27. A LIFE FOR A LIFE

27

A LIFE FOR A LIFE

RYDEN

I dreamed of Yara. Again. Her thick, silky hair was in my grasp, her beautiful breasts bouncing up and down as she rode me. Hard. Panting. Moaning. When she finally screamed my name, we unraveled together, and I woke up from the dream, drenched, aroused, and panting.

“Fuck. Not this fucking dream again.”

This wasn’t my first dream of her, and I knew this wouldn’t be the last.

My bed was wet from my cum—it was strange, this overwhelming obsession and need. Feeling guilty and feverish, I closed my eyes and almost smelled her on my skin.

Cursing myself and her, I jumped out of the bed and went to the kitchen. Grabbing a bottle of cold water, I emptied it in three large gulps, hoping it would satiate the hunger and heat.

It didn’t help.

My fingers itched to grab my phone back up and… use that app. Again and again until she felt my desperation. That little tease. She knew what this would do to me. She knew exactly how I would feel after this.

The need was like rusty nails drilling into my skull, and the sound was loud. I tried. I tried so hard to shut it out. But it was persistent. Screaming and begging for attention.

“You’re like a ghost, Yara West. Haunting me day and night,” I growled, punching against the wall, wondering if there was a way to shut off that part of my brain.

My sleep was long gone by now.

Taking a deep breath, I sat down on my table and switched on my laptop before opening the folder full of case notes on the tattoo girls.

After looking through the pictures for the hundredth time, I could recite everything by memory, and still, the killer was out of my fucking reach. “Where are you hiding?” I hissed. There was another constant question ringing in my head, even when I didn’t want to.

“When will you kill again? Who will you kill this time?”

Cursing, I closed the case file before starting the Hunters and Preys podcast. This would help me not think about the girls or Yara.

Here was another woman who haunted me. K.Y. Wolff.

Turning my mind to this disaster I had created for myself helped me forget Yara for a millisecond, but even the danger of my secret coming out to the world didn’t detract me from wanting her.

My spiraling thoughts were reined in by the dark voice coming out of the speaker.

“… and as the girl bled to her death in a public lavatory, the wolf watched. There was no sympathy in his eyes. Later, he would say… she asked for it.”

“Fuck Vic. What the fuck have you done?”

“She hadn’t asked for it. A mother who was dying. A drunk father. Every card dealt to her was against her. Her fate was against her,” K.Y. Wolff continued. “She was pushed toward a life she had never thought of for herself. She didn’t ask to become pregnant, she didn’t ask to die killing a child that came from a sin, she didn’t ask. It was his sin, and he must bear the price of it. A life for a life. Somehow, somewhere, the scales had to be balanced.”

Could Victor have really done that? Going to a prostitute was one thing, but impregnating a girl and then letting her die? And if he did, would it make me a hypocrite to mourn his loss? If he had truly committed such a heinous crime, he would be no different from the men I hunted and killed, and he’d deserve to die.

Knowing that didn’t alleviate the guilt or the pain, though.

I couldn’t imagine the boy, the one who was full of life and color, the one I had grown up with, doing something horrendous like that. However, his father’s death had changed him, just as my mother’s death changed me.

Both were ultimately my father’s fault. That fucker.

“I’m sorry, Vic. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I should have tried harder. If I had, you’d be alive…”

K.Y. Wolff’s voice cut me off. “ It will always be balanced.”

I was running on five cups of coffee when the call I had been waiting for finally came. “We’re calling from the Convent of Sunflower Children, Mr. Sinclair.” I called them two days ago after digging deeper into Robert Miller. He was killed in the Orphanage’s chapel.

“Sister Mary Elizabeth will meet you today. Does ten o’clock work for you?”

“Of course. Thank you,” I said as I hung up and quickly called Enzo. He answered after the fifth ring.

“I’m busy with a dead body, man,” he said.

“I’m going to meet the director of the orphanage,” I said, jogging toward my car. “I feel like I’m getting closer to K.Y. Wolff.”

“Good. Now I’ve to go. My dead body is becoming restless.”

“Fuck off,” I said and drove toward the orphanage. “K.Y. Wolff… your story started here, didn’t it? I’m going to find it, and then I’ll find you.”

