“What in the hell is that?” Maddie said.
The chief and Nick launched out of their respective chairs and hovered over me like a couple of eagles protecting their nest. By the time I had the bottle all the way out of the box, no less than six pairs of eyeballs were riveted on the liquid substance within the glass and what floated around inside of it: a severed finger.
“What is this, some kind of sick joke?” Nick said.
The chief held his hand out to me and folded his fingers back toward himself.
“Lemme see that,” he said.
I handed it over and then tipped the box on its side and peered in again. A slip of pink paper was taped flat to the bottom and on it, a message:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLOANE MONROE
I HOPE YOU LIKE IT
YOURS ALWAYS, SINNERMAN
“There’s a note,” I said.
“Don’t touch it,” the chief said. He flung his arms to the side like he was an umpire who’d just declared the player that slid into home plate safe. “No one touch a thing.”
The chief reached over and confiscated the box from me, and with great care he lowered the jar back into the depths of its cardboard home.
“Madison,” the chief said.
“I’m way ahead of you,” Maddie said. “We can take this to my lab right now.”
She stood up and walked over to me and gave me a hug.
“I’m sorry to leave you like this on your birthday sweetie.”
“With all that’s happened, this trumps my big day,” I said. “Keep me posted on what you find out.”
She leaned in until she was a couple inches away from my ear.
“You’ll be the first to know,” she whispered.
Moll returned with tray full of entrees and a perplexed look on her face.
“Where in the world is everyone going?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but it looks like we’re going to need these to go.”
CHAPTER 13
Nick wore a hole in my living room carpet while he paced from one side of the room to the other, part in a debate with himself and another part using his hands to converse with the air in front of him. I rested on the couch and tried to make the most of my entrée to go.
“This has gotten out of hand,” he said, after a few minutes. “That psycho has made it personal, and I don’t like it.”
The reality was it had been personal for a long time now, and we both knew it. Sinnerman had just upped the ante, and for whatever reason, all bets were on me.
“If they can lift a print and find out who this guy is, it will all have been worth it,” I said.
I already knew full well the box and its contents would be clean. Sinnerman was too smart for that. But at the moment, my main goal was to pacify Nick by whatever means necessary.
“How can you sit there and eat right now after what just happened?” He shook his head. “You know what? I think you wanted this.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“Do you even care that this guy could be watching your every move? Honestly, Sloane. I’ve had it with all this. I’m done. From now on, you’re going to listen to me, and that starts right now. I want you to promise me you won’t have anything else to do with this case.”
Inside my head, something snapped. All my life I’d been an overachiever, the organized girl with the OCD who tried her best no matter what. I was no quitter. Grandpa instilled that in me from a young age. Monroes kept going and never gave up. It was our creed. How could he expect me not to go after the one person who took someone away from me? While I sat and listened to the endless load of crap that spewed forth from Nick’s lips, I couldn’t take it any longer. It was like something woke up inside me that had been asleep since the day we moved in together. A light came on and I knew what I needed to do. The time had come to flip the switch on our relationship.
“Nick, I’ve had some time to think,” I said. “Maybe we need a break from each other.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For the last several months I’ve had to sit here and listen to you tell me what to do and what not to do, and I can’t do it anymore,” I said.
“What are you saying?”
“I need some time to myself,” I said.
“Fine, I’ll sleep on the couch for a while. I did it last night; I don’t see why I can’t do it again.”
I shook my head.
“I need you to go,” I said.
“Are you kidding me—you’re kicking me out?”
“It’s not like you don’t have a place to go. You haven’t sold your place in town yet. You’ll be fine. And I need this right now.”
“You know what; I don’t think you mean a word of it. You’re not in your right mind because of all that’s happened these past few days. You just need some time to get back to yourself again.”
“I’m thinking clearer now than I have in a while.”
He snatched one of my empty glass canisters from the kitchen counter and heaved it across the room. It smashed against the window, and the glass shattered. In an instant Taye Diggs was through the front door and by my side.
“What’s going on here?” Taye said.
“Nothing that concerns you,” Nick said. “I’ve got it under control. Get out.”
Taye looked at me.
“You alright?”
“She’s fine,” Nick said. “You can go now.”
“After you,” Taye said.
“You hard of hearing or something? I told you to go,” Nick said.
Taye didn’t budge, and neither did Nick. It was like a bar scene from an old Western without the pistols.
“Please leave,” I said.
“You heard the lady,” Nick said. “Get out.”
I looked at Nick.
“I didn’t mean him, I meant you,” I said.
Nick gave me a look that sent a shockwave of chills through my body. It was a side of him I’d never seen before; it felt ice cold, and I didn’t like it.
“Unbelievable,” Nick said. “I’m here trying to protect you from a complete whack job that all of the sudden has decided to track your every move, and this is what I get for it?”
“It’s not about that,” I said.
“Oh really, what then?”
