Page 71 of Wicked Riddles & Bitter Heartbeats

“I don’t know,” he says with a shake of his head. “I—”

“Fucking useless,” I scoff, taking a step back and shaking my head.

“I don’t know because I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

Those words take a second to settle into my brain, but when they do, I stumble back. The air is knocked out of my lungs, but I manage to choke out, “What?”

He walks to me until we’re eye to eye, inches away “I’m like you, brother.”

“Like me…”

“I… hurt people.”

“No,” I breathe out. “No, you can’t.”

“I do,” he says firmly. And there is something in the way he says it that has me believing him. “It’s something I’ve been dealing with my entire life.”

“You’re a cop,” I growl.

“Why do youthinkI’m a cop?” he shouts. “It allows me freedoms I couldn’t otherwise get. I get away with shit. I… take advantage of what I’m allowed to do.”

“Prove it,” I grit out, moving until we’re nose to nose.

He blinks a few times, his eyes dark. “How? You want to kill someone together? Let’s go.”

The look in his eye tells me he’s serious, but he’s a cop. He’s good at pretending. He’s good at making people trust him and getting them to talk. Maybe he’s wearing a camera or a wire. Maybe he’s just doing this to get my confession or whatever evidence he can.

I take a slow breath, holding his gaze.

“No need,” I say calmly. “There’s already someone here.”

His eyes widen and he glances toward the open door just as a strong gust of wind blows.

“Take me to them.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Atticus

My brother and I move into the large room where Frank is strapped to the chair. His head is slouched forward, but his chest is moving.

Lilah is hiding, like I told her too. I’d rather my brother not know about her just yet, because it puts her at risk. This room is empty outside of one large piece of machinery in the far corner. Armed with Frank’s gun, she’s over there, waiting. She said she has some experience shooting guns, but she’s not great. Hopefully she’s good enough to kill someone if things go crooked and not hit me accidentally.

“This is Fr—”

“Frank Spencer,” my brother says.

“How do you know that?” I ask calmly, not wanting to give away how shocked I am that he knows him. This could be very bad… or possibly, really good.

Frank is in the FBI. He lives in Virginia. It was a shock to Lilah that he was in this area, since he swore he would never come back. Though, I suppose the conference in Hartford isn’t technically going back to Boston, even though a lot of people consider New England one big place.

“I’ve had my eye on him for a long time,” my brother says. I don’t miss the slight pitch of his voice.

He’s excited.

“Why?” I ask.

“My mother—our mother was not a smart woman. She would sell herself to get us a warm place to sleep or food. The men she chose weren’t nice and they didn’t always like legal-aged women. I saw many things over the years, and as I got older, my urges became harder to ignore. The first man I ever killed was some guy she was fucking for twenty bucks so we could get some groceries. He got what he paid for, but then he wanted more. Mom was… not great, but no means no. So, I killed him.”

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