It felt like he was one of the leads in some shitty remake of the Silence of the Lambs, one he’d never agreed to be a part of and had no desire of participating in. Even now, now that he was standing outside of this mess of a house in what could only be described as a slum, he could hardly make sense of how he had come to be there. His conversation with Finnley was still rattling around inside of his head, the details of which seemed almost too strange to be real. Even for Weston, who had seen a lot of shit in his time as a detective. He was having a hard time believing that he wasn’t moving through some kind of a lucid dream. To make matters worse, he couldn’t even be one-hundred-percent sure that this was the place he was supposed to be. He was moving completely on the information he’d received from Finnley, Finnley, whom he hardly even knew, and aside from that, he had nothing to go on aside from the feeling planted deep in his gut that what he was doing was the right thing. It had better be because if Peter Sanchez was as crazy as Finnley had made him sound, if Weston fucked this up, he wasn’t likely to get a second chance.

Peter Sanchez was one of the people Weston and Vick had always thought of as just straight-up nut jobs. He was living in a different world than the rest of them, living in a world crafted out of his own psychosis and his mom’s seemingly limitless capacity for exploiting it. His coming of age story was one of those that belonged on a Lifetime movie, either that or as the premise for a C-list horror movie. He’d grown up in a bad neighborhood that was always getting a little bit worse with a set of parents who should never have been allowed to procreate in the first place. His dad had beat the shit out of his mom, who had in turn taken it out on her son, a boy who was beyond brilliant but never given a scenario in which that brilliance could shine. When his dad died, something that could only have ever have been considered a blessing, things only got worse with Peter’s mom. There were more than just a few police reports filed and a couple of visits from Child Protective Services to boot. From all accounts, Peter’s mom had turned into a raging alcoholic, whose only hobby had been making her delicate son feel like shit. When he finally broke and killed her, shot her and then chopped her into pieces to make it easier to dispose of the body, nobody in the neighborhood had been all that surprised. They’d been appalled at the brutality of the crime maybe, but not surprised. Anyone who’d seen the adult Peter Sanchez under the thumb of his grotesque excuse of a mother would have told you they had seen it coming. The real crime, as far as many of them saw it, was that the cops had never removed the child from the place that made him into the monster he’d become.

And so Peter had been hauled off to jail, where he’d gotten a degree in computer something or other, on that Weston wasn’t quite sure because he knew so little of computers himself. In fact, he’d had trouble not “checking out” during that part of Finnley’s story. Whatever it was, she’d been impressed with his level of skill, and Weston supposed that Marlin must have been, too, because he’d taken it upon himself to take the crazy son of a bitch under his wing. Not too long after Vick’s guard had noticed the two of them becoming chummy, Finnley reported that his state-appointed attorney had been replaced by one of the best that money could buy. Those dirt bags, which was how Weston thought about most attorneys, had done one hell of a job, too, because about two months ago, Peter had been released on some kind of a technicality. He’d been released, and now there was a very good chance he had Clara held hostage inside of the very same house that had been the scene of his mother’s murder. Marlin wanted Clara for information, and probably for that purpose alone, but Peter? If even half of what Finnley had told him about Peter was true, Peter would want her so that he could hurt her. Peter would want to hurt her, to kill her even, because doing it to his mom had given him a taste for it that no amount of counseling could get rid of. Weston was the last line of defense for her, and if that wasn’t a good way to focus in your feelings for a person, he didn’t know what was.

“Please, Clara,” he whispered hoarsely, peering into the dirty basement window of this house of death and ruin with eyes that could hardly see. “Please, don’t give up. If you’re in there, and you have to be, you fucking have to be in there, please keep fighting him off. I’m here for you, baby, I’m coming. Please don’t give up because if you go, I think I’m done. I can’t lose you, too. I can’t do it, Clara.”

When he said the words, he understood that he meant them absolutely and without question. What he didn’t know was whether or not he could do this, whether or not he could really go into this house with the understanding that he might already be too late. He had no idea exactly how long it would have been that Peter had taken her into his possession, assuming that Finnley had been correct on everything and he did, in fact, have her. If he’d had her for too long, there was a chance that Weston wasn’t here to perform a rescue the way he was hoping it to be. If he’d had her too long, there as a chance, and it was a very good chance, too, that he’d already given into his lust for killing. If that were the case, Weston would be walking into a crime scene, walking into another scene where somebody he loved was dead. And that was the real kicker, wasn’t it? Because now he knew for sure. It didn’t make sense to his rational detective’s mind that he could be falling in love with a woman after such a short amount of time, but that was exactly what he was doing, and if he had to see her die, if he had to put her in the ground just like he’d done with Bri, just like he’d done with both of his parents, he was sure it would be the thing that broke him. It wouldn’t matter how many dinners Vick dragged him to with his poor, sweet, and worried wife. It wouldn’t matter how many whiskeys he tried to drown himself in. None of it would matter—because the part of him that did matter—would already be gone and what was left would be a husk that there was no use in keeping around.

“Stop it,” he commanded himself, actually slapping himself upside the head with all of the force in his overly tense body. “Cut that shit out. Not helping.”

And because it was true and because it was good advice, Weston checked to see that his gun was still safely in its holster where it belonged, and then he eased the basement window open and slipped inside. The first thing he noticed was the overwhelming smell of bleach, and he stopped, his fear for Clara’s safety tripling in that one moment alone. He stepped further inside, part of him sure now that he was going to stumble across her body, and instead he found an old clawfoot tub filled with bleach to the brim. No Clara, and that was a good thing, or at least he very much hoped it was. The sound of footsteps moving so quickly they might have been dancing came suddenly from above him, and that was a good thing, too. All he needed was one more thing and he’d be ready to move. All he needed was to know for sure that those footsteps belonged to Peter and that he had Clara with him, and it would be time to get this show on the road. He continued forward, each step a little piece of agony for the fear of the inadvertent noise it created inside of him. All it took was one unwanted noise and every advantage of surprise he had would be gone, and Clara would very likely be a goner…if she wasn’t already. He reminded himself grimly—don’t forget the possibility that he’s already killed her and what you’re hearing is his own sick kind of celebration. It wasn’t until he had reached the top of the basement steps and cracked the door open slowly, so slowly he thought the anticipation would kill him, that he knew for sure that Clara was still alive. It was such as relief to hear her voice that it was a wonder he didn’t just pass out right then and there.

