by Kelli Walker
From the man who had a personal investment in Skylar Lane.
The man in my guest bedroom owned the most profitable personal security company on the Eastern Seaboard. A man like that should’ve been behind a desk. Way up in the clouds in his skyscraper. But as my eyes panned back to the television and took in the familial resemblance between him and his cousin that had been brutally murdered, lights went off in my head.
It explained so much.
It explained why the owner of a company like that was camping out in my guest bedroom. It explained why he was throwing all of his energy and effort into protecting me. It explained why he was growing so easily frustrated with how slow the investigation was coming along.
And it was because he had a personal attachment to all of this.
I looked down at my food, no longer hungry at its sight. My heart sank to my stomach. I put my hand over my chest as it started to cave in on itself. I stumbled over the remote and managed to turn the television off. I didn’t want to see anymore of it. Hear anymore about that perverted man.
My heart broke for Rocco. For the pain his family had gone through at the hands of a cold-hearted killer.
I was glad that man was dead. He didn’t die by my hand, but I sure as hell was glad he was gone. I leaned back into my pillows and hunkered myself down into bed. It boiled my blood, what Rocco had been through. He probably took it personally, the death of his cousin. I didn’t know much about him, but I had gathered enough from his head nods and shakes and his overall body language that he tried to shoulder as much as he could whenever he could. My eyes fell back onto my door. I felt my legs twitching. Begging me to stand so I could go to him and wrap him in my arms and tell him how sorry I was for his hurt. For his pain.
For his sadness.
But, I didn’t. I simply picked up my spoon and forced myself to eat. It didn’t matter. Not really. There was no use in bringing up the past with a man who was only there to do a job. It wasn’t as if he’d talk about it. Hell, he didn’t want to talk about the good things in his life. Which meant he sure as hell wouldn’t want to talk about the bad things in it. I probably looked stupid already, leaning in with my lips puckered last night like I had. Like some desperate woman willing to grab at any man who paid her the slightest attention.
The man hadn’t even spoken to me, and I was ready to let him strip me down and take me like he almost had in my dreams. How idiotic did that make me look?
Then again, I could have sworn he wanted to kiss me to. I could have sworn he wanted to hold my hips just as much as I wanted him to touch them. I would have bet my life on the fact that his eyes boasted of a want to kiss me. And he would have, if his phone hadn’t fucking gone off last night.
Right?
Rocco
I slammed my finger into the ‘enter’ button, picking up the video call coming through. I kept my fingers flying over my laptop as Matthew’s face popped up onto the screen. I was alerting everyone. Sending emails out as quickly as I could.
We were taking over this operation, and we were doing it now.
“Did you get my email?” I asked gruffly.
“Why the fuck do you think I’m calling, Taylor?” Matthew asked.
“Good. It’s time you got mad. Because I’m pissed. The police aren’t working fast enough. I’m about to alert the police chief that his investigation just became ours.”
“No need. Already got the phone call from him. We’ve got the leeway we need to work this.”
I snapped my head up as my fingers stopped moving.
“You what now?” I asked.
“Yeah. The second you sent me that damn email, I was on the phone with him. I know you like to play by the rules, Rocco. But it’s your only damn weakness sometimes,” Matthew said.
“The investigation is ours, then.”
“We have been given permission to run an investigation of our own alongside them. They hand over their shit, we hand over ours.”
“Good. Did you send this shit to him, then? Because I figured a swarm of police would already be on Charity’s stoop outside.”
“Working on it, Rocco,” he said.
I got up early that morning to take a piss and smelled something outside the front door. The sun hadn’t come up, which meant Chelsey hadn’t taken his post. Which meant I was the only one downstairs with that damn smell. It pulled me to the front door and caused me to open it, revealing a package sitting on Charity’s welcome mat.
A fucking nasty ass package with a dead fish inside.
Not only that, but there had been another note. Nestled in an envelope on top of the decrepit, rotting fish. And it was handwritten, too. Just like the last one.
“At least we know for sure that this letter was written by the same person who wrote the one attached to the brick,” Matthew said.
“I’m not concerned about that anymore. I’m concerned about what the note said.”
“Trust me, I am, too. I’ve got our lab prepared the analyze the fuck out of that thing once someone gets there to pick it up. I just told the police chief he’s got fifteen minutes to come by and take whatever he wants. Samples. Pictures. Dusting for prints. The whole nine yards,” he said.
“Then you told him we were sending it off to our people first. Right?” I asked.
“Better. I convinced him to use our lab. It all goes to one place, and the dissemination of information goes two ways.”
“Perfect,” I mumbled.
My eyes gravitated back to the picture I had taken. A picture of the note I had sent off to all respective parties who needed to see it. Chelsey, before telling him he needed to be at his post at five in the morning instead of seven. Our lab, before even getting them the letter so they could start taking apart the handwriting. The police team we were working with, so they understood how dire the threat was against Charity.
I read the words again, committing every single one of them to memory.
