“You think you got me all figured out”—Stokes jerked at his manacles, causing the chains to rattle forebodingly yet again—“that you’re better than me, don’t you? But you’re not. You’re just like me.” His gaze narrowed with accusation. “The newspapers said you had their blood all over you. Felt good, didn’t it?”
“You don’t know me.” Carson’s wrath seethed dangerously close to the surface, the intensity increasing with each second, each breath. “Just like you didn’t know my family. So answer the damned question. Why ...my... family?”
“I could tell you something that would turn your fancy world upside down all over again.” Stokes reared his shoulders back, full of himself. “Guaranteed.But I think I’ll let you wonder. Keep that juicy little tidbit to myself for another decade or so.”
Panic hurtled through Carson, overpowering all else before he could quell the reaction. What could this monster know beyond what he had confessed? Nothing.Nothing.Just more of his baiting. Had to be.
Didn’t matter. Carson needed an answer. He couldn’t let Stokes go off on one of his power trips. There was only one way to prevent that—withdraw the significance. “Then I guess we have nothing else to talk about.”
When Carson would have turned away, the scumbag spoke again. “Wait, wait. You can’t really say for sure I did or didn’t have contact with your precious little family. That’s not even what’s bothering you.” Stokes laughed softly, revoltingly. “It’s the rings, ain’t it?”
Pain detonated along Carson’s nerve endings as more images burned his retinas. He blinked them away, snatched back his sinking authority. “You aren’t the first to include a new step or to skip one,” he countered, playing devil’s advocate with his own doubts as well as Stokes’s assertion. “Killers far more clever than you have deviated from their patterns on occasion.”
Stokes inclined his head left then right as if evaluating the implication. “Or maybe,” he proposed, “I just wanted something so I could remember your family. After all, they were so special. Way more than all the others. Especially that little sister of yours.”
Carson snapped. He went for the scumbag’s throat. His fingers gripped that disgusting flesh and instinctively locked like a vise.
Stokes grabbed Carson’s shirtfront, pulling him in rather than pushing him away. “Do it, you coward,” he dared. “Show ’em what you’re really made of!”
Carson’s brutal grasp tightened with anticipation. A surge of power rushed through him as the color of oxygen deprivation claimed Stokes’s pale complexion.Die, you bastard!
The door flew open, banged against the wall. “Mr. Tanner, step away from the prisoner,” the deputy ordered.
Carson couldn’t stop. He couldn’t let Stokes live. He’d thought he could. He’d intended to. But he couldn’t. He had to stop him ... to feel that throbbing pulse beneath his fingers slow to a dead stop before the scumbag slumped to the floor.
“Carson, back off!”
Wainwright’s command barely trickled past the cloak of retribution ... wasn’t nearly enough to stop Carson from doing what had to be done.
Hands were suddenly on his arms, peeling his fingers back, pulling him away from Stokes. Stokes gasped for air. Coughed. Too bad he didn’t choke to death.
“Get him out of here,” Wainwright shouted to the deputy.
The fury still roiled inside Carson, making him want to grab for Stokes again even as the deputy unlocked the tether securing the shackles to the floor and another rushed in to assist with the prisoner’s transport.
Stokes was going to Holman, the worst of the worst facilities in the state of Alabama, perhaps even the country. Carson had done his research; Stokes would spend the rest of his life wishing he were dead. He would never again have the opportunity to hurt another family.
And he would pay. How he would pay.
As Stokes was led past Carson, he stalled, refused to go a step farther. That detestable gaze locked with Carson’s. “Follow your instincts, Tanner. You know something ain’t right.” His lips screwed into that insane expression that bore no resemblance to a smile. “Ask yourself if you’ll ever really know what happened.”
“Get him out of here!” Wainwright commanded.
“Maybe you’re just like the others!” Stokes shouted as he fought to slow his removal from the room. “Tell me, Tanner, when didyoustop caring about the truth?”
Carson stared after the bastard, his heart threatening its confines. Thetruth.He had that now, didn’t he? But ... what if there was more? That same old doubt and uncertainty weighed down on his shoulders, tightened like a band around his chest.
“He’s toying with you, Carson,” Wainwright insisted, his tone, his expression laden with regret. “You know he likes to watch his prey twitch. Don’t let him get to you.”
Carson nodded, the solitary action stiff and jerky.
“Let it go,” Wainwright urged. “We both know his MO.”
Yes, Carson knew. But that didn’t change the fact that in this instance Stokes was right. Carson would never know with any degree of confidence what really happened.
There had been no witnesses ... no conclusive evidence ... just death. And questions.
Questions that remained unanswered.
