Page 60 of Two for Joy

The DI stood up. “We need to get him into custody, then we’ll go from there. Thank you for your time.”

“Enjoy the rest of it.” Gareth said, then followed Kate and the DI out the door.

“You’re wrong about him!”

Chapter Eleven

Romeo stared at the bare wall by his bed. The Canster Times front pages were gone. They’d removed Chad’s face from his cell, taken him away.

“Hey, what the hell was that about?” Will asked.

“There’s a new countdown killer.”

“What, really?”

He started to pace, the tiny, unsatisfying few meters that were his cell, his cage.

“And they’ve decided it’s Chad.”

“Chad? As in the one you took, your Chad?”

“Yes, my Chad.”

“How the hell did they come to that conclusion?”

Romeo exhaled heavily from his nose. “Because they don’t understand him. Because they’ve put a load of so-called evidence together to support he’s the killer. Because people are stupid, and they believe what they want to believe, hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see.”

“Wait, they want him to be a killer?”

“In their stupid little minds, it would explain his behavior. Like he told me, people fear what they don’t understand. They think they’ve solved the puzzle that is Chad. They don’t get it though. Chad’s supposed to have jagged edges, missing pieces, that’s how we fit together so perfectly, but they’ve took his broken parts, forced them together, and made a picture of a monster.”

“Right…”

“They’re wrong.”

“Sorry, you’ve lost me.”

“And now they’ve made him run, and he needs me,” Romeo stopped by his bars, tightening his hands around them. “But I can’t get out. I’m stuck in here, and I can’t do anything.”

“Tell me about it, I was just thinking—”

“Shut up, Will, your job’s to listen right now.”

“Noted.”

“But if the killer’s not Chad, and he never told anyone, then how does the copycat know about the magpie.”

“What’s with you an magpies, huh?”

Romeo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You and those dreams you have, shouting Chad’s name and rambling about magpies.”

Romeo’s heart missed a beat. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“What?”

“Will…”

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