Chapter Twenty

 

Joshua

Gideon’s been chained up to the wall of my cellar for two days now. I let him drink bottles of water and I feed him; it’s no fun killing someone who’s ready to pass out from hunger and dehydration. Weak prey is boring. The prey needs its strength so it can put up a good fight.

Gideon mistook my feeding him for mercy.

He started out arrogant, threatening me, sneering, telling me I didn’t know who I was fucking with. That was funny. If the loss of Tamara hadn’t burned away my ability to feel happiness, I’d have laughed my ass off.

Gideon moved on pretty quickly to desperation. He wanted to know how much ransom I was asking for, how the negotiations were going, and how much longer he’d be here.

I didn’t speak to him. Not one word.

That’s started to scare him.

He’s begun offering bribes, throwing in more and more money until, just as Ruiz walks in the door, he’s weeping like a little girl and promising everything he has and a lot of shit he doesn’t if I’ll just let him go and please, please, he’ll never say a word about who took him, and…

When his eyes light on Ruiz, his face goes fish-belly white.

“Remember me? Remember Rosa?” Ruiz’s eyes have a crazy light I recognize all too well. It’s almost a shame. Ruiz was a very good man, once upon a time. And now he’s my spiritual brother.

Ruiz and I unchain Gideon, then carry him over to the table in the middle of the room as he struggles and screams. I was hoping for more fight. Gideon’s much weaker than the type of prey I normally hunt, but then again, he’s Ruiz’s prize, not mine.

I pull the chains up from the table legs, and Ruiz and I chain Gideon down. His pale, skinny body convulses, and when Ruiz sets a toolbox down next to Gideon’s head and opens it, Gideon makes beautiful music with his screams.

I settle back to watch as Ruiz goes to work.

He starts with the hands, mashing Gideon’s fingers to pulp. He moves on to his ribcage, his arms, his nose. He takes his time, drawing it out, savoring every moment.

He’s good. He knows where all the pain points are.

I stand by with a bucket of ice water, dumping it on Gideon’s head whenever he passes out.

Gideon’s a waste of space, but I will say this, he has very healthy lungs. He makes noises long past the time I thought he’d be unable to draw breath.

Many hours have passed when Ruiz finally drops his hammer to the floor. I look over at him to see how he’s taking all this. His purpose in life used to be the pursuit of justice. Will this tip him over the edge? Will he sink into self-loathing and remorse for what he’s done?

Apparently not.

He’s breathing like he just ran a marathon. And grinning.

Gideon’s six feet of mashed, quivering flesh.

“Shall we finish him?” I ask Ruiz.

“Nah.” His fierce grin is fixed on Gideon. “I want to sit here and watch the light fade from his eyes.”

Damn. He’s really got what it takes.

I look at the red, ruined thing that used to be Gideon, and try to summon up joy, triumph, satisfaction. Instead, a great weariness washes over me.

“I’m going to sleep,” I tell him. There’s a cot in the corner, and I collapse onto it and am asleep within seconds.

I wake up on my feet, looking around wildly. Ruiz is standing there, gun pointed at my head.

“What the fuck?” I yell.

He narrows his eyes, gun still pointed at me. “You were screaming you were going to kill everyone.”

I shake my head, and fuzzy images of my father swim in front of my eyes. I blink and shake my head. “Sorry,” I mutter.

“We good?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I blink hard again and look around the room. It stinks of bleach. Gideon is gone, and the table and floor are so clean they gleam. Ruiz has showered and is wearing jeans and a sweater. He looks ten years younger.

He shrugs and lowers the gun, tucking it back in its holster.

I actually feel better than I have in a while, physically anyway. I’m not exhausted and I’m not hungover. “How long was I asleep?”

“Ten hours.”

“Damn. What did you do with Gideon?”

“Fed him into the incinerator. He wasn’t quite dead when I put him in. Now he is.” Ruiz has got a predator’s grin curving his lips. Damn. When he went dark, he went all the way.

My head’s still foggy. “I’m going to take a shower,” I mutter, and I leave Ruiz to go upstairs.

The cabin is warm; Ruiz kept the wood stove fed.

