Sinnerman (3 page)

“I’m coming for you, you’re kidding me—right?”

“I hoped Maddie would keep that to herself,” I said.

He slid his hand into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open.

“I assume they haven’t run the paper yet since that girl was just here a few minutes ago,” he said. “One quick call and I can have it taken out.”

I shook my head and placed my hand over his phone and pushed it down.

“It stays,” I said.

“Are you trying to put a target on your back?”

“If that’s what it takes to get his attention, then yes,” I said.

“Even if that means you’d put yourself at risk?”

I sighed. He was in one of those moods where it didn’t matter what I said. He couldn’t be reasoned with, and it almost took more effort than it was worth to try.

“Maybe it would be best if we didn’t talk about this right now,” I said.

Nick walked over to me and placed both hands on the sides of my shoulders and looked me square in the eye.

“This guy is out there killing women, and he could be anyone. Hell, he could be your next door neighbor for all you know. We don’t even have any good leads yet. All you’re asking for is trouble.”

“I’m asking for justice, and I thought we both wanted that—for Gabby and all the other victims. This creep has gotten away with a slew of murders. He walks free while the women he murdered live in eternal unrest inside a coffin, knowing the man who killed them is still out there. They’ve been robbed, all of them, from the opportunity of a full life. And if I have even the slightest chance to catch the guy this time and send him straight to hell, I’m going to take it.”

“You shouldn’t be anywhere near this. You’re too emotional. Can’t you see that?”

“It’s too late for that,” I said. “I was involved from the moment he took Gabby from me.”

Nick shook his head.

“By the end of the week I bet we have a dozen guys on this, not to mention the FBI. That’s why it would be best for you to let us do our job.”

“Don’t you mean it would be better for you?” I said. “That’s what you believe, isn’t it? Just because you’re a detective doesn’t mean you have the right to make decisions for me.”

He grimaced and detached his hands from my shoulders and then walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal out of the cabinet and a glass. He poured himself a drink and took a nice long swig and then hammered it down on the counter. The glass made a ringing sound when it hit and a portion of the liquid flew up into the air and sloshed down on the counter. I wanted to say: I’m not cleaning that up, but I didn’t.

After a minute of silence where Nick downed the rest of his drink and I tried not to focus on the liquid that had spread in two directions and trickled like a diminutive stream toward the edge of my counter, he looked over at me and said, “I understand your feelings for the guy, or the lack thereof, and you have every right to hate him for what he’s done—no one disputes that. But if you go after him on your own, you’ll put yourself at risk and I can’t allow that.”

He couldn’t allow it?

“Maybe you should go,” I said.

“I just got here.”

I grabbed my keys off the counter.

“Then I’ll go. It’s been a long day. I need some time to think.”

He started to say something, but it was too late. I was already out the front door, and it had shut itself behind me. And for the first time in ten minutes I remembered what it felt like to breathe again.

In the years that had elapsed since Gabrielle’s death, not a single day went by when I didn’t think of her or him, whoever he was, and though I hated the fact that the killings had resumed, him being back on the prowl gave me the second chance I needed; once again he was within my grasp. The first time around I was too wrapped up in my emotions with the loss of Gabby to concentrate on catching her killer. I left it to the homicide unit to do that, and I thought they’d come through and find the piece of trash responsible for the brutal killings. But they didn’t, and I wasn’t about to let that happen again. Not this time.

I hopped out of bed and walked to the front door and opened it. The morning sun blasted its rays across my face, and I held my hand in front of my eyes to shield myself from it while I reached down with the other and retrieved the paper. I shut the front door and carried it to the kitchen. Lord Berkeley trotted past me and yawned and then went over to his water bowl and peered in. When he didn’t see what he wanted, he stuck one paw in the bowl and moved it back and forth which produced a sound like a quarter being dropped into a glass jar.

“Your mommy is going to be the talk of the town today,” I said to him.

He looked at me and then at his bowl and then back at me again. His only concern seemed to be whether what I just said had anything to do with him getting what he wanted, now. I gripped his bowl in my hand and topped it off and set it back down. He did a few spins to show his eternal gratitude and then buried his face in the bowl and savored his reward.

I made some tea and pulled the rubber band off the paper. It fell open, and the headline of the day was revealed for all to see in bold capital letters:

SISTER OF MURDER VICTIM GABRIELLE MONROE VOWS REVENGE!

It was a bit on the dramatic side, but the paper had done its job. The headline was followed by an article that chronicled the events in the order in which they happened three years earlier. The past had come back, and I’d been given a second chance. I leaned back in my chair and smiled. Ready, set—go.

The day was halfway gone when I walked through the double doors of the Park City Police Station. Rose looked up from the reception desk when I entered and grinned.

“Sloane, it’s great to see you. I’ve had you on my mind all day today.”

“Good to see you too,” I said.

“Are you doing okay?”

It had been less than eighty hours since Sinnerman’s latest victim was captured and killed, and the main thing on everyone’s mind was how I was dealing with it. I’d started to feel like a wounded puppy—but I put on a brave face and smiled because in the end, I knew they meant well.

“I’m just fine Rose,” I said. “I appreciate your concern. Is Coop around?”

She wrinkled her nose and made a face like a foul odor had just wafted into the building.

“For a smart girl, you sure like to take your chances,” she said.

I smiled.

“Is he here?”

She pointed in the direction of a side room which housed computers and the like.

“If you follow the scent of Old Spice you’ll smack right into him,” she said.

We both laughed, and I thanked her. She nodded with the crazed look still cemented on her face but said nothing.

Coop was alone when I snuck into the room, and his face was positioned about two inches away from the computer screen. He was eyeballing some photos of women, one of whom was my sister. I stood inside the doorway and knocked on the wall a few times to get his attention. He jerked his head up and swung it around and then pressed a button on the keyboard. The screen went black. He made a barely audible grunt noise and turned his head away from me.