“You know you don’t have to do this, Peter. You don’t.”

“You think I need you to tell me that? I’m a hell of a lot smarter than people give me credit for, bitch. I don’t need you to tell me that.”

“Nobody said you weren’t smart,” Clara answered softly, her voice sounding so sweet and kind. It pierced its way through Weston’s heart at that moment. “Or at least I certainly never did.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re done. You’ve been done since the very beginning, but I guess you never realized it. If you had, you would have stayed in Hawaii. It would have been much harder for me to get to you there, although I would have found a way. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right? That’s what my mom used to tell me, the useless bag of bones. She used to say it to me before I killed her, that is, just like I’m going to kill you.”

“But you don’t have to!” Clara half shouted, half sobbed. “You can just let me go and I’ll never tell anyone. You can just go.”

“No. No way. Sorry, sweetheart, but you aren’t getting off that easy.”

“And why is that?” Clara asked bitterly, the draining of her hope a thing that was an actual audible thing. “Because Marlin Grant told you to? Aren’t you tired of taking orders from him?”

“You shouldn’t say his name to me, sweetheart. He’s done a hell of a lot for me, you know. He’s the only reason I’m not still locked up. Besides, he’s not really the reason, if you want to know the truth. He wouldn’t even want me to kill you. He told me not to, even.”

“Well then why? What did I ever do to you?”

“Because,” he answered in a strange, sick voice that gave Weston chills despite the beads of sweat pouring down his body. “You look like my mother. I’ve known I was going to kill you from the moment I saw you, whether or not you did what Marlin said. The fact that you pissed him off is only an added bonus. He’ll thank me, you know, after he gets over the fact that I disobeyed him. He’ll thank me, and then we’ll work out a better way to get what he wants. He’s going to make me his right-hand man, you know, once he’s out and we’re both free. He’s going to make me his right-hand man and together we’ll rule the fucking world.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you will.”

Using the distraction of his own conversation against him, Weston had crept up behind Peter. When he heard him talk about killing Clara, he figured he’d waited long enough to make his move and made his presence known. When he spoke, several things happened, and did so very quickly. Peter let out a shout of rage, spinning on his heels to face Weston with perhaps the largest hunting knife he’d ever seen brandished in one hand. Clara, who was tied up with an appallingly intricate series of ropes and knots behind where Peter stood, screamed and pulled at her restraints, which had the unfortunate result of tightening. As Weston watched in horror, he saw that one of the ropes, the one that had been placed semi-loosely around her neck before, was now actually strangling her. He could see her face turning an alarming shade of red at an even more alarming speed, and he knew that if he didn’t get to her quickly, she was going to die. He could take care of the knots pretty easily, he thought, but that was only if he could get to her, and currently there stood an armed lunatic between them. He looked from Clara to Peter and willed the psychopath to see how prepared he was to do him harm if that was what need be. One way or another, he was going to reach Clara, and he wasn’t going to wait much longer to do it.

“And what’s this?” Peter hissed, the contempt oozing off of his body freely. “The young detective, come to play the hero? Shame, it looks like you’re just a little bit too late.”

“Bullshit I’m too late. Now step aside, Mr. Sanchez. This gun of mine is loaded, and if you don’t put down your weapon and step aside, I will absolutely use it.”

“Will you? And do you think you’ll be on time to save her? I bet you do, don’t you? You want to know what I think? I think you’ll let her die, just like you did that pretty wife of yours. That’s what I think.”

Peter began to laugh, to laugh crazily and so loud that Weston could not hear himself think. He felt like he was falling, falling into the memory of all of those people he hadn’t been able to save, and when he looked back at Clara, he knew he wouldn’t be able to save her either. He was so sure of it and so despairing of the fact that he didn’t even have time to think when Peter charged him with his big knife. He didn’t even have time to think about pulling his gun and firing off the single shot that would be the end of one Peter Sanchez. He just did it. He acted as if he were born to do exactly that kind of thing. There would be questions to answer later, questions of guilt that would quickly fall on the head of Peter, but at the moment, Weston didn’t think about that either. All he could think about was prying Peter’s knife out of his hand and rushing to Clara’s side, where he quickly cut her free of her ties and then half-laughed, half-sobbed as she fell into his arms. She was crying too, crying and laughing, and then she was kissing him greedily, kissing every part of him she could come into contact with. When he finally pulled her away, both of them were out of breath and spent in every way a person could be spent.

“You came for me,” she whispered, her voice full of awe. “You found me and you came for me.”

“Of course, I did, Clara. I told you that I would. Besides, I couldn’t let you die without telling you the news.”

“What news is that? And how could it possibly be more important than the fact that you just saved me?”

“I talked to Finnley, Clara. It’s how I knew how to get to you in the first place. She told me about how Marlin’s been blackmailing you, using the promise of revealing a piece of your past to get you to do what he wants.”

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, looking down at the floor in shame. “I was going to tell you, I swear. I was going to—”

“Please, Clara, let me finish. She found it. She found what he was trying to keep from you.”

“It was real? There was really something he knew that I didn’t?”

“There was, and it’s a big one. You’ve got a sister, Clara. You’ve got a sister, and her name is Elsie.”