There Is No Devil (Sinners Duet, #2)(45)

When she turns back to me, I see the horror in her eyes.

She feels responsible.

Shaw continues unchecked because of us. Because of her.

While she’s admitted her anger, she has yet to act upon it.

Maybe she hopes I’ll do it in secret, without her ever having to raise a finger. She’ll wake up one morning and Shaw will simply be dead.

That’s not happening.

There will be no pleasant convenience for Mara.

She’s going to learn the difference between thoughts and action.

Everyone knows someone they wish would die. Very few will make it happen.

I stand on one side of a chasm. Mara has to join me.

It’s the only way we can truly be together.





13





Mara





At night, lying in bed in the darkness, I can tell that Cole is not yet asleep. No slow, heavy breaths, only the stillness that tells me he’s thinking about something with all his focus.

I’m also thinking hard.

Probably on the same topic.

We both saw those pictures this morning. And we both know what it means.

Shaw is starting another cycle of killing, with barely any break since the last. That means two more girls sacrificed to his hunger. Maybe more.

How many will it take for Officer Hawks to get the evidence he needs?

Cole says Hawks isn’t even following Shaw. He’s tailing us instead.

I’m dreading Shaw crashing my show. He wasn’t invited, but I’m sure he’d love to turn up to gloat in our faces again.

I hate him. I hate that he’s roaming around unchecked, more vicious and violent by the day.

I could have saved this girl. She was twenty-four, a year younger than me. A med student, apparently.

If I’d agreed with Cole right away then Shaw might already be dead. He never could have snatched her from whatever sidewalk or alleyway he found her.

My refusal of violence was a pillar in my own sense of self. The evidence that I was a good person.

Now I wonder if I’m just a coward.

The idea of facing Shaw, of taking real action against him, terrifies me. I never stopped having nightmares of the night he grabbed me. I’ve never felt more afraid than when his bull-like body hurtled toward me, too fast to run or even to scream before he hit me so hard it felt like my head exploded.

This time, Cole will be with me.

But even Cole isn’t looking forward to the battle with Shaw. He knows better than I the level of Shaw’s brutality and cunning. It won’t be easy to catch him off guard.

If I do nothing, as surely as the sun rises, I’ll see another article about a murdered girl.

“Cole,” I say, breaking the still silence.

Immediately he replies, “Yes?”

“We have to kill Shaw.”

He lets out a small breath of air that might be amusement.

“I know that. I’ve known it all along. You’re finally catching up.”

“Well, I’m here now. How do we do it?”

“You’re not ready yet.”

This is so infuriating that I roll over in a huff, leaning on my elbow, trying to make out his expression in the dark.

“What are you talking about?”

“If you’re agreeing that we need to do this, then you’re going to help me. We have the best chance of success working together. But you’re not ready.”

This is outrageous. I’ve finally agreed to do what he wants, and now he’s fucking with me.

“You think you’re going to train me? Like fucking Miyagi?”

“I’m going to prepare you.”

I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. And I’m not sure I want to find out.

“We don’t have time for that! Shaw’s going to kill another girl. Or me!” I say, hoping that will spur him along.

Cole lets out a sigh.

“You are thinking in normal-person terms. That is not how Shaw or I think. Our time horizon is infinite. Now that the element of surprise is gone, he doesn’t care if it takes a week, a month, or twenty years to destroy me. In fact, he would prefer to prolong it. He enjoys the game, that’s the entire point …”

It gives me a chill realizing that while Cole and I are coming to understand each other, it is still Shaw with whom he shares the most similarity of mind.

“I don’t want to watch the bodies stack up,” I tell Cole. “We have to do something.”

“We will,” Cole assures me. “Very soon.”





My show takes place two weeks before Christmas.

It’s the first time my art will be displayed all on its own, unable to hide amongst other paintings.

I feel the sickest sense of dread as Cole and I drive to the gallery in Laurel Heights, wondering what will happen if no one attends.

I once saw an author sitting alone at a table in Costco with a towering stack of books, and not a single person interested in having one signed. Her look of hopeful anticipation as I approached, followed by crushing disappointment as I walked past, is still one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.

I don’t want to be that author.

“Don’t worry,” Cole says, squeezing my thigh as he turns the wheel with his other hand. “These things are always packed. Especially when I hire even better caterers than Betsy, with enough champagne to drown a horse.”