“August asked him about that,” Kale argued. “He said he’d quit killing a long time ago, but the temptation overwhelmed him and he had to kill again. He changed his MO to try and make it look as if someone else committed the murders. He didn’t say a woman, but that could have been his ultimate intent.”
Sarah wasn’t buying it.
“What blows me away,” Kale went on, “is that he had all that stuff, the tools he used to kill those people, the clothes he wore—all of it—right there in the storage unit. Like a macabre museum. That’s sick.”
666.
The code for his storage unit.
He’s the devil. He uses people sometimes as an angel of light to mislead ...
The unexplained pieces fell into place, and suddenly it all made sense to Sarah. Jesus. Matilda was right.
“I have to talk to him.”
“Whoa.” Kale took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. “You know they’re not going to let you do that.”
Sarah knew what she had to do. “Yes, they will.”
She waited for Kale to step out of the way; the instant he did, she was out the door. She hunted down August.
“I need to speak with you.” He looked at her, as did Chief Willard. “Privately.”
When he didn’t readily agree, she gave him a look that warned of severe consequences.
“Give us a moment,” August said to Willard.
Kale stood in the corridor watching as Willard exited his office. Sarah didn’t have time to placate him. She closed the door and turned on August. “I want to talk to Pope.”
August smirked. “No way. You know how this works, Sarah. We’re not going to do anything that might weaken or somehow damage our case. He’s off-limits.”
“You either let me talk to him or I’ll go outside right now and tell all those reporters how bad you screwed up three and a half years ago.” There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t remember.
“What would that accomplish?” He tried to pretend she was suggesting an impotent reprisal.
“You made a mistake. You leaked the information about that suspectafterI warned you that he was innocent. You ignored me and the facts I presented and, because you did, he was murdered.”
August’s expression hardened. “But we got the bad guy in the end.”
“Yeah,” she confirmed, her jaw tightening, “the bad guy I urged you to consider before anyone innocent was murdered.” She laughed. “Then you took credit for my conclusions.”
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “All right. All right. I’ll give you a minute or two with him.” He shook his finger in her face. “But don’t screw this up just to get back at me.”
She made a sound of disbelief. “Are you kidding? That’s your MO, not mine.”
His glare intensified. “This thing between us is done now. You talk to Pope and then we’re even.”
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
August jerked the door open and cut a path through the people crowding the corridor.
“What was that about?” Kale asked.
Sarah paused, looked into his eyes. “Just trust me.” Then she followed the route August had taken.
When she reached the conference room door, he was ready to let her in. “Remember what I said.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