“Nick’s not in here,” he said.

“Nice to see you too,” I said. “I’m not here for him.”

Coop and I had a history, and most of it wasn’t good. Earlier that year he’d come to my rescue and I thought we’d reached a turning point in our relationship, but it didn’t take long for things to get back to the usual snarky attitude we had for each other. He didn’t respect my line of work and therefore had little use for me. And no matter how hard I tried to be civilized, I never managed to get my foot in the door long enough to maintain a decent relationship with him either.

“What do you want?”

“I think you know,” I said.

He shook his head back and forth.

“I can’t talk about the case and you know it, and even if I could, I wouldn’t talk to you about it,” he said. “Besides, you’re the big shot PI. Aren’t you supposed to be able to figure this stuff out on your own?”

Back when the killings first started, Coop was lead detective on the case, and I imagine he still lost sleep over the fact that he never caught the elusive Sinnerman. The guy was the only one I’d ever heard of who’d slipped through Coop’s elongated fingers. And even though he pretended not to care a stitch about me, I was sure he felt he’d let me down. My sister’s killer was still out there, and he could have stopped him, and not only had he failed in his mind, now he had to deal with an even harsher reality: women were dying again. I never held it against him—the whole of the blame resided with one individual, Sinnerman himself, and there wasn’t anything anyone could have done. If there was one thing I knew about Coop it was that there wasn’t a detective on the planet who worked harder than he did.

“Has he made contact with you yet?” I said.

“What makes you think he will?”

“Because he did before. You were the only one he communicated with a few years ago. And I figured since he chose you the first time, there’s no reason he wouldn’t do it again.”

“Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t. What’s it to you?”

I started to wonder what the hell I was thinking trying to communicate to him at all.

The sound of papers shuffled behind me.

I circled around and saw Nick who had inhabited the space that surrounded the copy machine in the corner of the room. He had a stack of papers in his hand, like he needed to make some copies, but he didn’t—he just stood there. “What are you two talking about?” he said.

“Nothing,” Coop and I both said in unison.

“If that’s true, there’s no need to stop just because I’m here.”

The interesting thing about his comment was that I had a hunch Nick saw me enter the room and found a reason to come in after me so he would know what I was up to.

Coop stood up from his chair. “She was just leaving,” he said.

Coop had the height of a basketball player and was the size of a pro wrestler, which wasn’t bad for someone old enough to be my father.

“I wasn’t finished with my questions,” I said.

“I was,” Coop said, and he exited the room.

“What did you think you were going to get out of him by coming here?” Nick said.

“Has Sinnerman communicated with him yet?”

“I’m not talking to you about that,” Nick said.

“So we’re just going to act like none of this is happening, is that it?”

“If it keeps you safe, yes. The less you know, the better.”

“There isn’t a thing you can do to keep me away from this,” I said.

Nick wadded up the papers and threw them across the room. They collided with the wall and single sheets fluttered through the air. I wasn’t sure what he was going for, but I assumed it was dramatic effect.

“If you want to nose around I can’t stop you,” he said, “but you won’t get any information out of me—not now, not ever. I meant what I said last night. I don’t want you involved in this, and if that means you’re mad at me, I guess that’s how it is. And don’t bother going to anyone else around here because they won’t talk to you either.”

I wasn’t mad, I was disappointed. It had only been a few months since we moved in together as a couple after he insisted we take our relationship to the next level or it was over, and we were doing fine until he decided to get involved with the cases I took. No case was simple enough that Nick didn’t discourage me from taking it, and the constant bickering about what I was doing and where I was going all the time had taken its toll on me. For us to work I needed him to support me and not micromanage my every move. I was beginning to think that wasn’t possible.

Nick seemed aware that I was in deep contemplation, and he walked over and slung his arm around my back and rested his hand on the edge of my shoulder.

“This is for the best, Sloane,” he said. “It really is. You might not see that now, but you will, and then you’ll thank me for it.”

I doubted that.

I shrugged him off and walked out and exited the police station. Halfway to my car I picked up my cell phone and pressed number two on my speed dial.

“Maddie, it’s me. Can you break for lunch? I need you.”

She popped a bubble into the phone and laughed.

“Sure thing,” she said. “Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there.”

I reached my car and my eyes flashed on a piece of pastel pink paper that was creased in half under my windshield wiper. I leaned over the hood and grabbed it. My first instinct was that it was an advert of some sort and someone thought this was a good way to hock their wares. I was about to crunch it up in my hand when I noticed it wasn’t what I thought at all.

“Hold on a second Maddie,” I said.

“Alright, but make it quick. The little girl’s room is calling my name.”

I situated my keys and my phone on top of my car and slid the note open. A series of words in all caps was scrawled in a diagonal pattern across the page in red pen that slanted upward from left to right on three lines: HELLO SLOANE MONROE

SINNERMAN HERE

LET’S PLAY

My stomach lurched, and I felt like I’d eaten a bowl full of rocks for breakfast followed by a large glass of milk that had gone sour. I dropped to my knees and squatted next to my car while I pivoted around and canvassed the area, but I saw no one. No cars out of place and no people, anywhere.

I took my phone in my hand.

“Maddie, are you still there?” I said, in a whisper.

“Sure am. You gonna tell me what’s going on, or what?”

“I need to call you back.”

I folded the note and tucked it inside my bag and wondered if Sinnerman was off somewhere not far away with his eyes held fast on me at that very moment. If he was, I didn’t want him to sense the twisted knot that wrenched my insides. I slung my bag over my shoulder and fought off the urge to race back to the police station. Just put one foot in front of the other and take it slow, I told myself, and breathe. You can do this.