24. MAD LIKE YOU

24

MAD LIKE YOU

YARA

M y heart thundered when I saw the flash of headlights before he disappeared down the winding roads and trees, leaving me alone again, just with my fucking vibrator and nothing else. The need to chase him to his house was overwhelming, but I buried it.

“Ryden Fucking Sinclair.”

I thought he’d finally snap, but the man was getting on my nerves. I stared at the vibrator. He didn’t take the bait. What else could I do? Any man would have given up by now, but not him. Not Ryden. And that made me want him even more, more until the ache was physical.

He’s something else, alright.

I slammed the vibrator down on my bed and fingered it with a frown, wondering how he could be so fucking strong. The stupid thing stayed still.

I already knew he wanted me, so there was no problem there. He just had to stop being so careful and be reckless for once in his life, like he was that night weeks ago when he killed Phil.

My constant thoughts of him were becoming an unsettling dance between the line of fascination and obsession, and the darker corridors, for once, were filled with desire for more. More than pain. More than blood. More than death.

“What else do you want me to do, Ryden? I tried everything.” I groaned as I threw the phone down next to the vibrator, staring at the dark skies filled with stars.

Maybe black magic will work. Kat’s sarcastic voice was interrupted by the sound of the vibration. I whirled around, and my eyes widened. My fingers trembled when I grabbed the vibrator with a moan.

“Oh, fucking finally, Mr. Sinclair.” My breath came out in a short gasp.

Closing my eyes, I pressed my heated forehead against the glass window that had turned misty from my steamy breath. Taking a calming breath, I pushed the vibrator in until it was snug between my thighs, pulsing inside my pussy.

He wasn’t going as high as he could, but… my eyes were already rolling into my head thinking about him, burning with desire for me. He did take the bait.

Pleasure built as the toy pulsed inside me, teasing my nerves. Slow, slow… My skin burned; my breath stuttered. When I least expected it, he pushed me all the way up. My legs quivered, and I slumped on my bed with a gasp that was followed by a scream that broke the quiet night.

“Now I want the real thing.”

Just one taste of sin. Just one hard bite. Just a punishing touch. It’d be more than enough to put him out of my head, but because he resisted, I craved it more.

My need for him was as primal and compulsive as my need for killing. I just wanted to take him once, in the dark, in secret and sin. Touch him, bleed him, conquer him, and then I would let him go back to his fucking life.

“Just once.”

My heart galloped as the vibrator slowed once again, pulling me down from the high before it slowly went up plus one, plus two. Now he was creating a slow, soft rhythm, pushing me to the edge, pulling me down, pushing me again, and then he suddenly shoved me off the cliff like a freaking madman he was.

“Fuck. Oh, Ryden.”

I came undone when the toy finally went still inside me. Completely spent, I closed my eyes, smiling.

Grabbing a phone, I typed a quick text.

That felt so good. I wish you could have seen me, heard me screaming so loud for you.

He read it, but of course, once again, he ignored my message.

“Run, Ryden Sinclair, run, but I’ll catch you eventually, and we both know it.”

I slept so peacefully that night, but the peace shifted into anger the moment I grabbed the newspaper. He was fucking back.

The Strangler Strikes Again.

I stared at the newspaper, my heart burning with rage, when someone pounded against my door. I opened the door to find Irene standing there, her eyes bloodshot, her nose red, her clothes wrinkled.

She must have read the news before she came here. She was shaking so hard when I pulled her into a hug.

“When did you see it?” I asked, pushing her to the couch.

“Today,” she said. “And I took the bus right away. I can’t…”

“I know, Re-Re, I know.”

“Why haven’t they caught him yet?” She sniffled, wiping her nose against her sleeves, her eyes ablaze with rage. So much rage that it made me fear for her sanity.

I had thought about how being with someone like me, being the only one who carried my secrets, would be hard for her, and her mental health, but she had assured me that I was the safest, sanest place in this world for her.

Even though a part of me knew that wasn’t the full truth, it was hard for me to let her go. She was the last of the threads that was holding me from devolving. She was my last connection to Katelyn, humanity, and reality.

The moment she decided to walk away from me would be the moment I’d completely fall apart and dissipate. I wasn’t ready for that just yet. I had so much to do before that.

“Because he’s smart. They call him a madman, but the detectives are wrong. He’s clever, and he knows his game. And it’s HIS game.”

“That’s why he’s still killing,” she said as she slammed her hands against the coffee table with a snarl. She was usually the calm one, the one who pulled me up when the waves of anger fought to drown me. “That’s why he’ll keep killing until… you find him and stop him.”

“You know I’m looking.” I felt useless.

“You found the ones the detectives couldn’t.” Her voice was slightly accusatory. I knew she didn’t mean it. She only wanted him gone as much as I did. I didn’t blame her for that. She was right. I wanted The Strangler. I wanted his blood, but he was a phantom. Even though his first few kills were in Detroit, his recent kills were all over the place.

From Ann Arbor to Toledo to Cleveland to Baltimore. It was like he was purposefully throwing the scent off of him.

“Yes, I did, and I’ll find him. It’s taking me a bit longer than I thought, but I will find him.”

“It has been four years, Yara. Four years since Katelyn died. Four years since… you started the hunt.” She let out a long sigh.

My heart stuttered at the thought of Katelyn, how pale she looked when they found her, how peaceful, too, like she was floating in a realm between reality and lies, fighting to find a way back in.

Katelyn’s death was different from the others. Not only was she the only one with a sister, but there were also subtle marks of violence on her body. The cops concluded that the bruises on her arms, forehead, and the scar on her shoulder were by accident, but my gut told me otherwise. It felt a bit more personal.

