Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
"The murder board is good as long as not everyone on it ends up murdered."
"Let's hope not."
"Let's." I bite back a laugh. "So why are you stalking my father and me? I mean, I know it's a Marino characteristic, the stalking and all, but I'm flattered yours is on me."
"Mainly your father."
"Right." This time I can't suppress the laugh. I get up, walking over to the board and staring at the picture of my father. I find myself reaching up to touch it. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him in person.
His text messages race through my mind. I need to meet up with him sooner rather than later. Delaying it only continues to put the people I’m close to at risk. Plus, I will get some closure either way.
“I’m not going to lie, Bonte. I’m so intrigued by your father and his behavior.”
“I know.” She said that the first time I’d met her. “But is all this helping you track him down?” I’m not sure of the plan here. I’m also not sure I want them tracking him down. If I could only get that moment alone with him. Staring at his picture has me longing for it more.
“Oh, no?”
“Why does that sound like a question?”
“Because I’m more doing this out of my own curiosity, and it’s close to home, but I suppose you might be able to use it for that. I’m sure the FBI has their own board going and they’re profiling him.”
“I don’t know what the FBI does, but it’s never been good in my experience.”
“There are good agents and bad ones. Everything is tainted with bad apples.”
“Y’all work with the police, don’t you?” Naomi nods. I was always more passive about the agents that would get assigned to me.
“These three.” She taps the pictures she is speaking of. “Were financial-ish.”
“Ish?”
Naomi glances over her shoulder at me. “He enjoys the kills. It’s why he leaves the notes.”
“Right.” I sit back down on the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest.
“I’ve upset you?”
“No, my dad upset me. At least your family kills people that have it coming.”
“And you don’t think they had it coming?”
“That one looks like she should be baking cookies for her grandchildren.” I recognize the faces. They’d been shoved in my face before when the FBI was trying to pull information from me. They tied me up, and then they tried to imply I’d killed the boy I’d caught my father killing. I suppose in a roundabout way I had.
“Her?” Naomi pulls the picture down. “She’s a con artist who burned through many husbands.” Her lips almost turn up in a smirk. “That is kind of badass, but she’d take the kids out too. Insurance favored this one. While her kills were different, everything from poisoning to house fires, they still had a commonality. The means are the same.”
“Holy crap, Grams.” I take the picture from her. “How did my dad get money from her? I’m guessing he didn’t take out a life insurance policy.”
“Your dad is suave with the ladies, but no. Grams here liked to stuff cash away. Always worried she’d be caught and they’d seize her money.”
That was not what I’d been told. Is that partly why he might want to speak to me? He wants to tell me his side of the story? I want that badly.
“So he killed her and took the money.”
“Yep,” Naomi says way too perkily with a nod of confirmation.
“What about that one?” I point to the next picture and listen to Naomi tell me about another victim and then another.
"Okay, so he kills some shitty people that might have had it coming."
"Unless you count these." Naomi pushes the wall over farther, revealing another board with victims, but in the center is a giant question mark. "They weren't bad. At least I couldn't find anything on them. I think convenient and easy marks. Except her." She points to a pretty brunette in her forties. "This was personal. One of those FBI agents' wives. It's said that he'd come to kill Agent Anderson, but he wasn't there, so he killed his wife."
"It's said?" Naomi sounds as though she doesn't believe that. "You know he killed a few people linked to me." She steps back to the other board, pulling off a paper to uncover a picture. It’s then I notice there is another picture still covered up.
"Yes, the boy. Good kill." Naomi grabs a file. Good kill? Not sure what to do with that comment. "I dug into him. You weren't the first girl he tried to force himself on, and he enjoyed fire way too much."
"Is it bad to enjoy fire?" I’m learning lots of shit tonight.
“There is a link to fire and sexual assault when it comes to males. They're after destruction. All they want to do is destroy. Then, we also have your mother."