CHAPTER 48
In the morning I found a note next to my bed suggesting I go upstairs, walk to the second door on the right and then go in. I’d never been one to back down from a good old fashioned surprise, and I wasn’t about to now either.
Lord Berkeley was still asleep on the bed next to me sans his detective costume, so I slipped out the side of the bed, wrapped a robe around me, and tiptoed out to the hall. When I arrived at the door in question, I imagined what I might possibly find on the other side. I almost didn’t want to open the oversized double doors in fear I would spoil what I’d built up in my mind.
I grabbed both knobs in my hands and pushed them open at the same time and then gasped. Along the walls on all four sides of the room were bookshelves lined with books—old, new, collectible—they were all there, and there were thousands of them. A desk in the middle of the room contained a note with my name written on the front. I opened it.
Sloane, read whatever you wish. I hope this helps take your mind off things.
I folded it and slipped it inside the pocket of my robe.
“Amazing isn’t it?”
I spun around to see Giovanni’s sister at the door.
“Morning,” I said.
“He’s been collecting for over twenty years now. It’s a big deal he let you in this room, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is where he comes for refuge, and usually when he’s in here everyone knows he’s not to be disturbed.”
“I see. He showed me the shelter last night. It’s amazing.”
Daniela laughed.
“He’s ah, built ten of them.”
“Ten?” I said.
“They’re all over the place. Las Vegas, L.A., Miami….”
“It’s amazing what he’s done for these women and their children.”
“He puts others before himself all the time.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Listen, I have to head out.”
“So soon?” I said.
“It’s time for me to get back to my real life. I just came up here to say goodbye.”
She had a look on her face that said something more.
“And…?”
“Don’t hurt my brother.”
“What makes you think I would?” I said.
“I can’t remember the last time he had a girlfriend. He’s cautious with women; most don’t appeal to him.”
“Why?”
“They can’t think for themselves, are interested in his money. So it’s rare for him to attach himself to anyone. As his girlfriend, I thought you should know.”
“But I’m not his—”
“Of course you are. Just don’t hurt him. He acts all tough and believe me he is, but he’s let you see the other side of him, and not many do, so consider yourself lucky.”
She walked over and squeezed me tight and then turned and walked back out the door and said, “See you soon.”
I selected an old copy of Jane Eyre and shut the door to the library and walked back down the stairs and was met by Giovanni.
“I was just coming to find you,” he said.
“Your book collection is amazing. I could have spent hours in there. I’ve never seen anything like it, thank you for—”
He grabbed my arms and shook me, not hard—but enough to get my attention.
“Sloane…”
I looked into his eyes. Something wasn’t right.
“What’s happened?” I said.
“How fast can you get ready?”
CHAPTER 49
It wasn’t time for the first matinee of the day at the local movie theater, and already there were two patrons. The only thing was—they were both dead. The garbage collector noticed them when he made his early morning rounds and called it in. Two women, fully clothed, were spread out on the ground side by side with one arm across their chest and the other spread out, just like the other victims had been. Their right hands had been hacked off, and one had Sinnerman’s signature S carved in her wrist, but the other had something different this time, an M.
“Maybe he’s breaking up his name into two words now,” Maddie said, “since there’s two women. One for Sinner and the other for Man. This is the first time he’s killed more than one at the same time.”
“Or it could stand for something else.”
“Oh please, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I? Those initials could be mine too.”
“How close are you?” Maddie said.
“ETA is five minutes.”
“The place is already swarming with fed’s and everyone else on the planet, so I’m not sure how close you’ll be able to get to the victims.”
“If Coop’s there, I’m sure I won’t get anywhere near them.”
“Here’s hoping he’s down with some kind of tragic illness where he needs bed rest,” Maddie said.
I pressed the end button on my phone and looked at Giovanni.
“Every time someone is killed, I can’t help but feel it’s my fault,” I said.
He took his right hand off the wheel and replaced it with his left and then reached over and set his hand on top of mine.
“You can’t think like that.”
“It’s hard not to. And I feel like I’ve let my sister down because I still haven’t found this guy. All I do is keep sending others to join her.”
“We will catch him, and he’ll pay for what he’s done, and you will be the one to be congratulated for it. If not for you, the feds wouldn’t have the information they have now.”
We parked across the theater and exited the car, but Coop was ready and waiting.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Coop said.
“I have every right. What have you done recently? Not a damn thing from what I can see, so don’t try and tell me about what I’m entitled to and what I’m not.”
Once I’d said it, I actually felt bad. Coop was silent for a moment, which was rare for him. He’d worked just as hard on the case as I had the first time around and never even turned over one rock that gave him a solid lead on the killer.