The other women didn’t have bruises or any hint of wounds except the long line on their necks from the garrote, and they were all orphans. Except Katelyn.

“I’m sorry.”

“Did you talk about him with Sinclair after that night?”

“I think I might have scared Ryden Sinclair off.” I half lied. I didn’t want to tell her that he was the one who was now stalking me.

She rolled her eyes. “He didn’t strike me as someone who’d be so easily spooked. For God’s sake, he’s a fucking serial killer.”

“Well, even killers feel panic when they feel trapped,” I said, scanning the newspaper.

“You don’t feel panic,” she said, her nose upturned. “I wish you would, but you don’t, and you just barge into… things that put you in dangerous situations.”

“Don’t start now, Irene.”

The article about The Strangler only talked about the identity of the girl and the discovery of her body at a bus stop. They hadn’t released the contents of the love letter yet, but it’d probably come in the next morning’s edition or the one following that.

If the media were to stop publishing his letters, he might have stopped killing, too. I was sure of that.

The gesture, the display, was intended only for her. His victims were all around twenty-five to thirty. So, his woman, the one he was crafting these love letters for, must be around that age, and in the twisted part of his brain, he was showing off his love for her.

Of course, I understood the part that made him feel that he needed to kill all these women to send love letters to the one he would love to kill but couldn’t, because he loved her. Love and obsession, tangled with need.

Irene sighed and stood up, a frown pulling her lips down. “Talk with Sinclair, please. Maybe he knows more.”

“I’ll try, Irene, but he did send me all his notes. He had nothing new. His profiling was… nearly identical to mine,” I said as I stood up from the table. “I’m leaving for work. Maybe Detective Rosario knows more. I’ll try to weasel some information out of him. Stay here for today and leave tomorrow. You have to concentrate on your life, Irene. College is important.”

“I don’t care about it.”

“You have to,” I said as I poured a cup of coffee and made eggs for her. “Eat and sleep.”

“I want to come with you. Take me with you.” She was closer to twenty-one now, but she almost sounded like the teenager I once knew when Kat was alive.

“No, Irene. Please.”

“I’m not a baby. I’m going to be twenty-one in five months, and you’re only twenty-seven, not two hundred and seventy,” she said, looking morose.

“And yet here you are, Re-Re, whining like a baby,” I said, grabbing my bag from the table.

“Wait, Yara… I have an idea.”

“What now?”

“You should pair up with Ryden. You might catch The Strangler quicker if you work together. You don’t have to do all the work alone.” She looked nonchalant as if she was talking about teaming up with him for a game of tennis.

“I can’t ever reveal my identity to him, Irene. Remember that.”

“I just think you should consider it. Working with a partner would be fun, don’t you think?” she asked, running her fingers through her curly brown hair.

“I don’t think so. We’re not partnering to play ping-pong, Re-Re. Stop thinking about The Strangler. I promise I’ll find him, no matter how long it takes me. You just concentrate on college,” I said. “I’ll see you in the evening.” She gave me a strange look before she nodded, frowning as she did. “Please don’t do anything stupid, Irene.” I looked at her and she huffed in response.

“Yeah, yeah. Bye.”

As I walked through the familiar, white-painted corridors of the medical examiner’s office, I had only one thought in my head. The Strangler. Like Irene said, it had been years. I was a good hunter, and yet I failed over and over again with him. I hadn’t even come closer to finding out who he was. He had no name, no face, no identity. His profile was a fucking black hole filled with blood, death, and debris.

I stopped when I saw Detective Rosario in my office with a file in his hand. I noticed Victor’s name scrawled on top of it.

“Is that Victor’s autopsy report?” I asked, wondering what he was doing with it. The case was closed, wasn’t it? I gave him the culprit on a decorated silver platter. I’d be so angry if he let her slip away.

He nodded, running his fingers through his hair, a somber expression on his face. “Someone’s submitted a request to exhume Victor’s body and conduct a second autopsy.”

My spine stiffened as I looked at the detective. Dark circles adorned his eyes, and he seemed to be running on a mix of coffee and fumes.

“Who did?”

“It was an anonymous request, or at least, that’s what the chief is telling all of us. But I think the request came from someone powerful. Millicent Wark has connections in high places.”

“Since when did the cops take anonymous exhumation requests seriously?” I glared at the detective.

“Like I said, I don’t think the request is anonymous at all. Some hijo de puta wants to save Millicent Wark.” Detective Rosario huffed as he threw the autopsy report on my desk and slumped into the chair. “My mind has been running since last night, and my head feels like it’s going to detonate. I don’t need this headache. Victor is a monster, and he deserved to die.”

He did, and that was why he was dead. I didn’t kill innocent men.

“I never make mistakes,” I said with a smile, and he gave me a grim nod in return.

I had made sure of it. Regardless of how many doctors examined his body, they would ultimately reach the same conclusions I had.

“I know, I know that. You’re my best ME, Doctor West. I’m just so stressed… with this and The Strangler.”

“I read the news,” I said as I pushed a cup of coffee in his direction. He nodded, rubbing his forehead.

“I’ve been following The Strangler for six years. He’s elusive, but…” The detective pressed his finger against his temple, and I could clearly see he almost wanted to share something important with me.

“But?” I prodded.

“It’s not on public record, but the Baltimore detectives and FBI suspect that The Strangler is deviating from his usual patterns of behavior.”

“Did he? What did he do now?” I leaned forward, staring at the detective, my heart thundering.

“It’s not much, but he deviated from his MO the last time he killed.”

That made me sit straight back up. The detective took another gulp of his coffee with a shake of his head.

“Don’t tell me that he’s…”

“Devolving. Spiraling. Losing it. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Fuck. Oh, fuck.”

“Exactly my thought.”