“We will catch him, and he’ll pay for what he’s done, and you will be the one to be congratulated for it. If not for you, the feds wouldn’t have the information they have now.”
We parked across the theater and exited the car, but Coop was ready and waiting.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Coop said.
“I have every right. What have you done recently? Not a damn thing from what I can see, so don’t try and tell me about what I’m entitled to and what I’m not.”
Once I’d said it, I actually felt bad. Coop was silent for a moment, which was rare for him. He’d worked just as hard on the case as I had the first time around and never even turned over one rock that gave him a solid lead on the killer.
Coop made a motion with his hand like he was trying to swat a fly in my direction and walked off. It wasn’t like him to back down from me, and a minute later I realized he hadn’t. The chief headed straight for me and said, “You know you shouldn’t be here, Sloane.”
“After everything that’s happened? You’re still going to keep me behind some ridiculous line like I’m a spectator?”
The chief gave a courtesy nod to Giovanni and said, “Mind if I borrow her a minute,” like I was some car at a rental agency and then he pulled me by the arm over to the side.
“Listen, we’ve been down this road many times before, and you know I need you to keep your distance so we can do our job. Now I know Giovanni has some magical muscle he seems to flex over his brother, and I’ve no doubt that he could get you in here, so I’m asking you to respect me here and not to push it.”
I opened my mouth to speak and he leaned in even closer and said, “Besides, I know Madison will get you down to her office the first chance she gets, and you can examine the bodies there.”
“It’s not the same as being able to search the scene.”
“We’re doing that,” the chief said.
“I meant, myself.”
“I’m aware of that. You need to trust me on this.”
I was stunned. In all our years together the chief had never asked me not to do anything. He told me and expected me to comply with any and all requests. It was in that moment that I realized the power I had with Giovanni by my side.
Maddie and her long platinum pigtails approached us from the side and said, “What’s up?”
Neither of us spoke.
“Well alright then,” she said, “I can see I’ve barged in on you two, so—”
She turned to go and I said, “Maddie, wait.”
I caught up to her. “The chief doesn’t want me close to the bodies.”
“Shocker.”
“Yeah, but there’s something else,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“He took the time to drag me aside and talk to me about it, and I detected something in his voice—it was like he was nervous, and that’s not like him.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know.”
“See what you can find out for me, okay?” I said.
“You got it.”
She leaned in close and whispered, “Meet me at my office in three and you can examine the bodies there.”
I watched Maddie cross over to the dark side, slip plastic gloves on her hands, and hunch over the bodies. Ten seconds later she was writing in a furious motion in her notebook and I was on my way out.
The look on Maddie’s face when I walked into her lab was that of a doctor preparing to give news to a family that their loved one had died.
“What is it?” I said.
“What?”
“Maddie, come on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? You haven’t looked this sad since you found out All My Children was going off the air.”
I could count on one hand the amount of times I’d seen Maddie forlorn over the years. Most of her life had been spent living in some blissful bubble no matter what happened around her.
“What have you found?” I said.
She shook her head.
“You’ll tell me sooner or later, so how about you just get whatever it is off your chest.”
“There was a note.”
“The same kind Sinnerman always leaves?” I said.
She nodded.
“What did it say?”
“Wade doesn’t want me to talk to you about it.”
“Screw what the chief wants. Since when have you ever let a man come between us?”
She backed up against the counter and sighed.
“It’s just that the note was for you.”
“That much I’ve gathered, and I appreciate the two of you being considerate of my feelings, but I don’t need protection right now, I need answers.”
She shrugged and said, “Fine. It said: Hello Sloane Monroe. See what you made me do?”
CHAPTER 50
“That’s it?” I said. “The whole thing?”
Maddie nodded.
“Alright.”
“Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I said.
“Turn around.”
I revolved around and looked at myself in the mirror behind me.
“What?”
“You’re gnawing away at the inside of your cheek, and you always do that when your anxiety gets the best of you.”
I stopped.
“I’m fine.”
I wanted to be fine and to shake off the sense that I was responsible for every murder Sinnerman committed since they started again. I felt like I’d failed all of them. I had three years to produce the killer while everyone else sat idly by and did nothing, and I might as well have sat right along with them.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Maddie said.
“He can say whatever he likes. It just incites me to find him all the more. I’m ready to take a look at the bodies.”
We walked into the next room and my eyes focused in on one thing, and that was all it took—I was distracted. I picked up one of the silver tools from Maddie’s mess of a tray and suddenly had the urge to rearrange everything. I took the three shortest ones and placed them on the left and continued to sort by size until a hand reached in and slapped me on the wrist.
“Check your OCD at the door,” Maddie said. “You’re in my lab now, and I don’t need you making a mess of my tools.”
“Do you see how you have them arranged on here? I don’t know how you find anything.”
Maddie grabbed a random tool and angled it at me.
“Everything’s just the way I like it, so back off sister.”
“What have you found out so far?”
Maddie walked over to both women and stood between them.
“This one here with the S carved into her wrist went first and fast. He choked her out and then strangled her. I didn’t find any signs of a struggle, and she had no lacerations anywhere else on her body. It was like he picked her up, sedated and killed her in a hurry and then moved on to the next one.”
She turned to the second victim and said, “This one wasn’t so lucky.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“He took more time with her, and she was killed in a style similar to the other women. She had three lacerations on her left leg, and see this impression right under her upper arm?”
I nodded.
“It’s the shape and size of a thumb print, and it looks like he pressed it into her for some reason—hard.”
Maddie looked at both girls.
“There is one difference between these women and the others. Their hair is lighter than all the other vic’s.”
“That’s the first thing I noticed,” I said. “Maybe it was quantity and not quality he was after this time.”
“Both girls have been identified, and it turns out they knew each other. They were best friends.”