57. MODUS OPERANDI

57

MODUS OPERANDI

RYDEN

I ran toward Yara, pushing away the uniforms trying to stop me. I couldn’t let her fall apart—not here, not now. When I reached her, she was sitting on the ground, shaking her head, looking pale, confused, and broken.

“What happened?”

“The second death…” Detective Myers looked at me with a sad smile. “Sinclair, it’s Patel.”

My eyes widened as shock, anger, and denial pulsed inside me.

“Patel? Rishi? Wh-what? What are you… Detective Myers? It can’t be. I just saw him yesterday and…”

I wasn’t lying when I told Yara he was a friend. Of course, he didn’t know all my fucked-up secrets, but he was someone I considered a friend.

“Why are we not there?” I asked with a frown.

“Doctor Kavya Metha is on the scene with Detective Rosario. We needed Doctor West here.”

“I—I can help…” Yara looked up, her eyes fierce. “I want to help.”

“You know about The Strangler’s last kill, and you… Amy needs you here,” Detective Myers said.

“How are you so sure it’s The Strangler who killed Patel?” I asked, rubbing my chin with a scowl. “That wasn’t The Strangler’s MO.”

“It wasn’t, but this was,” the detective said, pointing to the thin red line around the woman’s neck. “Rishi’s thyroid cartilage was damaged. There were petechial hemorrhages and signs of asphyxiation. Doctor Metha concluded the COD was strangulation. Of course, it could be anyone, but we were operating under the fact that it was The Strangler. Some of his case files were missing from his car. We’re assuming that he had somehow gotten closer.”

“He was killed in his car?”

“Yes. And left in the middle of the road last night,” Detective Myers said. “Fucking bastard. Whoever did this… he’s going to regret his life when we catch him.”

“When we catch him,” Yara spat out, looking directly at me. I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to help her hunt this bastard down and kill him.

I was in. I was always in.

I gave her a subtle nod as she finally stood up from the ground. She grabbed her gloves and pulled them on, eyes determined. Her fingers trembled when she ripped open a collection swab from the plastic. She bent toward the woman and collected sample after sample.

I studied the shade of lipstick on the dead body. This must be the third shade from the picture the sick bastard had drawn on Yara’s wall.

The need to turn the world upside down until I found the asshole who was doing this to Yara, the asshole who killed Rishi, was a burn that was steadily growing.

“I’m sure we won’t find any DNA,” Yara said, her voice dejected as she sealed the evidence bags. “Transport the body to the ME office. I’m going to meet up with Detective Rosario.”

Yara and I walked out of the crime tape.

“The Strangler killed Rishi because he was getting closer to the truth,” I said, opening the door for her. “But whose truth? Mine or his?”

“What do you mean?” I asked with a frown as she entered inside.

“I have always thought… he might know me from the orphanage. Now I’m sure he does. We need to find Sister Serena. You… said you were going to talk with her. Did you talk with her?”

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. I found you before that.”

When we stopped at the second crime scene, Yara gave me a quick look, and I understood it.

“Rishi must have been going to the orphanage,” she said as she walked out with a scowl. His body was already closed in a body bag when we met Detective Rosario, throwing orders at everyone. He stopped when he saw Yara and me.

“That pinche pendejo… he did it again, and this time, it’s Rishi and Amy.”

“Did you find anything?”

“There were defensive wounds. He put up a fight. Doctor Metha said she maybe could find some DNA evidence,” Detective Rosario said with a grim look at the body bag. “That… that is Rishi. Can you even imagine… that? He’s too fucking young to die.” The detective bit his lips, shaking his head. “It is one fucking thing after another. Yesterday, it was Logan and you… and now, it’s him. He could have killed you, too.”

“I’ll see you later, Detective,” Yara said curtly as she moved toward the car.

“It must be hard for her,” Detective Rosario said with a concerned smile. “Our lives are hard. Why did we choose to live with death?”

“So that we can protect the ones who are living?” I said and he nodded.

“Oh, and Sinclair, this isn’t the time to tell you, but… after you pestered me about Sofia and Nikki, I decided to dig deeper,” he said with a frown. “I—I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said.”

“Don’t worry about that now. You just lost a friend. We just lost a friend,” I said with a sigh. Once this mess was dealt with, I’d tell him about AFC.

“But this is our life. You might be right. We’ll talk about Sofia’s case after we find this motherfucker… this hijo de su puta madre is going to burn in hell.”

“He will.”

“We need to go back to the studio,” Yara said as soon as I started the engine. “We saw the painting and decided it was his. Maybe he was just a sick asshole, and The Strangler was using him. There must be some other evidence…”

“We can’t go there. Everyone’s watching now and watching closer. We can’t go anywhere near Logan’s studio.”

“We have to,” she said. “I can talk with the detective. He’d let me go.”

“You can’t, Yara. Think about it. We need to be careful.”

She gritted her teeth and punched the dashboard with a frown.

“Of course, but we have to find a way to break in.”

“Once all of this is settled.”

“How the hell was I so wrong? I should have thought about it. He was smug as hell, and he… he looked at me like he wanted to kill me. That wasn’t the love The Strangler was writing about.”

“We were so caught up in that moment, Yara. We made a mistake.”

“I never make mistakes,” she said with a hiss. “I never did. I… I had spent four years chasing him. I should have known it wasn’t Logan Jones. He didn’t fucking fit the profile, but I kept convincing myself because I wanted it to be over. I needed it to be over.” She scratched her face with a growl. “I was a fucking moron. I… I knew it. I knew something was wrong. Something was so fucking wrong.”

The anger on her face, the self-repulsion… I wanted to tell her it wasn’t her mistake, but I knew she was not in the mindset to hear that.

“We’ll correct the mistake, Yara. I promise we will.”