Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(86)

“Hart, a Texan native and former New York resident, had a long history of involvement in organized crime. Aged fifty-four, he’d served three prison sentences for a number of offences, including armed robbery, fraud and rape. In total, Hart had been incarcerated for over twenty two years. Agents are still working to determine his connection to the victims of his Blood Honey ritual killings. They hope to discover his motives, and to bring the families affected a sense of closure and peace.

“Detective Luke Posner from New York Homicide has kindly agreed to answer our questions. Thank you for joining us, Detective.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”

“We have to ask the question on everyone’s lips: are police still making inquiries into Mr. Hart’s alleged connection to Aeron Lore? We know now that he was never a suspect, but that notorious email certainly spread some doubts.”

“Aeron Lore is in no way connected to Abel Hart. I can tell you that straight off the bat.”

“There’s certainly a resemblance between the men. I mean, we’ve all seen photos.”

“It happens. There are billions of people in the world, Miss Elliot; you’d be surprised.”

“Do we know who sent the email? How it came about in the first place? And do we think it had anything to do with Abel Hart?”

“Nothing at all. Judging by the stamps on Hart’s passports, he wasn’t even in the same country as the email’s ISP address. This is a classic case of public interference in order to create panic. It won’t be tolerated. We’re working with the embassies involved to locate the sender of the email, and they will be dealt with accordingly.”

“And what about Hart’s motives? This is what we’re all desperate to understand, Detective—it doesn’t even seem like he’d previously committed similar crimes. He abused women in a horrific and intimate fashion; why?”

“Hart’s motives were likely very personal to him. I hate to say it, but now that he’s dead, it’s possible that we’ll never know.”





EPILOGUE





FIVE MONTHS LATER


Leontine




Cloverville Hospital, NYC



Turns out serial killers aren’t so hot on birth control.

Funny; the last thing on my mind in that ramshackle little water villa was did you bring my pill box, Mr. Wolf?

The nurse, who has freckles and thick blond eyelashes, guides the ultrasound wand across the soft curve of my belly. The jelly she applied is cool and slick; in front of us, an image forms on the screen in black and burning blue: a bruise with a heartbeat. A tiny, perfect skull.

“That’s the head,” she announces with a warm smile. “And the hands…one, two—can you see? I do believe baby’s waving.”

Beside me, Aeron shuffles in his plastic seat. Heat climbs his cheeks in clouds of pink, and he takes my hand between his cool palms, squeezing.

“I’m just going to take some measurements,” she murmurs, flicking swift fingertips across the screen. “Do you have the date of conception with you, Miss Reeves?”

I lower my eyes. “It’s on my paperwork. I think it’s on your desk—”

“February nineteenth,” Aeron supplies in a curt voice. “We think.”

When the sickness started, at first, my doctors put it down to PTSD. I agreed with them. I lied. I knew full well that I hadn’t taken a birth control pill since the night before our abduction, but just for a while, I needed solace from the truth. Aeron was trying to save his company; we were all busy trying to save each other. Another little brain didn’t quite fit that equation.

Aeron came home one evening, spotted pregnancy symptoms in the search bar of my Google home page, and promptly went back out for a test. The following day, a sonographer confirmed that I was nine weeks and three days pregnant. I don’t know who counted on the calendar first—me, or Aeron—but when we landed on the suggested conception date, we both knew the baby wasn’t his.

I cried harder than he did. It’s important that you know that, important that I remember.

Of course, the doctors explained these dates can be wrong sometimes. A couple days earlier and things would be so different, but then a couple of days earlier, I’d been merrily popping my pills. I’m responsible like that.

Or I was, until Abel Hart.

“Nineteenth…” The nurse draws lines on the screen with her fingers. “Uh-hhuh. Looks accurate to me. Keeps you at twenty-two-plus-four.”

Silence.

Cold serpents writhe beneath my breast bone. I don’t know what’s worse; that the rape is still inside me, still growing like a cancer, or that I love it anyway. It. Him or her. They’re hollowing me out from the inside. I have a habit of doing this, loving the things that hurt me most.

Aeron gives my hand another squeeze. “Seventeen weeks to go.”

The nurse clicks her tongue against her teeth. “It’ll be over before you know it. Do you want to find out the sex?”

“No,” I say.

“Yes,” Aeron corrects. “Yes, we do.”

She laughs. “Miss Reeves? What’s the verdict?”

The fluorescent hospital light bleeds into my vision. I put a hand up to rub at my tired, stinging eyes; I’ve suffered with headaches these past months. “Ah…okay. Go on then.”