Page 5
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I open the voice memo app and hit record before setting it down on the table. “Just start at the beginning.”
“Okay,” she breathes, glancing over at me as she nods her again a little too much, almost like she’s hyping herself up and I can’t stand it. When I think about how many lives this guy has torn apart, messed with and used, it brings up shit that I would rather forget and makes me feel like putting my fist through a wall. All I want to do is end this but I can’t help worrying that the ending won’t be as pretty as I’m hoping. Veronica wraps her arms around herself as she stares down at the table and shifts in her seat, obviously uncomfortable.
“What do you remember about that day?” I ask, hoping to just get her talking. I’ve noticed that the hardest part for most people, after a trauma like this, is where to begin. They have so many thoughts running through their heads and so many emotions that they quickly become overwhelmed into silence. She sucks in a breath.
“It was so normal, you know? Like, shouldn’t days where your life is going to change come with some kind of warning? Shouldn’t there be some kind of sign from the universe that you need to pay attention?”
I scoff, fighting back memories. “I fucking wish.”
“Did you go to class that day?” Smith asks and she nods.
“Yeah. I have… had English on Thursdays and it let out early that day so I decided to go home and try to relax before my next class.”
Blaze scowls. “So, you deviated from your normal schedule that day?”
“Yeah.”
My mind spins with scenarios and possibilities as I study her. If class let out early and she did something that she wouldn’t normally do, that means he was watching her for a while, waiting for the perfect moment to strike but why pick her? She wasn’t associated with us at all and there is no way he could have known Rodriguez would catch the case. It could have easily gone to a different detective and then we never would have known about it.
“What happened next?” I ask and she shudders.
“I was walking down the hallway to my apartment and all of the sudden, it felt like someone was there with me. All the hair on my arms stood on end and when I heard footsteps, I started walking faster, telling myself that I was being ridiculous because it wasn’t uncommon for other people to be in the hallway but this time… it was just different.”
Storm nods, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “According to the police report, your apartment door was open when officers went to investigate…”
“I managed to get the door unlocked but I couldn’t get inside before he grabbed me,” she answers with a nod. “That’s the last thing I remember from my apartment. I must have blacked out and when I woke up, I was in a cabin out in the woods.”
“How did he keep you there?” I ask. She meets my gaze and the haunted look in her eyes hits me in the chest. Whoever this guy is, he held her for almost a year and she could give us vital information about who he is and what he wants but that doesn’t mean it’s not fucking awful to pry these answers out of her.
“There was this thick metal hook lodged in the middle of the floor and he put shackles around my wrists with a large chain connecting the two. I could go anywhere in the cabin and I could even step out onto the front porch but that was it.”
Moose frowns. “He wasn’t worried about alerting someone if they drove by?”
“During the entire time I was there, I never saw another person.”
“What did he look like?” Chance asks softly, leaning forward and bracing his arms on the table. She shakes her head.
“I have no idea. He always wore this white mask that covered his whole face.”
I narrow my eyes. “Like a Halloween mask?”
“No… it was more like a theater mask… like those ones that have happy and sad faces but this one was expressionless.”
“What about his hair?” Henn asks. “Or his eyes?”
She shakes her head, picking at the edge of the table. “His hair and his eyes were both brown and kind of… unremarkable?”
“Right,” I scoff. Every single description we’ve ever gotten of this guy always sounds exactly the same. He’s perfectly average. The kind of guy that easily blends into a crowd which makes him even harder to hunt down.
“I’m so sorry I can’t be more help.”
Blaze shakes his head and leans forward, placing his hand on the table. “It’s not you, darlin’. This guy has just been really hard to find and it doesn’t help that he looks so damn average.”
“Oh… yeah, that’s the thing. Even if he was standing in front of me right now, I don’t know that I would recognize him. Maybe if I heard him speak…”
“I’m sure that was intentional,” I tell her. Why else would he wear a mask for an entire year? “How much time did he spend with you at the cabin?”
She scowls. “Quite a lot, actually. He didn’t come to see me every day and there would be times when he would be gone for a couple weeks before he would come back but when he did stop by, he would stay and talk to me for hours.”
