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“Good morning, Doc.”
“Morning, Miranda. Large black and white mocha with dark chocolate drizzle and light whip, and a banana muffin.”
“Of course,” Miranda said with a smile. Hot Cuppa was one of my favorite places, and I visited it every morning. Miranda already knew my coffee order by heart. “Extra dark chocolate drizzle just for you, Doc.”
“Thanks, Miranda,” I said, taking the cup from her. Coffee was fucking life. I wouldn’t survive without it. I finished the mocha and muffin, sitting in my car before driving to work.
Later that evening, after a quiet day at work, I drove toward the underground poker club Millicent frequented every Thursday and Saturday—The Mirage.
The exterior was nondescript and rundown, with cracked bricks, faded paint, and a rusty metal door. A flickering neon sign, barely legible, was the only indication of any life within. Only those who had passwords could enter past the security.
The scent of smoke lingered permanently in the air surrounding the club. I sat in the shadows, waiting.
Millicent enjoyed parties, gambling, drugs, and men, and she used helpless girls to line her pockets. She was just as predatory as Victor. She was the reason these girls had turned into women they had never dreamed of. She didn’t kill them, but she was the reason their dreams were murdered.
Ah, there she is.
When Millicent walked inside the club, I drove toward her home. It took me a few seconds to pick the lock and walk inside. Kasey Thompson had told me a lot about Millicent’s life, and it had helped me slowly, and carefully build a backstory.
I opened the closet, looking for something I could use to frame her.
My lips curled when I found exactly what I was looking for. Grabbing the restraints and leather shackles with a smile, I quickly chucked it into my backpack before moving toward her kitchen. It was clean, untouched. Borrowing a knife from the rack, I slipped out of her house, locking the door behind me.
“Enjoy everything while you can.”
It was around two in the morning when I finally reached home. I was too fired up to sleep. Quickly changing into a comfortable old T-shirt that smelled like Katelyn—sometimes I wore Kat’s T-shirts to feel closer to her—I sat at the long teakwood table and opened the box of reheated pasta with a sigh.
My father had once used this table to play pretend family when my mother was alive. He’d force us to sit together and eat. Every bite of the food would feel like rubber and glue. It’d get stuck in my throat, but I had to swallow it down. I knew what would happen if I broke the illusion of the happy family my father wanted to create.
At first, I wanted to destroy the table, but some twisted part of me wanted to hold on. It was a reminder that I had once lived my life according to someone else’s rules, and I’d never again do that.
Only my rules mattered now.
Opening my laptop, I searched for the articles written by Ryden.
“You understand them, because you’re one of them,” I whispered. “But not exactly one of them. You’re better.”
He had written a series of articles about the Six O’Clock Killer. The madman sent a package with a riddle to the detectives of DPD exactly at six o’clock, just an hour before he killed every fucking time. Detectives Patel and Murray caught him a year ago, but I wondered if it was somehow Ryden’s doing.
The story that caught my attention was the one he had written on The Strangler.
My nostrils flared in distaste when I thought of that asshole.
I had been hunting him for four years. Every time I thought I was getting somewhere… he’d find a way to slip away through an invisible hole.
The Strangler’s MO was strangling his victims with a garrote, leaving behind love letters tied around the victim’s neck with colorful silk ribbons. No DNA had ever been found in or on any of his victims.
“But I’ll find you, and then I’ll cut you into a million fucking pieces and feed your flesh to pigs.”
Maybe then the whorl of rage within me would go soft, and the sharp pain would fade away.
I had killed three men. And then I met Katelyn. She taught me how to live, showed me a way to look past the darkness into light. She became my best friend, family despite knowing the distorted beings in my head. And he took her from me.
Wiping my eyes, I pounded against the table until I felt the pain radiating from my knuckle to my arm.
“You stole my Katelyn from me, and that’s why I’ll claim your kill as mine.”
He’d be my absolution, and I’d be his executioner.
