Page 88 of By the Time You Read This

Aquino also found that sadism plays a large role in someone seeking a vigilante identity. When morality is the justification for someone’s actions, people with sadistic tendencies can sate their need to deliver harm to others and be praised while doing so.

Other research suggests that a vigilante identity is associated with those who have a victim mentality. People who tend to perceive themselves as victims in their interpersonal relationships, are more likely to monitor and then try to control those around them.

Maybe Batman is the closest to getting it right. Bruce Wayne—weak, contemptible party boy—is portrayed as the mask, whereas Batman—brave, resilient, morally upstanding—is the real man. But, as research has proven, time and again, the opposite is more likely to be true.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Raisa

Day Four

Delaney drove to a Best Buy in Tacoma and walked out with a laptop-shaped bag.

Then she headed to a hole-in-the-wall bar.

St. Ivany and Raisa parked in a strip mall across the street.

“I’m going to go in,” St. Ivany said.

“What are you going to say?” Raisa asked.

“I’ll figure it out when I get in there.”

St. Ivany shrugged out of her blazer and ruffled her hair. It had already looked soft to start with, but whatever she’d done added some more shape to the cut. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then tossed Raisa the keys.

“In case you need them.” And with that, she got out of the SUV.

She was in there for a total of ten minutes, and Raisa counted every second that went by, wondering if they should have called in backup. At least this time, she had her gun.

Raisa had already climbed into the driver seat, so when the door opened and St. Ivany walked out, she was able to pick her up and peel out of the lot as quickly as possible.

“She was looking at a list of Isabel’s victims’ names,” St. Ivany said. “But judging from the photo of it, it looked ... handwritten. Like the letter you got from Isabel.”

Raisa wasn’t surprised. She’d assumed that her sisters had been communicating, through the Biggest Fan letters, of course, but through other means as well.

“I gave her my number,” St. Ivany said, looking ruffled for perhaps the first time since Raisa had met her. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I probably should have planned that better.”

Raisa laughed, though it came out a little hysterical. They really should have planned all this better. Delaney had thrown them into chaos when she’d grabbed that go-bag.

That had been a miscalculation on Raisa’s part.

“Do you guys have any evidence in Emily Logan’s case?” Raisa asked. She knew she should have studied it more by now. Maybe she would have seen an actual connection to Delaney, instead of just her brain constructing webs that were made of nothing but gut instincts.

“Nothing. It was incredibly clean,” St. Ivany said. “Weirdly so for such a violent death. It was why we wondered about the boyfriend, who works for the hospital.”

“Working around blood doesn’t mean he knows how to kill someone without leaving DNA behind,” Raisa pointed out.

“Yeah, but it helps.” St. Ivany was silent for a beat before asking, “Did we just drive away from Emily Logan’s killer?”

“He’s got the taste of blood now. It’s a tragedy, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”

There was a scenario here where Delaney had snapped completely. Isabel had told her to kill Peter and Lindsey and Emily and she’d simply followed orders. That didn’t match with the Delaney Raisa knew. That was a strange thought to have, considering how hard Raisa had been on her sister since they’d reunited. But here, facing downa possible situation where Delaney really was a cold-blooded killer, Raisa couldn’t see it.

If she had to guess, Delaney had been spotted near Peter’s house because Isabel had said her protégé was going to try to kill him. Same with Lindsey.

If that protégé had been Emily, did that mean Delaney had put her down, like a dog with the taste of blood?

Raisa didn’t answer St. Ivany’s question. She couldn’t. Instead, she pulled into another parking lot, this one a grocery store. She jerked her head toward St. Ivany’s phone. “Where is she?”

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