Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Your card not working?”
“Guess not.” Just add that to the pile of stuff I have to deal with.
“Here.” Silva swipes his card, and the door locks clunk loudly before the light flashes green to signal they’re open. “The desk sergeant will sort you out.”
“Thanks. I actually need to talk to you about the most recent murders.”
“Which ones?” Silva asks.
“The ones on Green Street. And the murder of Emily Rodriguez.”
“Of course, you mean those. We have murders every day in this city, but the news cycle is only focused on them.”
“They are linked. And I know who killed them. It’s the Bondage Killer. He’s back.”
To his credit, Silva doesn’t immediately roll his eyes. “How do you know?”
I hand over a packet of letters Hamish practically gift-wrapped for me. “These were sent to my home. They match the letter left at the site of the last murder.”
He swears when he turns the packet over and sees the BK script. “The killer sent these to you?”
“Yes. I can explain everything, but right now, I need you to get these to the lab. Front of the line. The works.”
“Bonds needs to know about this. There’s a whole task force set up, and he’s the lead,” Silva graciously explains. He hasn’t asked why I disappeared for several days— maybe he’s been too busy to notice. I’ll have to think of a way to explain my absence to my bosses, though.
“I’ll tell him. I’m going right now to give my statement.” It’ll suck being at the center of a murder investigation, but I have to tell the truth. My privacy is a small price to pay for stopping a madman.
It’s your choice, Rex told me. Before I left, he told me he’d support me in any way he could and protect me from the fallout. The thought warms me before I push it away.
Silva tells me good luck and heads off. I go to the room reserved for the task force. It’s the same one we used for Gregory Martin’s murder. I track down Bonds and pull him into an interview room, where I tell him as much as I can—about the letters sent to my home and how they tie the Bondage Killer to the current murders.
“These are photocopies of the original letters.” I spread them out. “The originals are already in the lab. But I have initial findings.” I lay out the lab reports Hamish worked up. “Handwriting is a match to the original Bondage Killer.”
Bonds grabs a few pages and reads quickly. His face goes blank in a way that tells me he’s processing all of this. It’s not every day a serial killer comes back from the dead.
“Where did you find these?”
“A friend was collecting my mail and brought them to me.” I explain that they were in my townhouse mailbox. “The killer probably wrote them over a period of days and delivered them all at once.” Talking about these letters gives me a creepy crawling feeling and the sensation of disgusting film coating my skin. I try not to twitch.
MY Swallow is the greeting of one letter. Bonds spots it right away.
“Are you Swallow?” he asks.
“I think so.” This is miserable, being a witness on a case I’m supposed to be working. I swallow down the sick feeling and keep my responses as cool and professional as I can.
“I believe it refers to my name. I was named for my great grandmother Enara.” I spell it for him, and he writes it down. “It means ‘swallow’ in the Basque language.”
“Huh.” He keeps reading. “He mentions seeing you in a park. Was that recent? Did you know you were being followed?”
“It’s possible. Maybe he didn’t follow me for long.” I shudder, remembering the cold feeling on the back of my neck. The sensation of being watched.
I have another terrible thought. “It could also be a reference to me as a child. There’s evidence he cased families before. . . ” I let my voice trail off. Bonds gives me a nod, and I rally. “He might have stalked me in a park, then and now.”
My memories are back. My father, holding my hand. My brothers running ahead, eager to get to the ball field. Me, insisting my father push me on the swings. The golden light sifting through green leaves.
“Why now?” Bonds is asking, and I pull myself back to the present. “What triggered him to put these in your mailbox all at once?”
“It’s possible he found out where I lived when a murdered man was dumped on my doorstep.” Rex inadvertently led a killer to me. The irony.
“When he was last active in Elyria, he always seemed one step ahead of the police, even though he was sending letters to them. A detective on the case speculated he might have ties to a member of the police force. I can put you in touch with her.” Lacy Collins was a detective on the Bondage Killer’s case and, in many ways, my surrogate parent. But I haven’t spoken to her in years. I’ll have to break the silence now.