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She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. All that security here but none for the basement door.
Typical. All bark, no bite. Bluster at its finest.
And now, the big old boogeyman who’d stood so proud and sadistic over the woman downstairs was writhing on the ground like an earthworm. A heartwarming scene in Cora’s estimation.
“I’d like to thank you, Anton,” she said quietly.
He looked up at her through teary eyes, pain evident in every wince and grimace.
“This,” she said simply, “Ismuchbetter than pills. No—no, stop pointing. I see the key. Now I need some answers, please. Tell me about the women you killed at the resort. Yes—that one. No, don’t shake your head at me, Anton, or I’ll get mad again. You drowned them. We both know you did.”
He was still gasping, shaking his head, but at the look in her eyes, he stopped protesting.
His voice caught in his throat, and he was muttering beneath his breath, shaking his head, his thick brow above his deep-set eyes rising and falling like an undulating wave.
“I…I didn’t!” he protested. But then swallowed and whimpered. “It doesn’t…doesn’t matter. I—they dropped the charges! I’m innocent!”
Cora snorted, dropping to a knee now, and leaning forward, her voice cold, “Just because they let you go doesn’t mean you’re innocent, Anton. Come now, we both know that. You’re guilty as sin. If anyone needs to pray, it’s you.”
“W…what?”
“So, you killed those three women at the resort. This is true, right? Just nod. No, shush. If you lie to me, things are going to start getting far more painful. That little fracture is going to feel like a gentle hug compared to what’s coming next.” The knife from her thigh sheath was now in her hand again, and she tapped it against her leg where she knelt by his side.
He stared at the weapon, gaping, and then gave a quick nod.
Three bobs of his head, as subconsciously acquiescing to all three murders from the resort.
“Good,” Cora said, patting him on the cheek. She wiped off some of the sweat on his collar. “Now, this is what I need to know next. Why did you kill Mrs. Castillo?”
He stared at her. She raised her eyebrows, but said nothing, just watching him, hoping her silence and the knowing tilt of her brow would prod him to confession.
But he was just stammering now. “I…I—what?”
“Mrs. Castillo. You killed her, three weeks ago. Her daughter you killed two nights ago.”
“Oh,her?” he said, eyes widening.
Cora felt her heart skip a beat. “So, you admit it?”
“I...I...didn’t mean to,” he sobbed. “I just...sometimes. When the mood takes me, I don’t know what I’m doing. It all goes black.”
“No, Anton. Don’t try that. You know exactly what you’re doing. Now tell me, why did you kill Rachelle?”
“Who? Oh—the whore? I didn’t know that was her name.”
Cora paused. She stared at the trembling man, the way he had curled in on himself like a child attempting to avoid a beating. She remembered more than one hazing in the SEALs where the best you could hope was to avoid any truly punishing blows.
There was a strength in knowing when you were outmatched. A strength in knowing that alone on a ship, on dark waters, there was little to do but wait to drown. This was how Cora had often felt moments before giving into a pill or a drink.
The promises she’d made then broken. Eventually, the promises had stopped all together. The cold, the frigidity of the night had kept her from uttering any further oaths. It only made her feel smaller. But she’d often felt as if lingering on the open ocean wasn’t too dissimilar to battling an addiction.
The chemical dependency was only a band-aid, a temporary salve against far deeper wounds. Sometimes, she thought of her life like a soul lost at sea, desperately trying to reach shore, but only seeing towering waves wherever she looked.
And in these moments, the waves seemed less when she felt as if she was doing somethinguseful.The waters felt calmer. She was still, in many ways, alone in that boat of hers. Still very little sign of a shore.
But to know there were men like this out on the surf with her. People who wounded and hurt the innocent, confessing to murders as if copping to a stolen cookie, it gave a sense...of direction. Perhaps there was no cooling sea spray or the panoramic beauty of an ocean at war with itself.
But this man, groveling at her feet was a tenth of the person the woman in the basement was. One of them begged for themselves, the other whispered words to something they hoped would hear, beyond the horizon. Something unseen.