Charity,
I think your brown eyes would look good sitting on a jar in my home. They aren’t as pretty as Skylar’s, but they’ll do. I’d spoon them out, maybe. Just so I didn’t scratch the yellow specks of your eyes. I could turn that beautiful blonde hair of yours into a wig as well. Once I scalped it off your head. But that would only be the beginning of my siege. The beginning of robbing you of the beauty you robbed my darling Skylar of. You deserve to feel the pain he felt. He trusted you to fix him. To heal him. And you betrayed that trust. You went back on your oath, Charity Jones.
And for that, I will scrape the freckles off your face with my nails. I will hang your skin like a prize in my living room. Your lips are mine, once I slice them off. The beauty you hold now will be mine to possess.
Forever kept in the darkness of my home. Never to be seen again. Like my precious Skylar.
Watch your back. Because I’m coming for you.
“We’re definitely working with a team. The verbiage used in this letter is definitely the verbiage of a woman,” I said.
“I just got an email back from the lab, and they agree with you. The word breakdown favors a woman, as does the cursive handwriting. The letter becomes more jagged as it goes on, according to the lab. Which means the author becomes more emotional,” Matthew said.
“That’s good for a profile, but not for helping us track down who the fuck this woman is,” I said.
“But, the profile we’ve built does lean toward manipulation.”
My eyes fell onto Matthew’s face. “How do you figure?”
“Thank fuck I’m better at psychological warfare than you are. Because beating shit into submission with those muscles of yours isn’t all it takes sometimes.”
“You done?”
“Yep. Look, we’ve got a woman who has obviously fallen head over heels for a psychopath. Which means part of her isn’t all there to begin with. Whether she idolized him or thought she could be better than him, a woman who is able to sway an accomplice knows how to manipulate. How to woo. How to flirt
. How to blend in.”
“You think the man in the stolen truck footage has been manipulated by who we’re looking for,” I said.
“I’m almost certain of it. The rudimentary tactics. The way he fumbled with trying to get the crowbar to hook onto the latch. It was clear in the footage he had no idea what he was doing. Probably watched some damn YouTube videos before trying. I’d bet my life on the fact that the man in the footage we pulled from that traffic cam is under the thumb of whoever this woman is. And if I’m right--.”
“It means he’s the one dropping off the packages,” I said.
“Exactly. She’s making the letters and the packages, and he’s dropping them off. We need to be looking for a woman with deep, dark, emotional ties to Skylar Lane who is attached to a man who fits the description we have of him. A man who is easily swayed. A psychologically submissive man.”
“Have you had any luck in identifying the man from the video?” I asked.
“Once I can get in touch with my contact with the FBI, it’ll go a lot quicker. The police chief has yet to hand over access to their servers regarding fingerprints and DNA. But, if I can get my contact to let me use AFIS--.”
“Yeah, yeah. Do it. Whatever you have to do. Dead fish on doorsteps are never good. I can only assume the next attack that comes is going to be personal.”
“It’s already personal, Rocco.”
“You know what I mean, Jeppsson,” I bit.
“There’s nothing else we can pull from that traffic cam footage. Nothing about his facial features that’ll help us?” Matthew asked.
“You mean the scar isn’t helping you?”
“You’d be surprised how many assholes go into hospitals with those types of wounds. And even then, there’s no guarantee the man in that video was patched up in a hospital. Which means there’s no formal record of it. This would go a lot quicker if I had something regarding his face to go off of.”
I abandoned the emails and the letter to pull up the footage. I pulled my sights away from the video conference and put them back on the video. I backed it up as far as I could go. I played it again before rewinding it. I played it again in reverse. My eyes split the screen up into segments, and I watched each one going forward and going backward. Trying to capture anything regarding the man that might help us.
And after watching that damn video for the eleventh time, I caught something.
“I have forty two seconds of this video,” I said.
“Yeah. I know,” Matthew said.
“Get me a full minute of it. Now.”
It was the slightest movement. The smallest, faintest hint of a head turn as the man is getting into the car. The video stops as he puts his foot into the truck, but his head isn’t looking at where his body is going. Instead, there’s the slightest tick of his head in the opposite direction.
And it my gut was correct…
“Got it,” Matthew said.
My email dinged and I quickly opened the footage. I scrolled to the forty-two second mark and hit play. I watched the man slip into the truck as he turned his head away from it. His eyes gazing out the window. The profile of his face raking across the side mirror of the truck. His gaze falling onto a fucking shop across the road.
My fingers flew across the keyboard again. I resized it. Zoomed in. Ran it through filters and enhanced it as much as I could without distorting the image. I took screenshots and sent them to Matthew. The profile of his face in the side mirror of the truck. The blurry reflection of his full-on face in the reflection of the truck window.
“Is there a traffic camera that faces the opposite end of the road around that time? Because I’m pretty sure that asshole is looking straight into a shop window,” I said.
“We might not need it. Give me a second,” Matthew said.
“We don’t have seconds.”
“You’re going to have to pull them out of your ass, then. Because this’ll take some time and a lot of assumptions regarding his facial reconstruction. Give me two minutes and stay on the damn line, would ya?”
