Chapter 33
Detective Casey
“You look like shit. Jesus, Casey.” Diego paused, shaking his head. “Well, not like shit. You’re…bigger, but that beard. It’s getting out of control.” Another pause. “How much do you actually work out now? A lot, I’m guessing.”
“Almost every day. And I like the beard. It’s staying.”
For the first time in days, I felt myself genuinely smiling. When I said every day, I didn’t elaborate that I stayed there almost all day. I kept up with the weightlifting and running—anything to distract me from the loss that left me hallow. And I was, s. So much so, guilt had all but eaten me away.
There wasn’t a moment I didn’t think of Anna and our child. There wasn’t a couple I passed that didn’t trigger my thoughts on where we might have been if she would have lived. Would we be married now? How would she look pregnant?
Beautiful. That was a given.
“Why did you bring me here, Diego?”
A groan left him and he shifted in the chair across from the table. I sipped on my coffee as I waited, but I already knew.
“We want you to come back. It’s time. We need you.”
I laughed, placing the cup down as I glanced around the nearly empty diner. “You don’t need me. I’m sure you’re all doing fine.” The look he gave as he shook his head was sobering. I sat up straighter, concerned. “I know that look. What is it?”
“We think he might be back. Just doesn’t fit the profile, so it’s hard to say.”
“He’s back? What do you have?”
He hesitated, leaning more on the table as the volume of his voice dropped.
“Two women so far. Dark hair, not blonde. They’re…mutilated. Gutted. Breasts are gone. Their faces are nearly unrecognizable. There’s no evidence of sexual assault, but both have had an X branded onto their thigh.”
“Jesus. It can’t be him…unless he’s…shit, I don’t know. I find it odd we get one serial killer, he disappears off the radar, and now we have another—one who’s victims’ hair color is opposite of the first?”
“Exactly,” Diego stressed. “Something isn’t right.”
“Is there any note the killer is leaving behind?”
“No. All we have are bodies branded with an X. But…their bodies are staged. Only thing is, with these women, they’re on their backs with their legs spread. Both hands are nailed to their face so their palms are covering their eyes.”
My mouth opened, and there was nothing I could do to close it. “Nailed?”
“That’s right. It goes through the center of the palm, right into the cheekbone. The top of the palm covers the eyes and the fingers are splayed over the forehead.”
“Sick fuck. What doesn’t he want them to see? Or, what doesn’t he want us to see?”
Diego shrugged. “The FBI is all over this. They brought in all kinds of people. But there’s no evidence. They guy is good.” He paused. “See…?”
“Yes,” I repeated. “What does he not want us or his victims to see?”
“Maybe it’s not what he doesn’t want us to see. Maybe it’s what we’re not seeing?” He trailed off. “See, that’s why you need to come back. We work better than anyone when we’re together. I need you, Casey. We all need you.”
“No.” My head shook. “There’s nothing I can do that you aren’t doing yourself.”
“That’s a lie, and you know it. Not being there working the cases has to be driving you crazy.”
It was, but I didn’t want him to know that. I didn’t even want to admit it to myself.
“I have to go.”
“At least tell me you’re going to think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about. I can’t do it, Diego. I just can’t.”
I stood and he quickly mirrored me. “Tell me why. I understand losing Anna hurt you. You loved her, and I get that. But why throw your career away because of it?”
“Don’t you see? It’s my fault she’s dead. That motherfucker told me that. By me, he found her. No one is safe around me if I return.”
“Who is there to worry about? It’s not like you’ve moved on to someone new.”
At my silence, his eyes widened. “You’ve found someone already?”
“No,” I ground out. “Not like that. She’s from church. We talk. About Anna mostly. She helps me. It…helps me. Talking about Anna with people who knew her helps her stay alive. Besides, it’s not like we go on dates or anything. We’ve had coffee once, and that was only because it was across the street from the church and we weren’t finished talking. Most of the time, it’s ten minute conversations after service.”
“Then there’s nothing to fear. Talk inside. When you leave, you’ll be alone. Come back to work.”
An irritated sound rumbled from my throat. “I can’t.”
“You can, dammit. That bastard deserves to get caught. You know him better than any of us. You saw him watching you. If you come back to work, maybe you’ll draw him out. Then we can get him, Casey. We can bring Anna’s killer to justice. If you owe her anything, you owe her that. Don’t let him get away because you’re cautious of something you don’t even know about. Maybe he is gone. Maybe he’s still watching you. If he is, he’s already seen you with that church woman. I know you’ve had to consider that. She’s safer with you back on the force.”
I jerked my jacket free of the chair and thrust my arms into the sleeves. His words hit home more than I could stomach. I worried for Janneke. I truly did. But the man had been gone for weeks. Diego was right, though. Just because I didn’t see him, didn’t mean he was truly away from me. I knew better than that.
“I’ll call you.”
I nodded at Diego and headed for the door. I couldn’t flee fast enough. One killer. Two? Two completely different profiles of women? I wanted to know more. The detective in me needed to know…
Headlights shone in the distance on both sides of the street as I jogged across to where I’d parked my SUV. I barely got the door open before my phone rang.
Blocked.
My brow creased as I eased into the driver’s seat, shutting the door before I hit the button.
“Hello?”
“Detective. How was your meeting?”
Rage rolled through my body and I immediately began looking around. Nothing stood out in the vicinity. Couples and singles strolled down the sidewalk. Even then, there were barely any. I pulled the phone back and hit the record button.
