I nod, pick up the cases, and follow her into the dining room.
“Tatiana! I’m so glad you could make it,” Carolina grabs a laptop bag. “Holy crap! What’s in here? Rocks?”
“I wasn’t sure what I’d need, so I brought a few extra goodies,” Tatiana huffs as she plops down in a chair. “What in tarnation have y’all gotten into? Has something happened with that weasel Carolina used to date?”
“As I said on the phone,” I set the cases on the table. “We’re going to need some tech for an impromptu takedown.”
Tatiana claps her hands together, then opens the laptop. A few minutes later, we have a mini-command center in the dining room.
“What is all this stuff?” Carolina’s eyes go wide as she takes in the not-quite-ready-for-commercial-use technology sitting on the table.
“Just a few toys that will help us capture a possible serial killer,” Tatiana shrugs. “I brought sat phones, tracking devices, long-range bugs, a parabolic mic, and that’s just the hardware.”
Tatiana reaches for my phone. “I’ll install trackers on your phones that keep transmitting, even if they’re turned off.”
“Don’t these phones already do that?” Carolina hands over her phone.
“Sometimes,” Tatiana nods. “Depends on the device and the operating system.”
“What’s the plan here?” Carolina pokes me in the arm.
I glance at Tatiana, who’s bent over our phones and lost in her hacker world. “Tatiana will set up the technology. You and I will get Dash to confess.”
“Well, since it’s that easy,” Carolina mocks me.
“I know it won’t be easy,” I begin to pace. “If what we think has happened, he’s been doing this since high school. All of the deaths look like accidents. So, he might be complacent, thinking he’s gotten away with it.”
“What do you want me to ask him? Hey, Dash - remember those guys I dated after you raped me? Did you by chance kill them?”
A shocked gasp startles me.Shit. I forgot Tatiana was sitting right beside us.
“Rape?” Tatiana whispers.
Carolina sighs. “Yes. Dash Malum raped me in college.”
I wrap my arm around Carolina’s waist and pull her closer.
“It’s okay, Rand,” Carolina pats my chest. “I need to talk about it. Tatiana needs to know the type of dickhead we’re up against here. He got away with that, too.”
I grunt. “He’s going to pay for that.”
She shrugs. “It’s past the statute of limitations. And there’s no way of proving he did that to me.”
“If he did it to you, he might have done that to someone else,” Tatiana’s eyes narrow. “I did some digging since yesterday, and now some of his former girlfriends’ complaints make sense.”
She pulls up the social media feed of a woman who dated Dash for what looks like six months. At the six-month mark, her posts go from being “in love” to shit-talking men.
Another woman became an advocate for the Center for Violence Prevention.
The list goes on and on.
“How does he keep getting away with this?” Carolina fumes. “I was a dumbass in college when this happened. But these women are older and should know better.”
Tatiana grabs Carolina’s hand. “Listen, darlin. Dash is lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut! He’s a sneaky sonofabitch. These guys come out of the gate like Mr. Perfect - with all the right actions and words. But it’s a ruse. It’s a facade. Something they cannot keep up for a long period of time. They slowly begin to show their true selves to the women they’re dating. It might just be a little jealousy here or angry at a non-returned text or call there. But over time, it builds until they’re knocking the shit out of their women. And the women are too afraid to go to the police or tell anyone. Because who would believe these good-looking assholes are abusers?”
Carolina sinks into a chair. “That’s about right. Not even my parents would believe Dash abused me.”
I kneel next to her. “Yes, they would, puffin. They love you. They know your heart. They know you wouldn’t make something like this up.”
