Page 41 of The Girl He Wanted

"Is that what you've been doing in Winterly?" Christopher asked. "Have you been killing people to show everyone the truth?"

"Now,youdon't understand!" Dr. Kostopoulos shouted, his eyes blazing. "It's about the power of the wind, the power of the elements! That was what I wrote, what I intended. Now, three deaths. There must be a fourth, and it must be me!"

Paige took another step forward, hoping to get close enough to grab him if necessary. "Dr. Kostopoulos, we need to take you into custody. We can help you, but you need to come away from the edge."

Dr. Kostopoulos looked at her, his eyes flickering with emotion. Paige could see the fear and desperation in them, as if he were battling with himself over what to do.

She decided to try a different approach. "Listen to me, Dr. Kostopoulos," she said. "We understand that you're in a very dark place right now, but you don't have to go through this alone. There are people who can help you."

Dr. Kostopoulos looked at her, his eyes flickering with emotion.

"No one can help me," he said. "I have to face the consequences of my actions. I have to make the final sacrifice. It's the only way. The only way to stop this."

Paige knew that she was running out of time. She had to do something, or he was going to jump.

“Dr. Kostopoulos, please," Paige said, taking a step closer. "You don't have to do this. We can help you. We can get you the help you need to understand what's been happening to you."

But it was too late. Dr. Kostopoulos took one more step back, off the edge of the roof, teetering for a second and then disappearing into the stormy night.

Paige lunged forward, her hand clamping onto Dr. Kostopoulos's wrist as she threw herself flat, her arm almost wrenched from its socket by the sudden weight of the falling man. She heard Christopher's surprised exclamation behind her, but she didn't have time to pay it any attention.

For a moment, the world was a blur of rain and wind as Paige struggled to hold on to Dr. Kostopoulos's flailing body. She could feel his weight dragging her towards the edge, the wind howling in her ears.

"Paige!" Christopher cried out, his strong arms wrapping around her, holding her in place as Paige struggled to hold Dr. Kostopoulos's weight.

"Grab onto something!" Paige called out to him. "Dr. Kostopoulos, you have to help me pull you back up!"

He didn't, though. Instead, he flailed, fighting against Paige's grip. Paige could feel that grip starting to fail, the rain making Kostopoulos slippery, so that he started to slide through her fingers a little at a time.

In a moment of panic, Paige started to slide towards the edge of the roof with Dr. Kostopoulos. She could feel the wind whipping at her hair and the rain pelting her skin. The sound of the storm was deafening, and she could barely hear Christopher screaming for her to hold on.

Paige was hanging onto Dr. Kostopoulos with all the strength she had. She could feel the weight of his body dragging her down, and she was struggling to hold on.

Then Dr. Kostopoulos slipped from Paige's grasp, tumbling down towards the ground with his arms and legs pinwheeling wildly. Paige couldn't look away, didn't have any time to do so, which meant that she had to watch the moment when Dr. Kostopoulos hit the ground, his body breaking and twisting with the impact that killed him.

Paige gasped even as Christopher pulled her back from the edge, arms wrapping around her, holding her close, forcing her to look away from the shattered body below.

"It's over, Paige," he said. "It's done."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Paige felt … lost. She and Christopher waited in the house for the coroner's people to arrive along with the local PD and forensics teams. Paige sat in Dr. Kostopoulos's study, shivering as she stared at his model of the Tower of the Winds with its intricate figures and its bloodstains.

"I could have saved him," she said. "Ishouldhave saved him."

Christopher reached out to touch her shoulder. He was sitting on the couch beside her, his arm around her shoulders. "It's not your fault," he said. "You did the best that you could."

"He died," Paige said, taking a deep shuddering breath. "He jumped off the roof, and he died."

"It's not your fault," Christopher repeated. "This is a man who killed three people, and he chose to kill himself rather than face justice for it. You heard him up there; he couldn't live with himself after everything he'd done."

Paige glanced up at him. "What if he was innocent?"

Christopher shook his head. "I don't think that he was innocent," he said. "I think that he was delusional. I think that he killed those people because of something he imagined in his book and then he felt like he had to keep killing until he got it right. But he wasn't right. His book wasn't right. And he died because he was so far into his delusion that he didn't know how to get out of it."

Christopher made it sound so easy, so simple, when for Paige, none of this was simple.

Christopher looked at his phone. "Detective Johnson and the others are downstairs. The coroner's people are taking the body. I'll go down to talk to them all. I'll get forensics to come up here to test the bloodstains on the tower model. Once we get confirmation that the stains belong to the victims, we'll have enough to call this case closed. But Sauer will want a report on what happened up on the roof."

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