“Not crazy, just not all there. Not aware of the line between wrong and right. It worked. He was found guilty but ordered to a mental facility. He was supposed to be there for years, but he showed such ‘great improvement—’” Vanian’s tone is sarcastic as he uses finger quotes. “—that they let him out in nine months. Nine fucking months, Nantes. He could go right back to what he was doing. I was monitoring the case, so when he got out, I started following him. One day, I tracked him to a park. It wasa gorgeous sunny day and there were kids laughing and playing without a care in the world, but at the edge of that playground, a predator lurked. He stood behind a bush and jacked off.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Something snapped in me. I waited for him to go back to his car and I shoved him inside. I got in with him and drove. I told him if he screamed I would blow his head off. I’d never felt as powerful as I did in that moment. Like I could actually help. I could fix it. I drove to a quiet alley. At first I think I meant to beat him up. Like a warning, you know?”
I nod.
“But I just let it all out on him. After all the years of listening to those stories, of watching the system fail those kids, it was like a blind fury. The next thing I know, he’s limp and choking on his own blood. I had bashed his head in against a brick building.” Vanian releases a shaky breath. “I watched him die.” He meets my gaze. “Instead of being horrified or upset or some other reasonable reaction to killing a man, I felt amazing. Empowered. Because of me, that man would never hurt another child. I did that.”
I have no idea what to say, so I sit in silence waiting for him to continue.
“Then my sense kicked in and I wiped his steering wheel down and the door handle, and even though I had his blood on my shirt, I simply walked away. I walked all the way back to my apartment, keeping my head down and not attracting attention. Once I got home, I stripped off and took a shower, and I waited, Nan, I waited for remorse or panic or fear, something, but it never came.”
“Then you decided you’d do it again?”
He shakes his head. “It was a long time before I did it again. I save it for the worst cases, for the situations where justice didn’t come. I got good at it—hunting them, stalking them, and makingmy move. It’s easier than you might think. These assholes are so desperate they fall for shit all the time. I don’t beat them up anymore. Sometimes I shoot them. Sometimes I strangle them or I cut their wrists and let them bleed out. At first, I considered sexually assaulting them, but I couldn’t bring myself to become what they are, not even for a good cause. I don’t drag it out anymore, but I do make sure they know why it’s happening. I want the last thought they have to be them realizing they didn’t get away with it.”
I am absolutely speechless.
“There’ve been six.” He sucks in a breath. “Seven. I came here to Madison to get out of Chicago for a while. I sort of fucked up.”
“How?”
“The guy I took out, he was the client at my office I told you about. There’s a new detective who suddenly cares about dying pedophiles when no one ever has. It’s too close to me.”
I rub my forehead, processing my reaction to this news. Finally, my brain realizes what I wanted to deny. “You’re a serial killer.”
He flinches like the words hurt. “I don’t really see it that way. It’s not like I kill randomly or pick targets based on some weird fetish or psychological problem. I don’t go after all of them. Just the ones the system fumbles.”
“You’re justifying murdering people.”
“They aren’t people,” he snarls. “They aren’t even animals. They are some gross aberrations of nature. The world is a better place without them in it.”
He’s got a point.
“How many times have we all had to sit back and listen to stories about the abuses of powerful people and watch them get away with it or get some lame performative judgment? How many kids sat in a church, a fucking church, Nantes, knowing they’d be abused before they went home? How manyof those kids watched their abuser be promoted, praised by the congregation, or simply, quietly transferred away so they could do it all again at a new church? ’Cause I can tell you, it’s a lot more than you even know. I’m not sorry.”
“I can see that.”
“Nantes, I told you because I want you to be part of my life again. In what capacity is to be discussed, but I haven’t been this happy in years. I was missing part of myself and didn’t even know it. But I couldn’t in good conscience mislead you into thinking I’m someone I’m not. You deserve to know it all.”
I scratch my head. “When you told me you were kind of obsessed with Alex Fetterman…”
He nods. “I want to hurt him. I drove to Minnesota today.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“He lives in Winona. It’s, like, two and a half hours from here. I went there to see him, to find out where he lives, and I wanted…” He shakes his head. “I want him to die.”
“Did you… kill him?”
“No. I stopped myself. It’s not my normal method, and I had to think of you.”
“Me? What do you mean?”
“I came here to have an alibi. To be out of Chicago. That’s why I went to my sister’s. Bumping into you was an unexpected benefit. I thought about the police somehow connecting me to it and them coming here and drawing negative attention to your family and business. That was enough to get me to back off.”
“I see.”
