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“Not sure he’d see it that way,” Turner said, inching even closer. “I’ll tell you what, though, I’ve never met anyone with a set of balls as big as yours, my friend.”

“Daddy,” Molly whispered. “I want Mommy.”

“Not now.” Carter frowned at Turner, as if unsure whether he was giving him a genuine compliment or not.

Turner continued, “It’s a shame that the thing that took you down was that lipstick. Such a small thing. Really ruined your perfect record.”

Josie knew what he was doing. Killers like Carter took pride in feeling superior to everyone else. Fooling them. Hiding in plain sight. Watching people suffer and knowing he was the cause but that no one could touch him.

“It is a shame,” she agreed. “It’s an impressive record. Not getting caught. Especially with the ER stunt.”

He bared his teeth in a smile that made invisible fire ants crawl all over Josie’s skin. She willed her body not to react. “Turner’s right,” she added. “It was a ballsy move. If you were trying to show us that you could get away with anything, you succeeded.”

Carter practically beamed but there was a vicious twist to his smile. Every moment he had his arm around Molly felt like an eternity. A chest-constricting, nauseating eternity.

“That must have felt good,” Turner said. “Screwing with one of us and knowing we wouldn’t catch you.”

“I want Mommy.” Molly’s legs kicked against Carter’s hip but this time he was prepared. The lighter stayed in position.

“I wanted to kill you,” he said to Josie. “I could have. You were so out of it, I could have ended you but then I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye every time you came to talk to me about my poor, tragic family, knowing you had no idea you were talking with the famous Last Kiss Killer.”

Rage coursed through her body but she held it at bay. “Is that how you keep yourself from killing?” she asked. “Screwing with people like you did with your mom when you told her you’d found lipsticks on her front steps? Pushing her to go to the police?”

His smug smile faltered. Then he put it back in place in exactly the same way Sylvia put on her fake smile. It was identical. She had hit on something. Was it the fact that his ruse hadn’t gone as he’d hoped? Sylvia had ruined his fun by not agreeing to go to the police. Carter could have accompanied her and watched her file a report knowing that the killer everyone was looking for was right in front of them. Sylvia had turned the tables on him, threatening to expose his gambling debt to Erin if he didn’t back down.

“Who doesn’t love a good mindfuck.” Turner was only about fifteen feet away from him now. “You’re a master, my friend.”

“The treadmill was very clever,” Josie said. “Nice touch.”

Carter’s surprise made his thumb slip from the lighter. The flame went out. Josie wanted to sag with relief but she knew it was only temporary. “How did you—?” he began.

“Maps,” Josie said. “The firehouse is only about two miles from Dean and Kirstie’s house. Still, it would have been a workout. Running to your brother’s, killing Kirstie—and she didn’t go easy from the looks of it—then getting back before anyone noticed you were gone. You didn’t have time to get a shower or clean up because my colleague and I arrived just a few minutes after you returned so you jumped on the treadmill to make us think all that sweat was from your gym workout and nothing more.”

“That is impressive,” Turner said. “The phone call from Kirstie to you at 10:37—that was all you, wasn’t it? Trying to throw us off.”

Carter’s smug expression was all the answer they needed.

“You took one of Dean’s shirts, didn’t you?” asked Josie. “What did you do with your bloody shirt?”

“Balled it up, carried it back and tossed it into the dumpster behind the station,” he said, chest puffing slightly with pride. “No one even noticed my shirt was different or that it wasn’t my size.”

While his attention was on Josie, Turner took a bigger step toward him but it was too close because Carter whirled on him. With one practiced flick of his thumb, he ignited the flame again and held it to the corner of the hymnal. “Get back,” he snarled. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Not another step or I swear to God…”

He didn’t finish but the unspoken part was clear. He’d torch the whole place.

Fifty-Five

A wisp of smoke peeled off the spine of the book. Molly waved her arms in front of her face, nearly backhanding his cheek in the process. “Smoke. I don’t like smoke, Daddy.”

Carter continued to ignore her but he lifted the lighter away from the book.

“Then you steered us toward Dean,” Josie said quickly, looking to distract him again.

He shook his head. “No. That’s not what I was trying to do. I didn’t want him to get blamed.”

“Because you wanted all the glory for yourself,” said Turner. “Can’t blame you there.”

“No,” Carter snapped. “Because it was my job to protect him. To take care of him. To be there when he needed me. Unlike our two-faced mother, I always took my job seriously. I was the one who made sure he ate and slept and did his homework, and I was the one who took him to the hospital when he was sick or needed stitches or got a concussion.”