Page 94 of A New Days Don

“Please, Miss Lewis,” Dr. Alverez scrambles across the floor as I stalk towards him. The fear that had once overwhelmed me and trapped me in my own body morphs into unadulterated rage.

With a scornful glare, I loom over the pathetic man whose neck is now black and blue, and his right eye is bleeding from a cut. “I remember you.” Another step forward, and his eyes go wide with panic. Good. I want him to feel the pain and panic I felt that night. I want him to know what every one of his victims has felt the nights of their rapes and subsequent deaths.

“N-no, it wasn’t me, Mila. I–”

“I KNOW IT WAS YOU!” I snap, “You sick, perverted rapist. How many women?!”

“I was working that night! All night!” Dr. Alverez stammers out as fast as he can, his chest rising and falling in rapid succession. His gaze passes back and forth between Massimo and I.

I pause. “What do you mean?”

“You can go through the hospital cameras. I have kept all my notes from that night. I keep every single rape case documented so in depth, down to the exact colour and fabric of the sweater they were wearing, the shapes and exact sizes of bruises and blood marks. I have our nurses and other female doctors get photo evidence, in case these notes can help put rapists and molesters away. It wasn’t me, Mila.” He rambles on, bumbling and stammering as I rake my mind for the memory that had stunned me moments ago.

It was him…

“I want all the files, everything you have on every rape case, including mine, since the night I came in.” I snap.

Dr. Alverez pauses. He knows his oath prevents him from allowing any documents to leave this hospital unless they have been subpoenaed by a judge or issued under an officer’s warrant.

“Hurry the fuck up, Alverez.” Massimo taps his foot impatiently.

“Y-yes, of course.” He stammers as he crawls to a filing cabinet and unlocks it.

“I want the video footage from the security cameras the night I came in, too.” The bumbling man nods frantically as he pulls out a medium sized box from the bottom of his filing cabinet.

He places it on his desk and opens the lid, “Everything, including your file, the USB with the security footage from the night you came in, and other files of women who I have treated for assault and rape, are all in this box.”

His voice wavers, and his hazel eyes dart to all the documents in the box.

“Mas,” I turn to him, and he straightens his back. Dark brown eyes meet me with so much intensity it nearly takes my breath away. “Will you watch him? Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere until I have looked through everything?”

Massimo’s lip quirks as he nods. The request is small, but Massimo treats it as if he were asked to guard America’s most wanted prison escapee. He grabs Alverez by his arm before tossing him into the corner of his office as if the relatively tall man weighs nothing. I take a seat in the still warm office chair, my stomach shifting with unease as I peer into the box.

Alverez was so open to giving us all this evidence. More evidence than what is kept in the police reports of the victims. He has kept each and every one in excruciating detail, and for what?

Because I don’t believe for a minute that he keeps this much documentation in hopes of helping the women find their perpetrators and closure. Otherwise, the man would have come to us with all these details. He would have provided us with all his findings to help the victims.

I almost vomit again.

These are souvenirs. Keeping this level of journaling and organization of each individual who has been seen by him and his nurses is an obsession.

Alverez’s eyes frantically look around the room as he mutters under his breath incoherently. He knows he has been caught. Caught doing what I’m not sure, because as promised, in the USB are documented files of when he arrived at the hospital and when he left the hospital each night over the last six years. Then there is a zip file with photos and videos that makes me tremble to open.

But when I do, it isn’t what I expect to see. As promised, each and every video and photo is of him at the hospital. All of them are timestamped. I scroll through videos and photos from the night of the rapes of various sex workers who have confirmed death dates. He was here for each one. I then scroll back six years, over seventy entries, and find the day I came in. His very first video. He was here.

I look up from the screen with frustration and meet Massimo’s gaze, “It’s not him…”

“Want to kill him anyway?” Massimo asks, making my eyes widen. Before I can tell him no, he growls, “He deserves to die for making you look so defeated and sad.”

“No! No, no, no.” I stand from the chair, Alverez looking as pale as a ghost, “Sweetie, no, please.”

The pet name falls from my lips naturally as I try to calm the bruising grip Massimo has on his gun. It must have been enough because he drops where he is aiming and faces me, looking like a kid who has been told unicorns really exist.

My cheeks flush as Massimo puts his gun away, sliding the safety back on, “Okay, he lives.”

Chapter 38

Mila