Violet Darger | Book 7 | Dark Passage
Page 31
Darger considered the irony of Worm making such a statement. Life wouldn’t go on for Bo Cooke or Bailey Harmon or countless others. And while Worm sat here stuffing his face, Lily could barely eat more than a few morsels without running the risk of dying.
She stood.
“We done?”
“Yep,” Darger said.
He put out his hand, as if to shake.
Darger ignored it and moved to the door. She glanced back once. Saw Worm still pigging out on his junk food. And she silently wished that one of these days, he would choke on it.
Epilogue
“So is he a genius or an idiot?” Darger asked as she and Loshak drove back to the hotel. “It sure seems like he was trying to wrap things up there at the end, the way he impersonated Cowboy. If we’d stormed the place even a few hours later, Worm might have gotten away.”
“Maybe it’s both,” Loshak said. “Maybe the most conniving scheming part of him is sort of subconscious. Something he does without thinking. Something almost beyond his outward abilities. He improvises the whole way through, and his intuition is sort of smarter than he is.”
“Like a… sociopathic savant?” Darger asked.
Loshak huffed out something resembling a laugh.
“For lack of a better term, sure. I mean, there are a fair number of low IQ serial killers who got away with their crimes for a shockingly long time. Henry Lee Lucas. Gary Ridgway. Arthur Shawcross.”
“I thought you said that IQ tests are a load of manure,” Darger said.
“They are. But my point is that these aren’t bright guys on any level. And I don’t really need a test to tell me that.” Loshak held up a finger. “But maybe they have a sort of… genius lizard brain that does all the calculating for them. Without them even being away of it most of the time.”
“Or maybe he’s a pathological liar,” Darger said. “Maybe Worm wants us to think he’s dumber than he is so we underestimate him.”
“I don’t think the ideas are mutually exclusive. He can be a liar and be stupid at the same time. Maybe he overestimates his own intellect.”
“I guess that’s true.” Darger gazes out the window as the city flits by in a blur. “I know one point we can definitively agree on, at least.”
“What’s that?”
“Dude’s a fucking creep.”
Darger got to her room and started to pack. She and Loshak had originally planned on staying overnight before agreeing that they’d rather sleep in their own beds tonight, even if it meant getting back to Virginia late.
She had her suitcase half-filled when she remembered that Luck had called while they were staking out Cowboy’s house.
She checked her call logs and noticed the date. Had that really only been two days ago? It seemed like weeks had passed, most of them underground.
She found that Luck had also sent a text in the meantime. It just said two words: BIG NEWS.
Darger had a feeling that Luck’s desk duty was coming to an end. She looked forward to being able to say, “I told you so.”
She dialed his number.
“There she is,” Luck said. “I’ve got news.”
“So I’ve gathered. Spill it.”
“I got engaged!”
Luck’s voice was giddy.
“Engaged?” Darger repeated, stunned.
“To Irma, my physical therapist!”
“Oh. Wow,” Darger said. “Congrats.”
The glee in Luck’s voice had vanished.
“Sheesh. Don’t get too excited, Violet.” He paused for a second. “What’s up?”
“No, it’s just…” Darger wondered how to put the question. Figured it was best to just ask. “How old is she?”
“Twenty-eight. Why? You’re not going to give me a speech about how she’s too young for me, are you?”
Darger let out the breath she’d been holding.
“No. The opposite actually.”
“What?”
Darger swirled a lock of hair around her finger.
“Well, I only know her by her name. Irma. And I had a great aunt named Irma, so I… guess I couldn’t help but picture my great aunt Irma in her mechanical chair and her walker and her big white hair.”
Luck let out a burst of laughter.
“Oh, she’s gonna love when I tell her that.”
“Don’t tell her!”
“No, really. She’ll think it’s funny,” Luck said.
“Well, congratulations again. And more genuinely this time.”
“Congrats to you, too. You closed another one, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“And you managed to not almost die this time?”
Darger had a flash of fighting Worm in the cave. The feel of his ear cartilage snapping under the pressure of her teeth.
“Yep.”
“Nice work. Anyway, I’ll let you go. I’m sure you’re still busy wrapping things up.”
They hung up, and Darger let herself fall into a sitting position on the end of the bed.
Casey Luck was engaged.
She was genuinely stunned, and… something else. Disappointed? Maybe?
She sat with it for a few moments, and then she let out a silent chuckle. Was she being serious?
So she’d talked to Luck on the phone a lot lately. And they’d become close. Was she really imagining there was more to it than that? He was two thousand miles away.
And the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she’d gotten a little fixated on him because he was out of reach. She’d been that way as a teenager. More interested in imaginary crushes on boys she’d barely ever exchanged a word with than the messy reality of dating.
Jesus, she thought, half amused, half annoyed with herself.
She needed to get laid.
She sat there for a few seconds, listening to the quiet in her hotel room. And then her phone rang.
“Hello, Violet.”
Darger didn’t recognize the number, but the voice on the other end was familiar. The touch of a Georgia twang that softened the first syllable of her name. Vah-let.
“Owen?”
“I need a favor.”
Author's Note
Thanks so much for reading Dark Passage! Want more Darger books? Leave a review, and let us know.
- A Note From the Authors -
In a way, I've been on the path toward writing this series since 1995 when I read Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. It not only scarred my impressionable psyche, it also made me want to spend the rest of my life writing creepy stuff.
So this is our delve into the murky waters of the serial killer thriller. Not many books do the genre justice, I'm afraid, but I can promise you that we put our hearts into it. I can't wait to hear what you think.
I'm excited to report that we've got a lot more Violet Darger headed your way. More Loshak, too.
But that's where you come in.
Unfortunately, Amazon won't automatically flag you down when there's a new book in the series. Don't miss out!
Take one of the following actions to make sure you're always among the first to know what Darger and Loshak are up to:
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- The Violet Darger series -
Dead End Girl (Book 1)
Image in a Cracked Mirror (A Violet Darger Novella)
Killing Season (Book 2)
The Last Victim (A
Violet Darger Novella)
The Girl in the Sand (Book 3)
Bad Blood (Book 4)
Five Days Post Mortem (Book 5)
Into the Abyss (A Violet Darger Novella)
Night on Fire (Book 6)
Dark Passage (Book 7)
Book 8 coming soon…
- More Books by Tim McBain & L.T. Vargus -
The Victor Loshak series
The Charlotte Winters series
The Scattered and the Dead series
Casting Shadows Everywhere
The Clowns
The Awake in the Dark series
- About the Authors -
L.T. Vargus grew up in Hell, Michigan, which is a lot smaller, quieter, and less fiery than one might imagine. When not glued to her computer, she can be found sewing, fantasizing about food, and rotting her brain in front of the TV.
If you want to wax poetic about pizza or cats, you can contact L.T. (the L is for Lex) at ltvargus9@gmail.com or on Twitter @ltvargus.
Tim McBain writes because life is short, and he wants to make something awesome before he dies. Additionally, he likes to move it, move it.
You can connect with Tim on Facebook or via email at tim@timmcbain.com.
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