Vincent sits back.“Red Hands, you mean.So your defense is ‘a serial killer did it’?”His voice is flat now, cold.“That’s weak, Crowe.Makes you seem desperate.”
“It’s not a defense.It’s a possibility you should investigate rather than immediately dismiss your best detective.”
“I am investigating.And right now, all the evidence points to you.”He taps the folders.“Red Hands has a pattern, a signature, and this doesn’t match.Serial killers don’t steal cars and frame detectives.They kill.That’s what they do.”
Silence stretches between us, long and heavy.We both know that we all have different facets to our personalities and traits.Including Red hands.Including Vincent.Including me.
Vincent stands and gathers his files while he eyes me closely.“Could it be, Detective, that you’re protecting someone?”
“I don’t protect criminals,” I say automatically.
The door pops open suddenly, and an officer barges in and whispers in Vincent’s ear.
“What thefuck?“ Vincent grinds his teeth together when the officer slips out again, and then without another word to me, he leaves.
The door closes.The lock clicks.
I sit alone in the silence, my mind racing.
I really only have one option:endure.
Let the system play out.Hope that my years of service, my record, and my reputation count for something.
But mostly, trust that Sera is smart enough to stay hidden even if I burn.
I’ll take the fall if I have to, I think, staring at my reflection in the two-way mirror.But I won’t give you to Vincent.
The door opens again, and it’s a uniformed officer I don’t recognize.
“You’re free to go,” he says.“For now.”
I stand, my joints stiff from hours in the bolted-down chair.As I’m escorted through the station, past colleagues who won’t meet my eyes, I see the Red Hands whiteboard.
Seven confirmed kills.Dozens of missing women in the area.No suspects.No arrests.
And somewhere out there, he’s still hunting.
Still circling Sera.
And I can’t protect her from behind bars.
Which means I’d better not end up there.
Chapter 17
Red Hands
Downinmybasement,I breathe deeply, filling my lungs with the architecture of my work.
I am not angry.
This surprises me.I examine the emotion carefully, turning it over like a specimen.When Sera turned back from her car toward her house, when her front door threw itself open, and the foundation shook hard enough to rattle my teeth, I should have felt horror at the very least, but mostly frustration.Failure stings most men into rage.
But I am not most men.
I am smiling.
The photographs spread across my worktable tell a new story now.Sera Vale, walking to her car.Sera Vale, unaware.I had cataloged her as victim.As prey wearing a thin disguise of purpose.A woman broken and poorly reassembled, waiting for someone with steady hands to finish the disassembly.
