Page 51 of The Hunted
“We’re going to make it out of here so they can’t hurt us anymore.”
Saint nodded again and pointed down the road to their freedom. There was a smile on his face. It was wonky and off-center, like he wasn’t used to moving his lips like that.
“Yes, freedom is there. We just need to burn this place and everyone in it to the ground.”
“Do you need a ride?” The local officer nudged them. There was a black SUV waiting for them to be taken back to town. The teenagers had already left and the Reaper should have gone with them, but they couldn’t peel themselves away from Santino.
The Reaper nodded and climbed into the enclosed space with the officer. The need to choke the life out of him made them sit on their hands as they drove back into town. It wouldn’t do them any good if they offed the cop.
“Where to?” The officer looked in the rearview mirror, a friendly smile on his lips that made the Reaper’s skin crawl.
Can’t kill him. It’ll ruin everything.
“You can drop me off at Finewear. I need to pick up some HomeGoods stuff.” The Reaper leaned back in the seat and slowed their breathing down. Finewear was close enough that this ride would be short and lessen the temptation to bash the cop’s head in. It was also far enough that the walk back to their own car would help cool the burning sensations coursing through their skin.
Steady, we’re almost at the end.
ChapterTwenty-Two
“Who called this in?” Martin’s voice pulled Santino back to the present. This memory had nagged at something in the back of his mind.
Who did I leave behind?
“A bunch of teens that weren’t too thrilled to have their hangover ruined,” Santino mumbled, trying to pull up the images of the little kids that had been popping into his mind at the most inconvenient time.
Had those been his memories?
“They’re still here?” Martin asked. Santino shook his head. He hadn’t been worried about the kids seeing him. From what the local PD officer he talked to said, they had seemed more out of sorts than coherent. They stumbled on the body when they were heading out.
This fair was perfect in its decay. People hiding in plain sight and they could come and go as they pleased.
“They have time of death?” Martin seemed full of questions this morning.
“Not exact. They believe sometime late last night.” Santino’s voice didn’t sound like it had come from him. He kept his gaze locked on his partner as he stared at the body. The coroner was getting ready to move it, but Martin had asked for another look. He zeroed in on the staple still embedded in her skin and the fragments of paper that should have been left behind.
“I know her and you do too,” Martin whispered, nodding to an officer who covered the body again. “That’s Denise Miller, the attorney. Wasn’t she the one who got Marcus Holding off?”
Santino shook his head, a little surprised at how quickly his partner was putting things together. Denise wasn’t connected to Marcus or Chester, but there were others on Santino’s list that she had helped escape justice. He didn’t need Martin drawing the connection. It would make things harder for him.
But maybe it’ll tie up the Reaper? But do I want that right now?
Martin continued to try and put puzzle pieces together to paint the perfect picture. They both walked back out toward the entrance of the fair, staying out of the way of the news camera. Santino wanted to find the Reaper, expose them before they could expose him. He hated playing a game he didn’t know the rules to, but he could begrudgingly admit he was enjoying himself.
It wasn’t that he was getting complacent. It was boredom. A part of that had to do with sticking to his list and never straying from it. The world was ever changing and there was always a chance to get caught, but playing with the Reaper had renewed him, given him life. Even if they pissed him off by stealing his marks.
“If this is the Poet as were the other kills, what’s the connection? Isn’t this a little fast in between kills?” Martin’s gaze glanced his way. “I thought serial killers had a cooling off period. If we’re accounting for the first three vics and now Miller that’s what?”
Technically a week in between the first two kills, but the time period was getting shorter in between each, which would make the so-called Poet a spree killer and not a serial. But Miller belonged to Alvarez not the so-called Poet.
“That makes it time for us to find them before they grab someone again or cool off to the point they disappear into the wind.” It was what Santino would do. He couldn’t disappear with his job, not the way his guardian had taught him to. So he improvised, changing his technique and evolving to suit his needs to keep the gnawing in his stomach at a level that kept him intelligent enough to stay under the radar.
“Them?” Martin cocked his head. “Why not him? You don’t think a man did this?” He waved his hand behind them to where Denise Miller’s corpse was being loaded into the back of a van. There was no fanfare. It was like loading groceries into a car, and if he knew his mark as thoroughly as his research suggested, he knew there wouldn’t be anyone to bury the body and mourn the loss.
Thirty-three years on this Earth, and it was over with the snap of his fingers. He remembered her terror in the end, remembered the regret flashing in her eyes that she ran out of time. He found himself wondering if she would have lived her life any differently had she’d known what was coming for her.
Would she still have spent countless nights alone, pouring over work documents instead of finding love or reconnecting with the half-sibling that was birthed from an affair?
Probably not.