When I reached the orphanage, a middle-aged woman wearing a habit greeted me with a warm smile. “Welcome to our home,” she said. “Follow me, Mr. Sinclair.” She walked me through the flower fields toward the playground where girls and boys were playing, looking happy and free.

“Sister, Mr. Sinclair is here.”

The woman behind the desk nodded, motioning me to sit.

“You wanted to talk about Robert Miller?” she said as soon as the other sister walked out. She kept twisting her rosary as she looked at the statue on her table.

“Yes. I was doing a story, and his name came up. He was murdered here, and the cops never found his murderer.”

“Murderer,” the sister scoffed. “I believe in God, Mr. Sinclair, and I believe in good and evil, the sins of men. But I still wouldn’t call the one who killed him a murderer.”

The sister’s eyes filled, and she quickly blinked her tears away.

“What do you mean?”

“Robert Miller was a man who was supposed to protect these children, but he used our trust to prey on them.”

“You mean…”

The sister nodded. “A girl jumped to her death because of him, and there were many others who were too scared to speak up. We were fools not to see who he really was. I still pray to God to forgive me for my part in my charges’ ruined childhoods.” This time, the sister couldn’t stop the tears. A broken sob left her lips.

“Who… who killed him? One of the girls?”

“We didn’t know, but we didn’t want to know. We didn’t need to know.” The sister took in a deep breath, her eyes clear as glass.

There was no regret there, no guilt. She looked remorseless. Maybe she was. Maybe Robert Miller’s death was justice and not a crime.

I was sure the one who killed him was K.Y. Wolff, and I suddenly felt a pang in my chest for the little girl she had been… Someone had stolen her innocence from her, and she protected herself. Could I blame her for that?

“Do you have records of the girls who lived…” The sister cut me off, shaking her head.

“We had physical records, but we had an accident, and the files were destroyed. I wasn’t the director back then. It was Sister Serena, but after Robert Miller’s death, Sister Serena was never whole again. She blamed herself for bringing that wolf among our little lambs. She retired two years after his death.”

I had a gut feeling that this Sister Serena knew the killer, knew K.Y. Wolff.

“Do you know where Sister Serena lives now?”

Sister Mary Elizabeth shook her head. “No, we haven’t heard back from her after she left. It was such a burden to carry, and she never forgave herself. None of us did. I know murder is a sin, but I believe the one who killed Robert Miller wasn’t doing the devil’s work. They were doing God’s work.”

“Thank you, Sister.”

“You still didn’t say what the story you’re writing is about?”

“Some things should remain dead. Like Robert Miller.”

After I came home from work, I opened the podcast again to find a new episode of Victor’s story. This time K.Y. Wolff was interviewing a woman who said she was a victim of Millicent Wark.

“ You’re full of dreams, and one day, you wake up to find yourself in a situation that you can’t walk away from. Like a trapped animal. That’s how I felt when I first met Millicent Wark. I don’t know if she really killed Victor, but I’m glad she’s rotting in prison. Women who prey on another woman’s weakness, and men like him, they deserve this.”

I had to find this woman before she destroyed me and my carefully built life. Maybe we could come to an understanding, killer to killer. Maybe she would understand that I was just like her.

I quickly dressed and drove toward Rishi’s apartment. Rishi opened the door with a grunt.

“You again? It’s almost midnight, Ryden.”

“Seven is not midnight, and this is the last time, I promise,” I said to him, walking inside.

“I’m still angry about what you said to Doctor West. She’s an amazing doctor and an amazing… woman. Just…” Rishi trailed off, looking a little flustered. He certainly had a crush on Yara.

I wanted to growl MINE .

I just bared my teeth at him instead, and he shrugged.

“I think she rather enjoyed antagonizing me,” I grunted, thinking about the night at her home and that app on my phone.

She did love to make my life, and my cock, hard.

I was sure she was laughing at me. I had never been helpless in my life, but I was when it came to her. It was maddening.

“If you say so. But I’m not calling her again for you.”