“It’s all of it,” I said. “Things haven’t been good between us for a while now. I don’t know how you can’t see that too.”
He threw both hands out to the side.
“Fine, if that’s what you want, I’m out of here.” He turned to Taye Diggs and said, “Have fun with her. She’s more than you bargained for, but at least I don’t have to deal with it anymore.”
“Have some respect, Calhoun,” Taye said.
Nick stuck his middle finger out at Taye and then walked into the bedroom and returned a few minutes later with an armful of clothes in his hands. He headed straight for the door and never looked back.
My cell phone rang. It was Maddie.
“Hey,” she said, “how are you doing?”
“I just kicked Nick to the curb,” I said.
“For good?”
“I don’t know yet. What did you find out about that finger?” I said.
“For starters, although I thought so at first, it didn’t belong to the woman who was killed the other day.”
“Well then, whose is it?” I said.
“Sloane, I don’t know how to tell you this, but…”
All of the sudden I realized who the finger belonged to and my food wasn’t settled in my stomach anymore. My memory flashed to the nail from the finger that floated around in the jar at the restaurant. It had been coated with a shade of hot pink nail polish that sparkled with flecks of silver glitter. I’d seen it before many times. I squeezed both hands over my mouth, but it didn’t matter. I knew I’d never make it to the bathroom in time.
CHAPTER 14
Sam Reids sat at his desk in front of his computer on his newly acquired 17th cen
tury George II armchair. It was an expensive piece, and he’d shelled out almost a million dollars for it, but from the moment he’d laid eyes on it when it went up on the auction block, he knew he needed to have it in his collection.
Sam gazed at the picture of Sloane Monroe that was plastered across the entire width of his computer monitor. It wasn’t long before he started to reminisce about the day he first saw her. He’d been on his way to the store to procure a few groceries. When he stopped at the traffic light, he happened to glance over, and there she was. It was like she’d risen from the dead, and he had to do a double take to make sure his eyes hadn’t played some kind of cruel trick on him. It couldn’t have been her, and he knew that. He’d killed her over a year before. But it if wasn’t Gabrielle Monroe, who was she, he’d thought to himself. Sam had an insatiable desire to find out, so when he returned home that night he searched the internet, and it didn’t take long for him to find some answers. Gabrielle Monroe had a sister, and not just any sister—a twin named Sloane. It was all too delicious to take in, and he fantasized over what it would be like to be one of the only serial killers in history to murder twins. Killing Sloane would be like murdering Gabrielle all over again. Just the thought of it caused the hair on his arm to stand on end.
Sam had kept a close eye on Sloane over the past two years, and he’d come to know her habits. He knew she visited her sister’s grave on special occasions, her favorite place to eat, and even which color she wore the most. Keeping tabs on her while she worked intoxicated him. Her ability to snare the bad guy or find a missing person was impressive, and he admitted to himself after a time that she’d become somewhat of an obsession to him. No woman had ever incited the feelings she did. His insides burned like hot oil simmering in a pan every time he thought of her, and that’s why he needed her. He wanted her more than anything he’d ever craved before, but he’d have to wait for now. Sloane was special, which was why he would save her for last, and then everything would be different.
The clock on the right side of Sam’s computer displayed 7:29 PM. It was almost time. He closed his eyes and locked his fingers together behind his head and reclined back in his chair. He imagined the rest of the night’s events and played them over and over in his head with an exact notion of how they were to be. It was like he was the conductor of a fine orchestra, and he couldn’t wait.
***
Twenty minutes later Sam trolled the area by the supermarket where he’d discarded his last victim. He howled with laughter when he drove past the parking lot and observed a couple police officers dressed in plain clothes trying to blend in with the pedestrians that flowed in and out of the store. They’re all so stupid, he thought to himself. He never killed in the same location twice. He knew it, and so did they. And yet there they were, grasping at straws like puppets on a string.
Sam drove further down the street and through the city until he reached his destination, the local park. It was uncharted territory, and he’d never abducted anyone in a place like that before, but he’d been there several times over the past few months and was confident in his decision.
The park was quiet, just like he knew it would be. For whatever reason, Thursdays were always like this. There were no games going on, few kids, and the entire place was vacant save a few stragglers that dotted the grass-filled landscape.
Sam laced up his tennis shoes and stepped out his car door and closed it behind him. He walked over to the dirt track that surrounded the perimeter of the park and set off into a sprint. He rounded the corners, looked around, and sized up the selection. The woman who jogged ten feet in front of him had potential. He amplified his speed until they were side by side and then struck up a conversation, but it didn’t take long for him to notice something off about the way her long dark hair moved when she ran. It didn’t. It was thick like it had been coated with the firmest brand of hairspray and then ironed down in place, but that wasn’t all; it was fake—a wig, and beneath it he saw patches of dirty blond that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a hair salon in years. Upon closer inspection, he clued in on something else: her stiff breasts were fake too, and he wondered how much work she’d done on the rest of her body. This repelled him like he was a mosquito and she was doused in bug spray, and he knew she wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t do at all.