I rolled my neck and heard it pop. I closed my eyes, raking my hand through my hair. The faint smell of eggs came from my door and I looked over to see what was going on. There was a stark shadow of something small sitting outside my door. Well, two stark shadows. Neither of which were moving. I vaguely remembered Charity talking with me this morning. I closed my eyes and conjured her voice, trying to pull from the confines of my memory what she had said.
Possibly something about breakfast?
“Holy shit, I’ve got it,” Matthew said.
His voice ripped my eyes open.
“Got what?” I asked.
“Jose Gonzalez. That’s our man in the video.”
“Wait a second, are you sure?” I asked.
“Down to the damn scar on his shoulder blade, Rocco.”
“How did you--? Nevermind. I don’t care. Now, we’ve got something to work with. Track that man down using any means necessary. We have to figure out who is calling him and interacting with him so we can figure out who this fucking woman is. They’re communicating somehow. Find it.”
“Well, in case you’re curious, the police chief is easy to sway at this point. He gave me access to their servers directly from my computer in my office.”
“Good. Fucking great. Because at this point, I think this woman we’re tracking down is one of those psychopath fanatics,” I said.
“Then you and I are on the same wavelength. Which is why I’m going to start some hardcore research into Skylar Lane fanclubs. And before you ask, there’s a lot. It’ll take me all afternoon.”
“A fucking psychopath should never have a damn fan club,” I murmured.
“How is the city-wide search coming?”
“The internet connection was interrupted last night, so it’s slow going. I got the program back up and running, though. It’s scouring the city cameras in real time looking for the license plate of that truck. Any place where it pops up, I’ll know about it in a heartbeat. I’ll shoot you the updates as I get them, whenever they start coming in.”
“Good. Once they start coming in, I’ll start backtracking them. See if we can’t get that asshole into our interrogation room,” he said.
“Get yourself a good head-start before handing this information over to the police. I’m not in the mood for a pissing contest.”
“I figured. Now, I need to go grab some breakfast. And from the sound of your voice, you’re a bit hangry yourself.”
“Hangry? Really?” I asked.
“Go eat, Rocco. We’ll talk tonight.”
Matthew cut the video call and I tossed my laptop to the side. I pulled up the program that was perusing through all the traffic cameras of the city. It was the least efficient way to track that sucker down. But, it was all we had going for us. Whoever this woman was, she was meticulous. She’d thought of every possible way we could track her down and we had evaded it. But, now that we had the identity of that man in the video, we were one step closer to finding her.
One step closer to slapping handcuffs on her.
I threw open the doors of my room and looked down. I saw a plate of breakfast that had grown cold and a glass of orange juice. I looked over at the dirty pans on top of the stove that hadn’t made it to the sink. I trained my ears on the house, listening out for Charity as she moved around upstairs. Her footsteps fell slowly. Almost shuffling. But when her footsteps stopped and a door closed, I figured she wasn’t coming downstairs. And an odd emotion passed through my skin.
Disappointment.
I was disappointed at the fact that I’d eat breakfast alone.
Charity
“I want to go out and do something.”
I watched Rocco’s head whip over to me as I came down the stairs. I stayed up there all damn day, and I was tired of being up there. Hell, I was tired of being secluded to my home. I took the time getting myself ready before I came down the stairs for the explicit purpose of fee
ling the sun on my face today.
But the look on Rocco’s face told me he wasn’t having any of it.
“I’m tired of being cooped up, and I feel safe enough to go get some things I need from the pharmacy,” I said.
Rocco furrowed his brow deeply as I went and stood in front of him.
“I want to go out and do something. I want to feel the sun on my face. I’m not asking to go without you. All I’m asking is to actually go do it,” I said.
And when Rocco shook his head, I cleared my throat and prepared my speech.
“I’m running out of toiletries. I actually used the last of my conditioner this morning to shower. I’m running low on face wash as well. And I could use another brand of toothpaste. The one I had leaves this nasty film behind that forces me to use mouthwash, and I hate using mouthwash. I might as well just get a new brand of toothpaste altogether. It’s just a quick trip up the block. It won’t take long,” I said.
And again, Rocco shook his head.
“I don’t care how you get me to the pharmacy, Rocco. But, I need to go there as well as the grocery store,” I said.
I watched his face fall and I had to bite back a giggle. He looked cute when he was caught off-guard.
“Yeah. The grocery store. You know, that place with food? It takes a lot of food to feed you, so wherever I have to go in order to replenish this kitchen as well as my bathroom is where we’re going to go. It’s where you’re going to take me. And before you try to convince me otherwise--which I’m not sure how you’d do in the first place--let me tell you that I’m very well aware of the fact that the news is still running my stupid story. But, we’ve been cooped up in my place for seven days straight, and I did not plan on feeding a fully-grown adult male for seven days straight in my home along with myself. Not to mention the food I’ve been preparing for Chelsey out there on the front porch.”
I watched Rocco chew on the inside of his cheek as he drew in a deep breath.
“I know you don’t like it, and I know you’re standing there trying to find a work around. But, there’s no getting around this. Just because we’re in the heart of New York City doesn’t mean every single place around us delivers. So, you can grab your things and come on, or you can starve and I can smell like B.O. and fish after four more days,” I said.