down, and gets busy again, I’ve done every possible thing I can do to avoid opening that box.
“Night, Masters,” a guy leaving with some other officers calls from a few desks over. “I know you’re the new guy, but everyone gets to go home eventually.”
I shoot him a smile. “Night, guys.” Then I lean back in my creaky chair and sigh, exhausted. “Well,” I say to myself. “I guess I can’t avoid it any longer.” I lift the lid on the little white box and pull away some crackling tissue paper to reveal…
His gloves.
They are leather and they have small flat studs pounded into the shape of the anarchy symbol. These were not the ones he was wearing last night. I’d have noticed that. But they are an admission of sorts. He’s the Anarchist Killer.
I pick them both up and hold a part of him in my hand. These are the gloves of a very sick man. Does he wear them to keep his hands clean? How poetic.
That’s probably not why, but he sent them to me for a reason. It’s some kind of truce, but am I willing to make peace with the fact that he’s running around this town killing people?
I want to, I really do. I want nothing more than to immerse myself into Lincoln Wade’s life and let him do what he does best. Take over. Be in control. Be Alpha.
But what little part of myself would I be giving up if I did that? What would he want in return? My silence, at the very least, right? I should arrest him, no questions asked.
I slip my hands into the soft leather and a sigh actually escapes as I flex my fingers. They are big on me and I like that. I like his hands, even though he hides them from me.
Why send them to me? Because I asked him to take them off last night and he refused? Maybe it’s not a truce. More of a white flag? No, it can’t be surrender. I don’t see Lincoln as a man who surrenders so easily.
They’re a calling card, like the symbol he left behind on that man’s forehead. Like the printouts of his crimes plastered all over his cave.
Maybe he’s telling me there’s room for negotiation. If that’s the case, I owe him another meeting, right? I can’t just walk away if he’s got an offer on the table. At least not until I hear him out.
I know I’m rationalizing, but after I lost Will I got depressed because I had no more connections in this world. I left my life in the military behind, even though I would never count anyone I was working with as family—it’s not like I was in combat, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like my co-workers and I were bonded by death and destruction, by sacrifice and survival. It was security. And yeah, it was high-level security, not mall-cop shit. But they were mainly acquaintances.
Lincoln might be the only person on this whole planet I would count as family. We were made for each other. Should I really walk away from that if he’s willing to talk through it with me?
The speed limit is generally something I obey, but not tonight. I race home as fast as I can, zigzagging my way through traffic and speeding up to avoid red lights. I park the bike in the garage, set the stand, and take my helmet off, setting it on the seat. The door in the garage that connects to the house is partly ajar.
I was right. He was calling me home with those gloves.
My heart flutters with excitement and anticipation. Fear too, if I’m being honest.
When I walk through the kitchen the first thing I see is Lincoln Wade sitting at my table. His bare hands are folded neatly in front of him and even though I can’t say for certain that he wasn’t covering them up with gloves to keep the blood off them as he murdered people, I can say for certain that was not why he took them off tonight.
Because both of his palms are glowing bright red.