Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck #3)(15)

She wipes away another tear, then sucks in a sharp breath.

“Then let’s hope it keeps you sane enough to finish without hurting anyone who doesn’t deserve to be hurt. I don’t know if I can handle more guilt.”

I start to leave, then turn back to face her. “You tried to tell people when you were a child. Those people failed you. They failed those kids, and they warped your young, impressionable mind into believing you made it all up. Everything that has happened since then is not your fault. It’s on them. They may not deserve to die for their failures the way he deserved worse than death, but they do deserve to bear that guilt. Call your mother. Give her the burden to bear. Call that therapist, give her all the nasty details of his sins. Call the police station that ignored the cries of a child in pain. Only they deserve the weight of that failure. Not you.”

She sucks in a breath as I turn to leave.

“How’d you get that big bastard out of the basement and up that big-ass hill?”

The question is so random that it makes me smile. “I’m stronger than I look,” I say, looking over my shoulder. “But it wasn’t fucking easy.”

Her brittle smile toward the morbid humor is almost like a peace treaty. We’re not going to be besties or anything, but we have an understanding.

“Tell Logan I’ll be there in five,” she says as I walk out.

As soon as I’m out the door, I text Jake.



ME: Calling in twenty. We need to adjust our timeframes. I have some catching up to do.





Chapter 6


To do a great right, do a little wrong.

—William Shakespeare



LOGAN



We can barely stay in the cellar, because the air is perfumed with the scent of two rotting corpses.

“He’s getting bolder by killing them two at a time,” Elise says, gagging even as she soaks in the clean air from above. “Escalating his torture by making them watch each other.”

The bodies are already gone, since they cut them down from the chains once we arrived and saw the scene. But it’s still toxic down there. Hadley is with the coroner, possibly carrying around a garbage can to puke in.

The stench is overwhelming.

“All the other’s he’s left in their homes to be discovered quickly. Why the shift? It’s a risk to kidnap one and drive them all the way from New York to West Virginia,” Leonard says, battling his own nausea.

It’s hard to take in the scene down there, considering it needs to air out for several days before it’s tolerable.

“He’s chasing his endgame, but it’s obvious these two really pissed him off. Yet there were still no signs of rage,” I say absently.

Hadley’s name flashes on my screen, and I answer the phone, putting it on speaker.

“What do you have?” I ask her.

“Well, their mouths were sewed shut, as you know, but when we opened them, we found the missing penises.”

Leonard gags and turns away, and my stomach roils as well.

“That’s…definitely an escalation,” Elise says, her leg in a brace and her arm in a sling as she struggles with the crutches, still refusing a wheelchair.

“That’s not the worst part,” Hadley goes on. “I took blood samples from their mouths, and…Tyler was O positive. Lawrence was AB positive. I found O positive blood in Lawrence’s mouth, and AB positive blood in Tyler’s.”

“Wait, hold up, are you telling me he sewed Tyler’s dick into Lawrence’s mouth, and vice versa?” Donny asks, turning an alarming shade of pale.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“I can’t tell if he’s evolving or devolving,” Elise gripes.

“He’s definitely suffering a psychotic break if he’s getting more stuck on the torture,” Leonard says with a grimace.

“No,” I say thoughtfully. “These two did something together that pissed the unsub off recently. We couldn’t find any footage of the unsub, but Tyler’s credit card showed a trip to New York recently. Maybe they met to discuss the deaths of the others, even though it hadn’t made the news. If the unsub followed them, maybe heard their conversation, it could have led to this double kill and extra layer of torture.”

“That’s still a psychotic break,” Donny argues.

“No, it’s not. There has yet to be any rage found with the overkill. The torture is punishment. It’s to prolong the deaths. This unsub is targeting the ones who wronged him, and he’s punishing them accordingly, at least in his mind. If they crossed a line, he’d punish them more severely than he’s been punishing the others.”

I pause, letting them soak that in as I get lost in my own thoughts.

“We need more info on that serial killer—Robert Evans,” I tell Donny.

Hadley makes a strangled sound, reminding me she’s still on the phone.

“You okay, Had?”

“Yep. Yep. Fine,” she says quickly.

“See what else you can get from the bodies. Email me the final report, but call me immediately if something else stands out.”

“Will do.”

She hangs up, and Donny frowns. “She’s acting weird.”

“Her stepfather abused her as a child, she was convinced it was all in her head, and other kids died after she ran away. Couple that with the fact she was almost a victim of Plemmons, and she has every right to be weird,” I remind him.