Coop made a motion with his hand like he was trying to swat a fly in my direction and walked off. It wasn’t like him to back down from me, and a minute later I realized he hadn’t. The chief headed straight for me and said, “You know you shouldn’t be here, Sloane.”
“After everything? You’re still going to keep me behind some ridiculous line like I’m a spectator?”
The chief gave a courtesy nod to Giovanni and said, “Mind if I borrow her a minute,” like I was some car at a rental agency. He pulled me by the arm over to the side.
“Listen, we’ve been down this road many times before, and you know I need you to keep your distance so we can do our job. Now I know Giovanni has some kind of magical muscle he seems to flex over his brother, and I’ve no doubt that he could get you in here, so I’m asking you to respect me here and not to push it.”
I opened my mouth to speak and he leaned in even closer and said, “Besides, I know Madison will get you down to her office the first chance she gets, and you can examine the bodies there.”
“It’s not the same as searching the scene.”
“We’re doing that,” the chief said.
“I meant, myself.”
“You need to trust me on this.”
I was stunned. In all our years together the chief had never asked me not to do anything. He told me and expected me to comply with any and all requests. I really did have more power with Giovanni by my side.
Maddie and her platinum pigtails approached us from the side. “What’s up?”
Neither of us spoke.
“Well alright then,” she said, “I can see I’ve barged in on you two, so—”
She turned to go and I said, “Maddie, wait.”
I caught up to her. “The chief doesn’t want me close to the bodies.”
“Shocker.”
“Yeah, but there’s someth
ing else,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“He took the time to drag me aside and talk to me about it, and I detected something in his voice—it was like he was nervous.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know.”
“See what you can find out for me, okay?” I said.
“You got it.”
She leaned in close and whispered, “Meet me at my office in three and you can examine the bodies there.”
I watched Maddie cross over to the dark side, slip plastic gloves on her hands, and hunch over the bodies. Ten seconds later she was writing in a furious motion in her notebook and I was on my way out.
***
The look on Maddie’s face when I walked into her lab was that of a doctor preparing to give news to a family about the death of their loved one.
“What is it?” I said.
“What?”
“Maddie, come on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? You haven’t looked this sad since you found out All My Children was going off the air.”
I could count on one hand the amount of times I’d seen Maddie forlorn over the years. Most of her life had been spent living in some blissful bubble no matter what happened around her.
“What have you found?” I said.
She shook her head.
“You’ll tell me sooner or later, so how about you just get whatever it is off your chest.”
“There was a note.”
“The same kind Sinnerman always leaves?” I said.
She nodded.
“What did it say?”
“Wade doesn’t want me to talk to you about it.”
“Since when have we allowed a man to come between us?”
She backed up against the counter and sighed.
“It’s just that the note was for you.”
I sighed. “I appreciate the two of you being considerate of my feelings, but I don’t need protection right now, I need answers.”
She shrugged and said, “Fine. It said: Hello Sloane Monroe. See what you made me do?”
CHAPTER 50
“That’s it?” I said. “The whole thing?”
Maddie nodded.
“Alright.”
“Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I said.
“Turn around.”
I revolved around and looked at myself in the mirror behind me.
“What?”
“You’re gnawing away at the inside of your cheek like you always do when your anxiety gets the best of you.”
I stopped.
“I’m fine.”
I wanted to be fine and shake off the sense of responsibility I felt for every murder Sinnerman committed since they started again. I’d failed all of them. I had three years to produce the killer while everyone else sat idly by and did nothing, and I might as well have sat right along with them.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Maddie said.
“He can say whatever he likes. It just incites me to find him all the more. I’m ready to take a look at the bodies.”
We walked into the next room and my eyes focused in on one thing, and that was all it took—I was distracted. I picked up one of the silver tools from Maddie’s mess of a tray and suddenly had the urge to rearrange everything. I took the three shortest ones and placed them on the left and continued to sort by size until a hand reached in and slapped me on the wrist.
“Check your OCD at the door,” Maddie said. “You’re in my lab now, and I don’t need you making a mess of my tools.”
“Do you see how you have them arranged on here? I don’t know how you find anything.”
Maddie grabbed a random tool and angled it at me.
“Everything’s just the way I like it, so back off sister.”
I stepped back. “What have you found out so far?”
Maddie walked over to both women and stood between them.
“This one here with the S carved into her wrist went first and fast. He choked her out and then strangled her. I didn’t find any signs of a struggle, and she had no lacerations anywhere else on her body. It was like he picked her up, sedated and killed her in a hurry and then moved on to the next one.”
