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“Here!” he yelped. “Here. I had someone else over. I…I have videos! She lived by the way. We had a good time. She was going to come back next week. I...I didn’t hurt her!” He beamed at this, as if somehow presenting someone hehadn’tkilled absolved him of the ones he had.
Cora snorted, then clicked her fingers. “Alright then. Phone.”
Desperately, and with painful grunts, he reached into his pocket with his good hand, forced to reach across his body, fingers scrambling against the pocket. He pulled out the phone with desperate motions, removed it and held it up, wiggling it towards her. “Here!” he said. “Here.”
“Passcode?”
“One-two-three-four.”
She stared at him. Then shook her head. “Jeez, man. Really? Just, you know...do better.” Then she opened the phone, scanning through the videos. Some of them, she didn’t want to watch. Others though displayed what he had described. On the Sunday when Janice had gone missing from her boat, Mr. Mitchell had indeed been home. She recognized the strange house in the background. Two figures. A large, buxom woman with red hair, grinning into the camera while kissing Mitchell’s cheek. A smear of lipstick where she’d planted one on his forehead, near his unibrow.
In the pictures and the brief, few second videos, Mitchell even looked happy. The two figures in the photos and videos had been together until well after midnight. Cora stared at the images, feeling a strange disturbance in her stomach.
It somehow felt...wrong,seeing Mitchell so happy. So...normal. Just him and a girl on a date. Some kissing, handholding. A lot of goofy faces and homecooked meals. And a goodnight kiss. And that was it.
No one looking at the image would have imagined what had lurked in the basement. What Mitchell had been responsible for three months ago. No one could have known that others had been killed in that backdrop of those otherwise sweet images.
Cora felt a surge of discomfort.
But one thing was certain as she checked the timestamps: there was no way Mitchell could have been in the Keys at the same time as Janice Lochhead.
“Well shit,” Cora murmured. She lowered the phone, looking up. “It really wasn’t you, huh?”
He shook his head, tense. “N…no! No, I didn’t. Mayor? No, never.”
“Hmm. Alright. I believe you.” And Cora punched him in the chin, a straight right he never saw coming.
And he went unconscious.
Then, with a sigh, she got to her feet. She glanced at the man on the ground and at her knife. She frowned. Part of her had intended to kill the man. It had seemed like the right thing to do. The police had let him off with a slap on the wrist because of some minor infraction with evidence.
And in return, because they’d been playing by their rules, at least one more woman had died and another had been trapped in the man’s basement.
To trust this man in police custody seemed a guarantee that Cora was putting another woman in this man’s hands. Others would die. He was sick, he’d said, but here he was, trapped in his own house, hiding with another victim.
Even rabid dogs had to be put down sometimes.
But then she glanced at the phone, and some of the icy cold, the callousness in her stomach dissipated.Are you an angel?
The words now stood in accusation of her. Certainly not, she thought.
But perhaps it was only fair. Those pictures with the woman he’d been dating suggested a side of Mitchell that hadn’t died yet. Perhaps it was simply camouflage. She didn’t know. It was a strange role to play judge, jury, and executioner.
She’d come here to help a friend. But now...
Now she supposed she’d give Mitchell the same chance he’d given his victims. She nodded at this. It felt right.
She stomped over to the key on the hook, removed it, and then returned to the serial killer’s unconscious form, grabbed him by his good wrist and dragged him towards the basement stairs.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cora tapped the back seat of the taxi driver’s chair. “Here,” she said.
The cab pulled over to the side of the road. Cora leaned across, and met the eyes of the small, frightened woman. “That’s all I have,” Cora said, wincing apologetically. “I’ll cancel the card in a week, but use it until then, okay?”
The woman glanced at the small, pre-paid debit card in her hand, then up again. She stared at Cora, her expression pale and ghostly. Her wrists were hidden now under the sleeves of her old shirt. Cora nodded through the window. “Hotel room paid for,” she said quietly. “Breakfast included, but I think they have a stocked fridge. Knock your socks off.”
The taxi driver kept glancing curiously into the mirror, watching the two of them, but Cora ignored his probing gaze. She supposed the two of them struck an odd duo, sitting there. Cora hadn’t wanted to involve a taxi driver, but she didn’t think that the woman would have the ability to jog halfway across town.
