Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
“No,” I confirmed. “He’s not.”
“He was living next to me,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t realize it until we were running down the driveway. My memory flashed back to seeing him walking down to the mailbox, watching me as I got in my car to get home from work. I… I never thought anything of it,” she said.
“Someone on the force questioned him, Mari,” I said, shaking my head. “And didn’t think anything of him either. Some monsters are good at hiding in plain sight.”
Gawen and I shared a meaningful look over her head just as Maggie, the female officer from the first attack on Mari, came walking up the path.
“Hey, honey, this is Maggie Judd,” I said, waving toward her, and watching Mari focus on the woman. “Can you go with her back to the station and wait for me?” I asked. “There is going to be questioning,” I added.
“Right,” she said, nodding.
“But we have to look over the crime scene first,” I added.
“Right,” she said again. “Of course.”
“I won’t be long,” I promised her.
“The groceries,” she murmured, slow blinking, her brows scrunched.
“What was that, sweetheart?” Gawen asked.
“My groceries were probably delivered,” she said. “The chicken will be bad.”
“I think you deserve to order in a steak dinner after your ordeal,” Maggie said as she rubbed Mari’s back, leading her over toward her cruiser.
“She’s a little bit in shock, I think,” Gawen said. “I’ll talk to her when we get back to the station, see if she needs to go to the hospital after all. She’ll be okay with Maggie as we go through the scene, though.”
The forensics team showed up just a few minutes after the ambulance and two officers took Brandon away to be treated for his wounds.
Not only had she strangled him within an inch of his life, but she’d stabbed something into his neck. Not deep enough to cause major damage, but enough to require treatment. On top of that, she’d hit him with something across the face, and stabbed him in the hand with something.
“She was a goddamn hellcat,” Gawen said, nodding his approval as we watched the ambulance drive away with The Silent Sadist strapped down to a gurney in the back.
The news was going to be a damn nightmare in a short time.
But that was the chief’s’ problem.
And the district attorney.
My job was to go through the scene with Gawen, write down notes, watch the forensics team take pictures, then bag and tag evidence.
Half an hour later, I was walking outside for air.
It was never easy, to see the depraved shit men could and would do to women. It was harder still when one of those women was the one you were falling for.
In a cage in the trunk, unsure what fate was about to befall her.
Using glass beer bottles to stab him.
Being chased around a garage and an unfamiliar house.
Needing to stab him with what turned out to be a pen.
Having to whack him with a chain meant to tie her down with.
Then needing to use tied together shoelaces to strangle him.
The survival instinct was strong in many of us. But it was doubly so in Mari, someone who knew what was going to happen to her, a woman with no hope but to save herself.
She couldn’t have possibly known that we would be able to track this bastard down fast enough to come to her rescue.
So she did what she had to do to survive.
Maggie was right.
I owed the woman a steak dinner for this.
Though, it would end up being a steak breakfast at this rate.
There was so much to be done.
Going to the hospital to talk to the perp.
Going back to the station to question Mari.
“Hey,” Gawen said, catching me before I hitched my ride to the hospital. “I was thinking,” he added.
“About?”
“About how I should question Mari,” he said.
The insinuation was hanging right there, better left implied than expressed.
“That’s a good idea,” I agreed, nodding.
We didn’t need to discuss the finer details. We both understood. It was best for me to be detached from this. For the sake of the trial. Even though there was no question about his guilt when he’d literally been caught with a kidnapped woman in his rental house.
It was just better to be safe than sorry.
He had to go away.
We couldn’t risk anything getting in the way of that.
All we could hope for was that he got a brand new baby lawyer public defender. One who would be overworked, underpaid, and really not all that interested in getting a serial killer free.
“Hey,” he said, giving me a nod. “It’s done,” he said. “He’ll never do this again.”
The weight I’d been carrying the past few years fell from my shoulders at that.
He was right.
It was done.
It wouldn’t bring back Madison or Ashley.
But it would bring their families closure.