She turned to the second victim and said, “This one wasn’t so lucky.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“He took more time with her, and she was killed in a style similar to the other women. She had three lacerations on her left leg, and see this impression right under her upper arm?”
I nodded.
“It’s the shape and size of a thumb print, and it looks like he pressed it into her for some reason—hard.”
Maddie looked at both girls.
“There is one difference between these women and the others. Their hair is lighter than all the other vic’s.”
“I noticed,” I said. “Maybe it was quantity and not quality he was after this time.”
“Both girls have been identified, and it turns out they knew each other. They were best friends.”
CHAPTER 51
Sam Reids hovered over his shelves and admired the recent additions to his trophies on the second row. There was something about the hands that mesmerized him more than the fingers he’d collected, and every now and then he swore they actually swayed in their liquid coffins and waved at him.
He wondered what Sloane thought of the note he left at the crime scene and if she cringed when she saw it. By now the anger and denial he had over the five finger discount she’d done on his notebook had subsided and was replaced with a sense of relief and acceptance—something he never thought possible. He arched his back and folded his arms and imagined Sloane in a quiet room with nothing but his words to keep her company. Now she would understand him like no one ever had, and their relationship would be forever changed.
Sam’s favorite song blared through the speakers of his Bose iPod dock. He hummed the soft melody and leaned back and allowed himself to return to a previous time in his life, where he found himself alone in a stark white room with Laurel. He was five and she was—well, significantly older. How much so Sam didn’t know at the time. He just knew she looked like a mom, even though she didn’t act like one. Laurel knelt down next to him and her soft hair fell in his face. It smelled like he’d dipped his hand in a jar of honey.
“What’s this song called, Mommy?” Sam said.
“Sinnerman.”
Sam didn’t know what that meant.
“Who’s the singer?”
“Nina Simone.”
He liked the name Nina but didn’t care much for Simone.
“Why does he have two first names?”
“Not he silly, she.”
Sam thought Nina didn’t sound like a woman at all. Her voice was low and rough, like a man’s.
“What’s it about?” he said.
Laurel knelt down and extended her right hand and pulled her fingers back toward herself. “Come here,” she said to Sam. “You want to hear a story?”
Sam nodded. Laurel never told him stories. It made him feel special. He walked over and knelt by her side.
“When Nina Simone was little, she used to go to church with her mama, who was a Methodist,” Laurel said.
“What’s a Messosist?”
Laurel placed a finger in the middle of Sam’s lips. “Shhh,” she said. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”
He nodded.
“Well then, shush now.”
Laurel continued.
“Nina’s mama was a minister at that church, and they used to sing this song to help sway people into confessing their sins.”
Sam was confused. He didn’t know what “sway” or “confess” meant, but he knew if he asked, he might never hear the rest of the story.
“When Nina grew up, she became a famous singer, and she remembered this song and decided to sing it for the whole world to hear. Do you want to know what I think the song means?�
��
Sam nodded and clung to her every word.
“There was a man and his name was Sinnerman, and he spent his life running around doing bad things until one day he woke up and realized what he’d done and he was ashamed. He didn’t like who he was anymore, and all he wanted to do was to run and hide. So he went out and tried to find a place where he could shield himself from the rest of the world, and he looked for someone to take him in. Only, no one wanted him. They’d all heard about this man called Sinnerman, and they thought he was up to no good. So they shut him out, and with no place to go, he sought out the Lord. But the Lord had seen all the things Sinnerman had done and he told him he couldn’t stay. He said there was only one place for him, and he pointed Sinnerman in the direction that he must go.”
“Where?”
“He was sent to live with the devil.”
The song ended and Sam snapped back to life. He didn’t like to think about Laurel or the life he used to have. His past had wasted away and any emotions he had corroded along with it. Whether he lived or died mattered little to him now. He preferred life, of course, but he also knew one day it would all come to an end.
A female voice from the other room cried out in terror, and Sam rose from his chair and looked at the clock on the wall. The drugs had worn off. He didn’t like it when they talked. It made them seem so real, so human. He preferred them quiet. He grabbed a knife from the counter, walked to the room she was in and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER 52
Agent Luciana and the chief sat on the corner of Kearns and Main.
“Where’s Giovanni?” Agent Luciana said when I drove up.
“Busy,” I said. “What have you found out?”
“The handwriting in the notebook is a match to the Sinnerman letters,” the chief said. “Almost exact even though I assume he wrote those journal entries years ago, but his style hasn’t changed much over the years.”
Sloane Monroe Series Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Page 36
