Page 64 of So Wicked

“See you on the other side, Detective.”

Slade walked to his car and pulled out of the parking lot. Faith gave him a wave before starting the engine and pulling out in the opposite direction.

The other shoe would drop soon enough. The people who wanted things to stay the way they were would be very unhappy with Faith’s refusal to accept things the way they were, and that would result in consequences, possibly severe ones. Tabitha was confident that they had prevented Faith’s psych evaluation from becoming a thorn in their side, but there was that slim chance that things could go very wrong and Faith’s greatest adversary could be released to plague her again.

But for now, Faith was content. More importantly, she was proud of herself. Once more, she faced adversity that seemed insurmountable, and once more, she overcame that adversity and did the right thing regardless of the risk. As long as she could do that, she’d be all right. And if West did rear his ugly head again, she’d be ready to put it right back where it belonged.

Turk laid his head on the center console, and Faith scratched him behind his ears. “On to new adventures. You ready boy?”

Turk barked, and Faith laughed and looked toward the horizon and whatever lay on the other side.

EPILOGUE

“You have fifteen minutes,” Jorge said quietly as he led Michael through the ward toward the meeting room where he would talk to the most prolific serial killer since John Wayne Gacy.

“What happened to thirty.”

“Screw you is what happened,” Jorge said curtly. “We are even after this, Michael. Have I made that clear?”

“Abundantly,” Michael said. “Relax. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You mean besides having the case thrown out?”

“They won’t do that. I’ll record the whole conversation, and—”

Jorge stopped so quickly his shoes squeaked. “Excuse me? You sure as fuck will not.”

“Relax. I won’t share the recording with anyone. It’s a failsafe in case theydotry to claim I’m interfering. I’ll record it, and when people read it and see that we didn’t discuss West’s case, it will fall through. Worst case, he’ll get a new trial, but he’ll stay in custody until then.”

“Yeah, and my career will be ruined.”

Michael held his gaze. “Your career would have been ruined years ago if it weren’t for me.”

“Yourcareer will be ruined too, dipshit.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

Jorge stared at him for a moment before sighing and shaking his head. “Fifteen minutes.”

He pressed a button on the wall, and the door opened to reveal an interview table with a chair in front of it. On the other side was another chair. In that chair sat the man who had once been married to Michael’s wife, the man whohad psychologically and on a few occasions physically tortured Michael’s partner, a man who had killed at least thirty-two people, and—according to Faith—possibly twice that many.

Franklin West looked through the door and smiled. “Ah. What a pleasant surprise. Not as pleasant as the surprise I hoped for, but still pleasant. Won’t you come in, Special Agent?”

Michael’s hands curled into fists. He reminded himself that he was here for a reason and forced them to uncurl.

Then he stepped inside the room. West was shackled at his ankles and wrists, but Michael still felt like a mouse stuck in a room with a cat. West’s unblinking stare and piercing blue eyes exacerbated that image, and Michael had to stifle a shiver as he took his seat.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” West said. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Trust me, it’s not a pleasure,” Michael countered.

“Oh, but it is to me. I found Faith to be the more interesting of the two of you, but it wasyourbullet that ended Jethro Trammell’s life.”

“Right. I forgot that you think Trammell is God.”

“That depends on your threshold for deification. Perhaps he wasn’t an old man with a white beard who shot lightning from his fingers and breathed life into dirt. But for those precious minutes, when his victims were in his grasp, utterly helpless, unable to do anything but experience the pain he gave to them, hewasGod. To Faith, when she realized that not even her own mind, not even herspiritwas free of his control, Jethro Trammell was God. And for a brief time, so was I.”

Michael’s upper lip curled. “You were never her ‘God.’ You were a psychopath who hurt her, but you never came close to breaking her. Neither did Trammell. He came close to killing her, but not breaking her. A few weeks in a hospital, and she was back on the street putting assholes like you where they belong.”

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