Page 59 of Two for Joy

“What?” Romeo asked. “Tell me, what is it?”

“Third victim. The TV was left on, paused on the same movie you left us. The same grinning face. That didn’t make the news either. Our department knew about the dogs, the film, but they weren’t made public.”

“Stop.” Romeo said. “Just stop. Look. I’ll admit, I thought it could be Chad—”

“Bet that excited you.” Gareth muttered.

“It did, and it didn’t. I came to my senses, I looked into his big brown eyes, and knew it wasn’t him.”

“That’s not a good enough defense.”

“You really think Chad could strangle James? He’s double the size of him.”

“Xylazine was found in the victim’s blood samples. There were other injures made prior to strangulation. Bruising to the abdomen, the legs, and then on the third victim, more bruising, lesions, broken ribs.”

“He takes all his anger out on their helpless bodies before he kills them.” Gareth finished.

“How the hell can you think this is Chad?”

“Because he’s run. We went to talk to him tonight, and he’d taken off. Innocent people don’t run.”

The door opened, a woman walked in, Romeo recognized her as one of the other detectives that had worked on his case.

Kate.

Concealer Kate Romeo had nicknamed her in his head.

“You don’t seriously believe it’s Chad, too?”

Kate pressed her lips in a hard line, then leaned down to whisper in the DI’s ear. He nodded, then turned to Gareth.

“At least we know he can’t leave the country.”

“Good, they’ve got his passport.” Gareth muttered.

Romeo shot up from his chair, sending it flying. “Listen to me. It’s not him. Don’t turn on him like this.”

“It’s your fault.” Gareth said. “If you hadn’t have taken him, if you hadn’t of changed him.”

“But it’s not him.”

“I thought this would make you happy. You manipulating someone good to become bad.”

“No longer on different teams.” The DI said.

“This … you can’t be serious.”

“You send secret messages to each other. He had a picture of you and a magpie. He kept all the front pages. He sleeps on a mattress in his living room. He knew about the dogs.”

“He’d never kill a dog!”

“He won’t talk about what happened in the two months you had him. He visits you despite everyone telling him not to, and when I said someone should put you down, he attacked me.”

“I could’ve killed him, but I didn’t want to—”

“No, we saved him, and he repaid us by visiting you, then taking over from you.”

“I let him go free. Don’t turn your back on him, not when he’s struggling, not when he needs you the most.”

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