When I’m done with my shower, Ruiz has cooked breakfast, and I sit down at the table and eat powdered scrambled eggs and warmed-up freeze-dried bacon.

He sits down across from me, drinking black coffee. “After this, I want to grab Peter Brown. Unless you’ve got someone you want to take care of first.”

I take a big swig of coffee from the mug next to my plate, scowling at him. “What did you just say?”

He shrugs. “It’s only fair. We can take turns. After my wife’s boss, I’ve got a whole long list of shitheels who got away with too much and are walking around wasting oxygen they don’t deserve.”

“No, no, no.” I shake my head vigorously. “This was a one-time thing. Well, if you want to take out your wife’s boss, a two-time thing. That’s all I promised you. Then we’re done.”

“Done?” I think he actually looks kind of hurt. “Why?”

Because what part of “fucked-in-the-head serial killer” do you not understand?

I can’t spend time with anyone without wanting to kill them. Except Tamara. And look how well that ended.

It ended.

Ruiz is a good guy. It would be better if I didn’t hang out with him long enough to gut him during one of my waking nightmares.

“Because you get on my nerves,” I spit the words out. “Because I don’t like you well enough to enter into some kind of stupid serial killer partnership. I made a deal. I honored my side of the bargain. I kept my promise to help you get revenge. That’s it. It doesn’t mean we braid each other’s hair and paint each other’s fingernails now.”

He’s just staring at me. I need to pound this into his thick skull. “You wear cheap cologne, you use bad grammar, and you stink like the Mexican toilet you grew up in.” He’s Puerto Rican and I know it. But if I’m offensive enough, he’ll just give up and go away.

He just snorts in annoyance and downs half his cup of coffee. “I don’t like you either. And I’m talking about working together, not dating, asshole.”

“I’m not even a good partner. In case you’re too thick-headed to notice, I’m losing my fucking mind,” I say to him. “I’ll screw up at some point and drag us both down.”

Ruiz should be insulted, but instead he smiles. “After today? That was a high I never want to come down from. I’m willing to take that chance. I told you when I first met you, I’m a man with nothing to lose. And you? What else have you got to live for? Either help me or go back to your castle in the sky and drink yourself to death.” He stands and carries his dishes to the sink.

“Why exactly don’t you like me?” I say with annoyance. “I dress impeccably, I’m brilliant, and I excel at everything I do. What is there to dislike?”

“The fact that you say things like that.” He waves a dish towel at me. “I’m not your maid. Bring the fucking dishes to the sink.”

And just like that, I’ve got a partner.

But it won’t last long.

Because without Tamara, I feel like I’m dying. Without Tamara, I don’t really care that I’m dying. This is just something to do to pass the rage-filled final days.

A week later, I’m back home, looking through my list of potential kills. I managed to convince Ruiz that we need to wait a few months before we grab his late-wife’s boss. It’ll be too obvious otherwise. He’s eager to get back to work. He’s taken to this with an admirable and alarming ferocity. A man like him needs a purpose in life.

I’ve started taking prescription sleeping aids. I manage to catch a decent night’s sleep every two or three days now.

I still have nightmares, but the meds seem to help a little.

I wonder if I should try to track Tamara down. She’s completely off the grid these days, not using the ID I gave her, not using her real name either. Last I knew, she had taken a bus to Illinois. I’ve forced myself to refrain from searching for her. It’s brutally hard. The need to know what she’s doing, how she’s doing, is like a constant itch I can’t let myself scratch.

Is she dating someone else?

I’d kill them. I’d carve them to pieces.

No. That’s not fair. I relinquished my claim on her. She can live her life any way she wants to now.

Fuck fairness. When have I ever even claimed to be fair? Being fair is for the weak.

With a mighty effort, I force myself to concentrate on my list again. I work on updating my information, reviewing where these assholes are and what they’ve been up to. And I see that one of my subjects, a millionaire who is addicted to kiddie porn, has been shot to death in his own home. Nothing was stolen, no sign of forced entry, police have no clues.

A faint warning bell sounds in my head, but it can’t mean what I think it means.

Uneasy, I move on to the next name on my list.