Page 60

Lips pressed to a hard line, he pulls me in for a hug. “Just be careful, okay? This Voss could be anything. Clean record, or not, I wouldn’t put too much faith in anyone right now.”

“Fair deal. Thanks for dropping Oli off.”

“See if you can work some early shifts. This guy targets women at night. Party girls, mostly.”

“Well, then, I have nothing to fear. Last I checked they were rich party girls, which means, I’m definitely not the killers soup du jour.”

“Perhaps not. Doesn’t hurt to be careful, though.”

“You’re right. I’d be foolish to assume anything,” I concede.

Offering a pat on my shoulder as he passes, Jonah heads toward his car, and when he drives off, out of view, I glance around one more time at the quiet neighborhood before making my way inside.

Upstairs, I stop at Oliver’s room where the door stands cracked, and peek inside. He’s already in bed. Considering it’s after nine, I’m thankful for that.

I tiptoe across the floor to beside his bed and peel back the blankets covering his face. The streetlamp outside his room offers just enough light to see the black plum around his eye, the sight of which makes me flinch.

Like a slap in the face, I remember this morning, when Oli woke up for school in tears. He didn’t want to tell me what was troubling him, and if I had to guess, he didn’t want to go to school.

It makes me wonder if he’s been silently dealing with the cruelty of others in the last six months. Here I am, so preoccupied with bringing back the past and trying to restore his innocence that I’m failing to see the present.

Through a blur of tears, I stare down at him, brushing his hair behind his ear. I bend forward and kiss his temple, careful to avoid his eye. “I love you,” I whisper, before slinking quietly back through the room.

In the morning, I’ll be sure to have a chat with Oliver’s school counselor about this, and see about a meeting with this kid’s parents, since it happened at the bus stop, but in the meantime, I’m glad Voss was there today.

Wiping my eyes, I pad back down the hall to my bedroom and peer out the window to see Voss’s car isn’t parked in the driveway, and the lights in the apartment are off. Every instinct inside of me says he’s not a bad man, but what if everything I once knew, all the natural inclinations I’ve spent my entire life paying attention to, have suddenly become mis-wired with Denny’s death? What if I no longer recognize the difference between a good and bad man?

Here, I thought Harv was nothing but an annoying asshole with some weird kinks, but what if he’s more than that?

What if he’s a killer who removes the eyeballs of his victims and stuffs the sockets with sand?

18

Voss

I glance down at the address Jackson gave me, then back to the shithole bungalow, located on the shady side of town. The white van is nowhere in sight, so I slide out of my vehicle, parked two houses down, and make my way across the street. I should be watching the house where Nola is, but I need to check out Harv and Beth’s place first.

Something about this couple just isn’t sitting right with me. For whatever reason, Carl has targeted Nola, and although Beth is a more likely target than my landlord, from what I remember of Carl’s tastes, I’m guessing she’s simply a means to get to Nola. A vehicle he’s used to give him a way in.

Whether that’s unwitting, or intentional, is still a mystery to me. Carl doesn’t take up with accomplices. Even the few times he tried to drag me along on his little escapades when we were kids, he found me to be a nuisance—always getting in his way.

Consequently, I learned to get in his way as much as possible.

From what I’ve gathered, Beth and Harv are two personalities who would surely bug the shit out of him, so their involvement is likely inadvertent.

Perhaps even deadly, at this point.

The knob on the front door turns easily, and with a gloved hand, I enter the quiet house, gun leading the way. An arc of light cuts through the room when I click on the flashlight and sweep it over the surrounding darkness. Fast food bags and dirty dishes litter the living room, creating a stench of French fries that makes me want to gag. I keep on toward the kitchen, noting the same unkempt condition as the living room, with dishes cluttering the counter, food scattered about. It’s a wonder the mice haven’t taken over this shithole.

Down the hallway, two rooms stand at either side of the corridor—a bathroom to the left and a bedroom to the right. Entering the one on the right, I take careful steps, so as not to disturb anything, always scanning for movement. Clothes lay about the floor and the bed, but most notable to me are the two pills lying on the mattress, and a glass lying on the floor beside the bed.

Feels hasty and unfinished.

I angle my flashlight up to a chair beside the bed, and when I swing to the right, I see a mirror propped directly across from it.

Must be where Harv sits watching himself jack off, while some dude fucks his wife. I try to imagine my uncle having any part of that, but the idea he’d do anything for the gratification of someone else isn’t fitting. He’d only allow someone to watch, if he thought it’d bring them mental anguish. Torment was always his main objective. That’s how sadists operate.

The half-opened closet draws my curiosity, and I approach carefully, expecting to find what happened to the couple hanging from the ceiling inside. Instead, I find a collection of BDSM props and gadgets. Some, I recognize from my own arsenal at home—cat-o-nines, paddle, riding crop. I lift a latex suit from where it’s crumpled on the floor beside it’s packaging, which looks like something sold in a Halloween store, and find an uneven cut along the neck of it.