It didn’t take long for Sam to notice someone else who would. A woman, with the looks of a young girl still in college, sat alone on a bench with a book in her hand and headphones in her ears. She read in silence, unaware of the element of danger that existed around her. Sam took refuge under a majestic oak tree and pulled a weathered and worn paperback book out of his pocket and pretended to read it. He waited for the sun, and after a time it lowered itself behind the mountain and produced a glare on the woman like a spotlight which lit her up like the soft glow that protruded from a lighthouse. Sam’s heart skipped a couple beats. She was the one.
Thirty minutes went by, but the park was still occupied by four visitors. With every moment that ticked by, Sam’s appetite to claim his prize grew more insatiable, but he knew if he persisted that in time it would pay off. And ten minutes later it did. There were only two people left in the park now, himself and the gorgeous brunette on the bench. And soon there would be none.
CHAPTER 15
The next day I sat at my desk at my office. My eyes bored into the business card I held in my hand. It didn’t contain a name or an address or the title of a business even. In fact, there was only one thing on it: a phone number. The card had been given to me several months back by a man named Giovanni Luciana. I’d helped his sister out of a bad situation and he’d tracked me down and offered me his card in case I ever needed him for anything—like some sort of you helped me so now I need to return the favor kind of thing, but I knew nothing about the man except how I felt when we first met. There was something about him that was unique; he was different than other men I’d been around in the past, and in the brief moments we spent together he had a big impact on me; there was a certain magnetism between us that pulled us together. My emotions at the time of our quick rendezvous had been a mix of nervousness and some kind of strange attraction. Or maybe I was beguiled by him, but I didn’t know why. Whatever it was, part of me wanted to run that day and get far away from him, but there was another side of me that was curious and hoped I’d find a reason to see him again one day.
I dialed the number listed on the center of the card into my cell phone and waited. It rang once and then a second time, and then my office door opened and Maddie sauntered in. She plopped down on the chair across from mine and gawked at me.
“So why’d you call me down here then?” she said.
I hit the end call button on the phone and met her gaze. Maybe it was a sign, and I didn’t need his help after all.
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said, “but first I want to know more about the finger.”
“Well, he did a good job of preserving it. The liquid in the jar he gave you was ethyl alcohol. The tissue in the finger hadn’t disintegrated much at all over time, and it was intact enough that we were able to run some tests.”
“And you’re sure it was Gabby’s?” I said.
She nodded.
“There’s no doubt about it Sloane, I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. He’s just trying to unnerve me.”
“Yeah well, whoever he is, he’s twisted,” she said.
“I’ll be fine. Besides, I have Taye Diggs, and I’m sure he won’t let anything happen to me.”
She crossed her arms and leaned back.
“If you say so,” she said. “But I know how you work. You take risks, and this might be one of those times you might want to consider your safety for a change.”
“So listen,” I said. “You know I’d do anything to catch this guy, right?”
“I don’t think there’s a person around here that isn’t aware of that fact,” she said.
“I want to show you something, but
it’s in the vault.”
There was a twinkle in eye like I’d just given her the keys to the Magic Kingdom.
“Sweet!” she said. “Are we talking covert operations here? If so, I’m in.”
“Were talking I-don’t-want-the-chief-to-know-anything-about-it here.”
“Even better. Now I have to know,” she said.
“And you won’t say anything to anyone, right?”
“Sloane,” she said. “Wouldn’t you agree that we’re past that point in our relationship? I mean, men are fabulous to have around and they have their moments, I’m sure most women would agree. But to have a girlfriend who has your back no matter what—no guy is worth that.”
I stood up and walked over to a watercolor painting that hung on my wall. It was large, about the size of a sixty-inch flat-screen TV, and the perfect decoy.
“You called me here to discuss a painting?’ she said. “Let me guess, the artist placed something in the background, a hidden clue of some kind, like those weirded-out pictures people used to hang in their bathrooms or in the foyer, and you can’t decipher what it is which has driven you bonkers, so you called me here to figure it out for you.”
We both laughed.
I shifted my body weight to the right and looked around the corner at Taye Diggs. He manned his post outside, oblivious to the girl talk, which was just how I wanted it to be. When I was sure his eyes were focused in a different direction, I lifted the painting from its position on the wall.
“Holy crap!” Maddie said.
I smiled.
“I don’t think obsession is the right word to describe what I’m seeing here,” she said.
Behind the painting on the wall was an oversized peg board about the same height and width as the TV, and on it was every piece of information I’d come across that related to the Sinnerman murders. There were photos of his female victims, newspaper clippings I’d saved, his killing timeline, a profile I’d created on him, and anything else I felt was relevant to the case.
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