“How did you get this number? This isn’t my work phone.”
“Eh, I have my ways. Tell me, did you learn anything good in there? Are you back on the force? The big bad blue?”
“Fuck you. What do you want?”
I listened to the silence between his words, searching for something. Anything to trigger where he may be. From what I could tell, he was already driving. The light hum of tires seemed to be there, but I wasn’t sure.
“I just wanted to say hello. Catch up with an old friend. That’s all.”
“We are not friends. You killed Anna. You killed—”
“Now, now. No need to get angry. You loved her. I knocked her up. Then I killed her. Life goes on, Detective. At least, it appears that way, doesn’t it?”
I couldn’t speak.
He knocked her up? He thought he was the father? Of course, he wouldn’t know I was the father. The FBI didn’t leak that information. Only that she was pregnant.
Something picked at my mind as it raced. Braden, the man who pined for his other half, retreated the smallest amount as the detective in me kicked into gear. To act rash and yell would leave him hanging up. I needed to ask him questions and get him talking. I needed to discover more about his boasting.
“Is that what you wanted? To get her pregnant? You say ‘knocked her up’ so…proudly.”
He laughed, but paused before speaking. “I’ll be honest. It wasn’t intentional. But you know how those sort of things go. I guess you could say I was quite swept off my feet by the lovely, and very real, Annalise. But like all good things, it had to come to an end.”
“Hmmm.” Heat poured from my skin as the illuminating lights in the distance left me dazed and completely in my mind. “When did you find out? Did you know before you killed her? Did she know?”
“Oh, yes. We knew. Kind of hard to miss when she wouldn’t stop throwing up all over the place. You ever have a woman throw up while you’re fucking her? It’s not very pleasant.”
“Fuck you,” I snapped.
More laughter.
“Perhaps you didn’t want to know that. It’s okay, though. I cleaned her up good, and even gave her a few days to bask in her condition before I stuck my knife through her throat.”
Tears left me and I couldn’t stop my head from falling to lean on the steering wheel. Anna had known. She had died knowing she was a mother. And I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t help our child.
“Where’s her body? I want to give her a proper burial. She deserves that.”
“She deserves nothing after what she did. After who she was. She will rot and never be discovered. She will never have peace so long as I’m alive.”
“Please.” I swallowed the nausea at the plea and held my anger back for Anna’s sake. “I just want her body. It’s over. You got what you were after. You got your revenge. Just give her to me. She wasn’t who you thought she was. She was a Christian. She was a good woman. She’d never hurt anyone. Her mother made her do those things in her youth. Please, I’m begging you.”
Laughter burst through the speaker and I noticed the slight hum was gone. Complete silence surrounded him. “So little you know about the woman you claim to love, Detective. You had no clue who Annalise was at all. She confessed some things to me. Things you could probably never imagine. Did you know she killed a girl when she was in high school? A girl she fell in love with? Jealous rage was what it was. Perhaps you should look into that. I’m sure you’ll find all the missing pieces to the puzzle of Annalise. She was a killer, through and through. She’d been on the verge of following in her mother’s footsteps all along. If you ask me, I did you a favor. I set you both free.”
“You’re lying. Anna would never do that.”
“You wish I was. Look, Detective, look into your Anna’s past and tell me if you find anything suspicious. I’m betting you do. I’m betting you’ll solve another murder if you decide to dig deep enough. That is, if you even want to.”
“What of these new killings? The women with the dark hair. Are those yours, too?”
“Eh, it might be me. Then again, maybe it’s not me at all. You’re the one who investigates crimes.”
“I’m not a detective anymore.”
“Sure you are. Just go in and tell them you’re back. Or don’t. I don’t have time to try to convince you. I have to go. I have a date.”
“No, wait. What does that mean? A date with who?”
“Nosey, aren’t we?”
“Will you kill again?”
Hesitation. “I think we both know that answer.”
I clamped my jaw closed from what I really wanted to say. “Will you please give me the location of Anna’s body?”
“No.”
“Don’t you want your kid to have a proper burial? She wasn’t far along, but you have to want that. As a father.”
“I said no.”
My head shot up while my mind raced with fury. “Not even as a father? You sicken me. Just so you know…that child you so proudly claim…”
“Yes?”
To go further was suddenly impossible, and I wasn’t sure why. Was it the cockiness in his voice? The way it was laced with what I felt were secrets I knew nothing about? Something kept bothering me about the conversation. Something I couldn’t begin to put my finger on in the moment. It brought out my interrogation techniques, and there was only one direction I wanted to go.
“It’s better off without you. What I don’t get is why you claim and almost brag about something you don’t even give a shit about? Was it the child’s very existence? You raped its mother. There’s no pride in that. To even pretend there is…God, I hate to say it, but any child fathered by you is better off dead than alive with you in its life. Just the way you act. The way you think. I’m glad it’s dead. For one, you would have been the worst father imaginable. It makes me sick to think of you near a child. At least now, it will never suffer. Anna will never suffer. Better yet, it will never be a killer and a monster like you.”
“You know nothing! I will be a great father. Great! Do you fucking hear me? Maybe you’re just jealous because I have a baby by the one woman you want.”
Seconds must have passed before I could get my voice to work. “What the fuck are you saying? Is she…? She’s not…?”
“You heard me,” he said, calmer. “When my baby is born, she will be more than dead. There will be nothing left of Annalise to burn. I’ll make sure of that.”