Page 64 of Overstaying His Welcome

“One and the same,” Cohen said sarcastically.

More curses came over the line. Stabler hated the Gilded Ones as much as the rest of us did.

Stabler calmed enough to speak again. “I’m going to skip over protocol this time because I can’t fucking deal with more of this shit. If my partner is your guy, or he somehow knows who it is, then I need to have a good reason to stop him. His leave is for a few days. Can we wrap this all up by then?”

“I fucking hope so,” Memphis declared.

Tank gripped the sides of his chair. “We’re going to find him, and we’re going to make him pay.”

“I’ll send the files over as soon as I can. Keep me updated on the case. I’ll need to know if we can close this out — meaning I’ll need a body. Remember that part, ok?”

The group grumbled some sort of noise as if to go along with his plan, though I doubted there will be much left to whoever is behind this. How can there be when we’re all empathizing with Tank’s loss?

CHAPTER 21

TANK

They’re gone.

I can’t believe they’re gone.

CHAPTER 22

TAKESHI

Tank losthimself to the grief of losing the Linds after the call with Stabler. It wasn’t an immediate thing we all noticed. More a slow slip into the darkness as the hours passed.

Archie signed to me, “Do you think he needs to go lay down? Maybe he’s tired?”

I shook my head. It wasn’t exhaustion that weighed on him so heavily.

“It’s more,” I replied. “The way the Linds spoke to him was different than anything he’s ever known, I think. To know they loved him so much they wanted to adopt him, to be reunited with them, and then have it taken is a lot. He never got the chance to spend more time with them. Any hope they had to reconnect further has been stolen.”

My husband nodded at the hand gestures, his brow furrowing even more. He didn’t have to say what he was thinking. We all felt it.

A burning anger.

A need for vengeance.

Pratt was a problem that needed handling. So were the Gilded Ones. I suspected it was all linked. The timeline was too damn convenient otherwise.

While I appreciated convenience — have you heard how I met my husband? — this wasn’t the good kind. Too much overlapped for it all not to be linked.

We just had to figure out how.

Stabler sent the files to Memphis, then we distributed them amongst the team to look everything over. Tank and Chance went to rest in the room down the hall at that point since we didn’t want Tank to get wind of how horrific the murders might have been.

Especially not since Stabler made it clear the style of murder was the connecting factor.

Based on the notes I read through, it was the only reason the director made the argument for it being a serial killer. Not a single other thing was the same.

Not the location where the bodies wound up or who the victims were. The drop sites were all over the country, ranging from rural towns to big cities.

There was literally no rhyme or reason to this madness.

“Any clues?” Orion asked as he set down his tablet and rubbed his eyes.

I shook my head as I scanned over the document before me. Archie was beside me, though he wasn’t focused on the screen I had. His gaze was locked on the images we had for Lune and Pratt. Both were up on the wall, their faces a permanent fixture in the room to motivate us to do more, to work harder.

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