“Yeah,” she sighed, pulling her phone over to her to order from the app. “But at least I’m not out there killing men.”
I glared at her briefly before we both laughed at the simplicity that was our relationship.
“At least get a veggie pizza if you are going to order out.”
“Oh, ugh,” she grunted. “It’s not pizza unless it’s dripping with oil and has pepperoni and loads of cheese.”
She laughed as I screwed up my face in disgust. How could she be my daughter?
How?
I waited for her to finish with her order and sat back in my chair, looking around the place she felt safe. I’d never felt safe, and there was a reason for that.
My life was forfeit, and it had been since the day I was born. This way, I can bring them down with me and save the innocent women they tortured daily.
Kane
I bent down over the body and looked at the simple stab wound in his side, and one wound where his heart would be. Tommy squatted beside me.
“Looks like the widow is back in town,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t look like her usual M.O.,” I replied, standing up and wishing I had been called to any crime scene other than this one. I didn’t think it was Maurelle’s work, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. I still had a job to do.
“At least she didn’t play house with this one, just knocked him off, dead.”
It meant she was back in town, and I didn’t like that. Tommy knew I still had the case on the back burner and was investigating when we didn’t have active cases, but it annoyed me that he was burying his nose in deeper.
“She’s back,” Tommy said, coming to stand next to me. “It means we can focus on the case full time now.”
“She’s not back,” I replied quickly. “She would have stuck around. She left him out in the open this time, not at all like her M.O.”
“What are you saying?”
“She’s leaving a message,” I told him.
“What’s that?”
“Look what I can do,” I said. “She’s showing us that she can do whatever she wants and stay out there.”
“Like hell,” Tommy said. “We’ll get her. She’s getting sloppy.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him, heading toward the car.
“Sal lifted prints off him,” Tommy told me, and immediately my heart began to beat faster. Maurelle didn’t make mistakes like that. It wasn’t hers.
“Do we have an ID on him?” I asked, feeling the panic rise in my throat.
“Ah yeah,” Tommy said, looking down at his notebook. “Claude Delaponte.”
“Delaponte?” I questioned, alarm bells ringing in my ear. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Yeah, some real estate developer,” he replied. “He has an ex-wife and a daughter. No word on a current wife though. I guess we better alert the family.”
“I got it,” I told him, heading toward my car. “You get to the precinct and find out what Sal has.”
He nodded, thankful he didn’t have to tell a family their loved one was dead. It was the hardest part of the job, but I had no intention of telling his ex-wife, I was making a beeline straight for Camille.
That last name was too unique to be a coincidence, and for the first time in a long time, I had a bad taste in my mouth.
