“Must be. He seems to glorify them,” Cassel says, but they’re wrong. They’re very wrong. He didn’t kill a single one of these.
I reach out and start flipping the pages myself.
Dean Watkins, a serial rapist and murderer.
Martha Reynolds, a con artist whose actions resulted in the deaths of seven people over the span of one year.
I remember her sobbing, begging, telling me that it wasn’t her fault. It was never her fault.
Why did they always think it was okay to do what they did, but the moment it wastheirlives on the line, it wasn’t their fault?
Here is Moby Richardson, a man who knew that the chemicals in his company were causing cancer in his workers, but he was too cheap to do anything about it. He’d rather let people die than face the backlash of what he’d done. The person who paid for the hit was his own daughter, furious after her mother died working in his company.
It’s fascinating how depraved humans can be when it involves their own comfort.
“They’re not his kills,” I say as I close the album. It’s such a hefty book. “They’re mine.”
Jackson looks over at me in surprise. “What the hell is he… is he wanting to use them against you? Frame you?”
“I… I don’t think so,” I respond, opening it to the very first page. This one has a newspaper clipping protected behind a plastic sleeve, but even so, I can see the wear on it from someone touching it. The newspaper is back from when I was seventeen and I killed his father and the other men involved. “I think he’s been following me for a very long time. But why?”
“You killed his father who abused him… someone he was incapable of destroying. In his eyes, you accomplished the very thing he probably hoped he could do for many years. I think… I think he became obsessed with you—with the work you did. He did everything he could to be like you and then…” Cassel trails off.
“Then when he met me, I wasn’t the ruthless bastard I used to be, and he hates me for it,” I say. “Is that it? The thing is… I’m not even against killing. I’m not over here living a life of sainthood. He’s displeased simply when I do somethinghedoesn’t approve of.”
My phone beeps, and I look down at it and see that it’s a video call from an unknown number. I have to assume it’s him, so I accept it. He’s still wearing the ski mask, hiding his face from me, but does he really think that’ll protect him? He looks almost cocky as he sits at a desk in front of the camera, watching me with a grin on his face.
“Hello, Colby,” I say.
“Are you having fun, Mr. Sandman?” he asks as I notice him flicking something that’s sitting on the desk in front of him with a pen.
“What exactly is it that you want?” I ask. “You wanted me to destroy the Barlows and we’re well on our way to destroying them, but it’s not enough for you, is it?”
“No…Idestroyed them.Ihad to do your fucking work for you because you were a fucking goddamn coward!” he yells.
“Is that what it’s called when you don’t take risks? Being a coward?”
I hear a noise from behind him and he tilts his head back. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Is that Detective Patel?” I ask.
He tips the camera a bit so I can see her bound and gagged on the floor. “Smile at the camera,” he says in a taunting tone. Her eyes flick up to catch the camera, and even like this, she’s refusing to show fear. She’s going to be stubborn to the very last breath.
But let’s hope I can get to her before then.
He positions the camera back to how it was and this time, when he flicks whatever he has on the desk, I realize that it’s a fingernail. There are a few scattered across the desk that he’s fiddling with and likely came from the very nosy detective.
“So, I save you and your sister when you were children, and then this is what I get in return?” I ask.
“You didn’t fucking save us,” he shouts as he slams his hand down on the desk. “You taunted us with a better life and then you took my sister from me.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“No, worse, you took her from me. You turned her against me,” he says.
“Because she stayed with us? She was living on the street starving to death when you could have gotten her help. Instead, you set her out there to gain my attention, but why,Colby? Did you think we’d take pity on her and bring you both in with open arms? Lucas is a fucking monster; the last thing he’d do is welcome two strange children into his home. The only reason he ever let anyone through that door was to use them.”
“Yet he took in Sera. Why the fuck did he think she was worthy but not me? You really think my sister could have done all that I’ve done? Joke’s on you—I’ve accomplished greatness. I’m better than that asshole could have ever imagined. He missed out by not taking me in.”
