“Monica?” Luke paced to her side.
She shook her head and pitched her voice low. “The messages weren’t about me.” Blind. A rough laugh escaped her lips. “The killer’s been telling us, but I didn’t listen.” Her head turned and she found Luke watching her, eyes so intent. “The newspaper clippings, the bloody flower—it’s all pointing to Romeo.” Not her.
Hell, maybe she was some kind of sick side benefit. But all the other kills…“Like a damn tribute to him.”
He used fear to break them. Romeo hadn’t just killed his prey, he’d broken them first.
Just like the Watchman.
“What’s happenin’?” Davis asked, standing hesitantly behind them, the lines on his face thick. “Who’s gettin’ a tribute?”
“Romeo.” The name left a bad taste in her mouth and she swallowed quickly. “Sheriff, I want you to get the warden from Angola Prison on the line.”
His brows rose. “Now?”
“Now.” Her temples began to throb. Someone would be there, someone was always in the Angola office. “We need a log of every visitor that Romeo has had in the last two years.” That would be a start. They might have to go back even further.
But if she was right and the Watchman was in Jasper, killing here because of some sick homage to Romeo, then she’d bet the bastard had paid Romeo a visit.
He’d gone to hell, and he’d learned from the devil.
The victims were different, the kill methods so different, but that damn rose had been left for a reason. That clipping had been about Romeo.
And he knows me. The killer knew her secret, a secret Romeo could have shared with him.
Too many damn links to overlook—especially since they were playing this deadly game in Romeo’s old backyard.
A light rapping shook her door. Monica glanced up, expecting to see Luke. But the door opened and Davis was there.
“Uh, we need to talk….” He glanced back over his shoulder.
Okay. Monica eased back in her chair, her eyes narrowing when Davis shut the door and took a hesitant step forward. Not really the sheriff’s usual style. “Did you contact Angola?”
“Yeah, yeah.” His head bobbed up and down. “Me and the warden there, we go way back. Huntin’ buddies.”
Why wasn’t that surprising?
“I called him at home. He’s goin’ in, and he said he’d personally fax the logs to us.”
“Excellent.” Once they got a look at the names on that list, they might just get a handle on the bastard.
Would Jake Martin’s name be on that list? She was already planning another call to his office. She had questions that the sheriff would answer for her.
“There’s something you should know.” Davis’s shoulders straightened, and he met her stare directly. “My name’s gonna be on that log.”
What? But she didn’t say that. Instead she asked, “Why?”
“You know what he did, don’t you?” Not an answer. “To those girls, you know.”
“I do.” She knew better than anyone else.
“I had him in my town. I looked at him, and I swear…” He licked his lips. “I saw the evil in him. Just a kid, but I saw it.”
She pressed her hands flat against the desk top. “You had no idea what he’d grow up and become.”
A fast glance over his shoulder at the still closed door. “I’ve read all those fancy studies, too, you know. Animal mutilations in childhood—that’s how it always starts, right?”
Not always.
“The boy sliced his cat open. I knew he did it, but when the sheriff told me the case was over, I just let it go.” His jaw tightened. “The boy needed help then. Help I didn’t get him. If someone had just stepped in, if I had just stepped in, those girls might be alive today. They might have families.”
Her breath came a little too fast. “And what about Romeo? You think he would’ve had a family, too?” Can’t see him that way. Only see him covered in blood.
“Too late to know now. When I saw the pictures of those girls and I found out what he’d done, it made me sick. And trust me, ma’am, I’ve seen a lot of bad things in my life, but Romeo was in a class by himself.”
Yes. “Why did you go see him?” she asked again.
Another slow step toward her. “Because I had to know why. Why he did it. Why he took those girls. Was he crazy? Did he just not know what he was doing? Was he so far gone he didn’t understand it was wrong?”
Or had he done it just because he liked the sound of screams? She forced her hands to lift when her nails bit too deeply into the desk. “And what did he say?”
He inhaled on a hard rasp. “ ‘Because the bitches begged for it.’ ”
No, they begged him to stop, begged to go back home, but he just laughed. “He is sick, Sheriff. He’s a psychopath. He cares nothing for anyone else. He can’t care. He’s never felt guilt over his actions, and he won’t.” The words were clipped, cold, but the fury in her heart burned red hot. “He’s incapable of feeling guilt, just as he’s incapable of feeling empathy. When his victims screamed and pleaded with him, it did nothing. He just didn’t care.” She suspected that seeing the pain had been as close as he’d ever gotten to feeling anything.
Davis turned back toward the door. “Just wanted you to know. I needed to explain before you saw the file.”
“Sheriff!”
He froze with his hand on the door.
“You didn’t hurt those girls.” Me. “He did.”
He didn’t look back at her. “You ever wish you could change the past?”
“No point in it.” Why waste the time? “But I make sure I don’t repeat my mistakes. I make sure the future’s different.”
Davis looked over his shoulder.
“That’s all we can do,” she told him, and knew it was the truth.
The end game was coming. He paced around the cabin, the scent of pine filling his nose. It had been such a fun match, but the end was coming.
The end always had to come.
Romeo had told him that. In the end, the prey dies. Never leave a survivor, never.
Romeo’s mistake. He’d been weak. Left little Mary Jane because he’d thought she was special. Thought she was like him.
But Mary Jane couldn’t even come close to touching Romeo’s greatness. A pretender, that’s what she was. And he’d prove it. He’d finish what Romeo started.