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)
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I sense Inara staring at me and finally ask, “What is it?”
“Who was your first kill?” she blurts out.
Inara
* * *
I’m caught in limbo, a place where time doesn’t exist. This is how I get when I work on a case.
But Rex is here with me, and it occurs to me that if I want to get into the mind of a murderer, I have one right here.
Rex raises his head to meet my stare. I sense the danger lurking in him, the violence barely leashed. “Who do you think?”
“The man who killed your family?” I guess.
“Actually, no, it wasn’t the man who pulled the trigger. It was the man who ordered the hit. My father’s business partner.”
I come around the table to get closer to him. “What did you do to him?”
This is a strange conversation, but I don’t know if Rex and I have ever had a normal one.
“Not much. I met him in an alleyway and shot him. Not my most satisfying kill.”
“And not your last.” I don’t feel any pity for Rex’s first victim. I’m guessing he was a wealthy man who thought himself above the law. “Did they tie you to the murder?”
“No. No one even knows he was behind the deaths. Back then, I was inexperienced. I lured him there with a text. I knew how to hide digital traces, even then. But I’d do it differently now.”
I chew on this as he adds, “The man who pulled the trigger died in a gang altercation before I could get to him. In my search for him, I learned he was just a hired gun. He wasn’t the mastermind. It wasn’t until I killed the man behind the crime that justice was done.”
Justice. Strange that Rex should use that word. We disagree on its meaning, which unsettles me, but not as much as the thought that by taking one life, he might have saved many.
People die in accidents every day. After my family died, I tortured myself with what-ifs. What if Dennis Bundy had been hit by a drunk driver on his way to work before he became the Bondage Killer? Would his death result in the greater good? Would that absolve the drunk driver of manslaughter?
What is justice? What is its purpose? Is it better to kill one and save many, or better to avoid crossing that moral line?
Rex has made his choice. He’s become a god, calling the shots. I don’t like it, but I understand it. What better way to make sure nothing terrible ever happens to you again? You become all-powerful or as close to it as money and prestige can make you.
“Did it help?” I ask. Rex tilts his head, and I get the feeling that only he knows what I’m really asking.
What if the Bondage Killer was right here right now? Would I pull the trigger? Would I tell myself it’s the best way of stopping him, of saving his future victims? Would I stick to my deals, pull out my handcuffs and bring him in properly?
I can’t even imagine touching him long enough to arrest him. But I can imagine standing over him once he’s dead and reduced to a sack of meat.
It’s horrifying and fascinating how quickly I can entertain thoughts of murder. I could blame it on Rex rubbing off on me, but my thoughts are my own, and if I’m honest, I’ve wished the gods had given me the power to strike a man dead on that fateful night BK came for my family. That’s why I cling to the concept of justice. I know how easy it would be for me to cross a line.
“Did it help to kill the man who was behind my parents’ murder?” Rex sounds thoughtful, like he’s considering a hypothetical. “Yes, but not in the way you think. It helped to know that it would never happen again. But in some ways, it was worse.”
“Why?”
“Because I learned something about myself in that alley. I enjoyed it, all of it. The hunt, the chase. The kill. I wanted to do it again.” He pauses as if waiting on my reaction. Does he want me to act horrified?
When I simply nod, he asks, “Do you want to kill the Bondage Killer?”
Straight to the heart of the matter. I shift in my seat but stop when I realize I’m doing it and that it’s giving away my unsettled state of mind. “I want justice.”
Rex doesn’t blink. “Do you want me to kill him?”
“I want him brought to justice,” I reiterate, but at the moment, I can’t tell him what that means. Rex narrows his eyes but says nothing. I have the uneasy feeling that he knows I want BK dead, but I can’t bring myself to tell Rex not to kill him.