“You don’t have to. I have her number.” I even have her fucking sex app. “She insisted I call her.” I didn’t know why I said that, but there it was, and the jealousy in my voice wasn’t subtle.

Back off. Fucking back off.

“Well. Everyone falls for that fucking face.” He pointed to my face with a groan. “What do you want now?”

“Who’s representing Millicent?”

“You’re going to send me to an early grave,” he said, wiping his face. “Detective Rosario called him a worm with a non-existent pee hole. He also said some other more colorful things.”

“Don’t tell me it’s…” I looked at Rishi with a shake of my head.

“Yes. It is,” Rishi said with a long sigh.

“Mark Flemming?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair, a headache slowly forming.

“The one and only, Mr. Sleazebag. Now, please get the hell out of my apartment and let me mourn another woman falling for your absent charms in my solitude,” Rishi said with a mocking smile.

“My charms must not be as absent as you think…” With a wink, I walked out, and he grunted, slamming the door behind me.

I could hear him muttering, “Smug bastard.”

Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and I wasn’t ready for it.

The drive to Mark Flemming’s office took me an hour from my home. We had a few run-ins before because his clients were always the nastiest assholes that ever existed.

Lady Justice, supposedly impartial, wasn’t always so. Her scales were often tilted in the wrong direction by the weight of wealth. It had become more and more apparent to me in my years of reporting that the prison gates were reserved only for those unable to conceal their crimes with money.

I parked my car outside Flemming’s office building and walked in. The receptionist eyed me with suspicion when I asked about Flemming. I ignored her and headed straight to his office.

“What brings you to my office, Sinclair? Do you want me to keep you out of prison?” he sneered.

“I know you defend the scum of society,” I said, leaning in against his desk. The air around us was thick with animosity. “And Millicent Wark is certainly that, but for once, I believe she didn’t kill Victor.”

His eyes quickly changed, a look of uncertainty now taking over his previous look of smugness.

“Say it again?” He rubbed his partly bald head with a smile.

“You heard me. I think I can help your client, but I need to meet her. Face to face.”

“Ah, there it is,” Flemming said with a laugh that grated on my nerves. “You want your story.”

“Well, the story is already out, and everyone is telling their version. If you want my help, you’ll do as I ask,” I said. “Yes, or no? I don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

“You can tell me.”

“No. I want to talk with Wark,” I said, shaking my head. “Choose now.” I knew he was already floundering and desperate, so he agreed.

He looked at his watch, then at the clock before standing up.

“I do have an authorized visitation scheduled for today, and if the warden permits, you can meet her,” Flemming said, shrugging. “Come along.”

It took us fifty minutes to reach WHV. The only prison that housed women in Michigan. I had been here a few times before.

Petra Kim was also, officially, the only woman I had ever killed, a woman who escaped from the blind eyes of justice. She killed her husband and three daughters and was released back into the world because of a fucking mistrial.

After identification and security clearance, we waited in the visiting room, and soon, Millicent Wark walked out with a guard. She looked like she was on a fucking vacation or something, which made me want to let her rot in the prison.

“Who is that?” she asked with narrowed eyes when she saw me.

“He says he knows how to help you,” Flemming replied.

Millicent Wark was a tall woman with mean eyes and a smug smile.

“Is that so?” she asked, looking straight at me. “Tell me how you’re going to help me.”

“By finding the one who killed Victor. The real killer,” I said, and she perked up in her chair. “But for that, I need you to be honest.”

“Ah, is this some kind of a trick?” she tutted, looking bored.

I pulled the recorder from my pocket. I was allowed to bring it with me after I explained to the warden—Warden Bancroft and I were friendly, so it wasn’t hard to convince her.

I played the recorded conversation between K.Y. Wolff and the woman talking with her.

Millicent’s face twisted in rage, and her cheeks flushed. “I don’t know anything they—”

I waved my hand, cutting her off. “I know you’re not an innocent woman. What I know is that you didn’t kill Victor.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying to these useless pigs,” she grunted. “I don’t remember what the hell happened that night. When I woke up, I was in the middle of the road, and then the detectives were telling me I killed Victor. Why would I kill him? I was very fond of Victor.”

“This is my only lead, so… Do you recognize the voices?”