Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Celeste
Five in the morning shouldn't feel like it’s foreplay, but here we are.
I watch Cain prepare for murder with the same precision other men use for shaving.
Every movement is deliberate, economical, and practiced.
He checks the syringe of a paralytic agent, taps it twice to remove air bubbles.
The digitalis is already measured, ready in a second syringe.
His hands are perfectly steady, those same hands that were inside me an hour ago, that know how to bring both pleasure and death.
"Succinylcholine," he says, holding up the first syringe. "It'll paralyze him completely in under thirty seconds. He'll be conscious but unable to move or speak."
"How long does it last?"
"Long enough. Five to ten minutes. We only need three."
My hands shake as I pull on black running gear—we need to look like early morning joggers if anyone sees us.
The fabric is expensive, moisture-wicking, the kind serious athletes wear.
We are serious, just not about athletics.
His mother’s ring catches the lamplight, sending fractured rainbows across the dark fabric.
I've been wearing it for six hours, and it already feels like part of me.
Or maybe I'm becoming part of it—another woman claiming beauty from brutality.
"You're thinking about the ring," Cain observes.
"I'm thinking about her wearing it while she watched you and Juliette suffer. I'm thinking about how it's probably worth more than most people make in a year. I'm thinking about how it's mine now, and what that makes me."
"It makes you my wife. Or will, soon enough."
"Your wife." I test the words, taste them. "Celeste Lockwood."
"Unless you want to keep Sterling."
"No. I don't want anything from him except answers. And then justice."
"Second thoughts?" Cain asks, not looking up from his preparations.
"No. Just... awareness. This is different from Jake. That was reaction, instinct, self-defense. This is premeditated."
"This is justice." He turns to me, and his eyes are glacier-cold. "Morrison has been trafficking girls through these mountains for years. Girls younger than you were when Jake first tried to touch you. Some as young as twelve."
"I know." I zip up my jacket, check my watch. "We need to leave in ten minutes."
He crosses to me, frames my face with his hands. "You don't have to come. I can do this alone."
"We're engaged now. We kill together or not at all."
He kisses me, hard and brief, tasting of coffee and intent. "You're extraordinary."
"I'm yours."
"Same thing."
We perform a final check—syringes secured in the inner pocket of Cain's jacket, gloves in mine, alibis rehearsed.
We were never here.
We're asleep in his cabin, traumatized from Jake's attack, hiding from the world.
If anyone asks, we'll have each other as witnesses.
The perfect alibi: love.
I think about Morrison as we prepare.
I've researched him since Juliette told us about the trafficking.
Fifty-three years old, divorced twice, three kids who don't speak to him.
Twenty-eight years with the state police, commendations and complaints equalling out the other.
The kind of cop who gets results but leaves bodies in his wake—metaphorical and literal.
The truck is already warm, heated remotely.
Cain thinks of everything.
We drive in silence through the pre-dawn darkness, passing only one other vehicle—a delivery truck heading to town.
The driver doesn't even glance our way.
We're invisible, anonymous, just another couple in the dark.
The mountains loom around us, black shapes against a black sky.
I grew up here, but never really saw them until now.
They hide so much—bodies, secrets, crimes that span decades.
My father taught me these roads, showed me the trails, warned me about the dangers in the woods.
He never mentioned he was one of them.
"Tell me about Morrison's routine again," I say, though I already know it by heart.
"He parks at exactly 5:45. Stretches for three minutes by his car. Starts running at 5:48. Maintains a nine-minute mile pace for the first three miles, then slows to ten-minute miles for the back four. Reaches the isolated stretch by Miller's Pond between 6:15 and 6:18."
"You've been watching him."
"Yes. He's uploaded every run to Strava. Public profile. He wants people to see how dedicated he is, how strong. Vanity makes him vulnerable."
"Like Jake."
"All predators are vain. They think they're apex, untouchable. They never consider they might be someone else's prey."
Miller's Pond is a seven-mile loop popular with serious runners.
The trail is well-maintained but isolated, especially the two-mile stretch along the pond's north shore.
No cell service, no houses, no help.
In summer, it's beautiful—wildflowers and mountain views.
In winter, it's desolate, the kind of place where screams freeze before they reach anywhere.
Morrison posts about it constantly on social media, bragging about maintaining his routine despite the investigation. "Dedication separates professionals from amateurs," his last post read.
Dedication will separate him from his life in approximately forty minutes.
We park at the trailhead lot, empty except for Morrison's rental car—a black Suburban that screams federal authority.
He wants people to know who he is, what power he represents.
After today, it'll just be an abandoned vehicle waiting for an owner who'll never return.
"He started twelve minutes ago," Cain says, checking his phone where he's been tracking Morrison's fitness app.
Technology makes murder so much more convenient. "He'll reach the isolated stretch in eight minutes."
We stretch by our truck, playing the part of morning joggers.
Anyone driving by would see a couple preparing for exercise, nothing more.
I bend to touch my toes, and Cain runs his hand down my spine, possessive even now.
"Ready?"
"Always."
We jog onto the trail, pacing ourselves to intercept perfectly.
My breath clouds in the frigid air, December asserting itself with below-freezing temperatures.
The ground is frozen solid, our footprints leaving no impression. Nature conspiring to hide our crime.
The woods are silent except for our footfalls.
No birds yet, too early and too cold.
The trees are skeletons against the lightening sky, their branches reaching like the hands of the dead.
Appropriate, considering what we're about to do.
"You're smiling," Cain observes.
"I'm about to murder a human trafficker with my fiancé. It's better than coffee."
"You're perfect."
"I'm becoming perfect. You're sculpting me into something sharper than I was."
"You were always sharp. I'm just removing the safety guards."
We pass the one-mile marker, then the two.
My body warms with the exercise, muscles remembering years of morning runs when I couldn't sleep, when the stories in my head demanded movement.
Now I'm living one of those stories, running toward violence instead of from insomnia.
The trail curves ahead, entering the densest part of the woods.
Pine and spruce press close, their branches heavy with last night's snow.
No houses, no roads, no witnesses for a mile in any direction.
We slow our pace, listening.
There—footfalls ahead, heavy and labored.
Morrison pushing himself despite the cold, despite his weight, despite his age.
Proving something to no one.
"Remember," Cain says quietly, "once the paralytic hits, we have limited time. The digitalis needs to go in within two minutes for the timing to look natural."
"I remember."
We round the corner and there he is, red-faced and sweating, earbuds in, completely unaware.
He's wearing expensive gear that does nothing to hide his soft belly, his struggling form.
Nike everything, probably a thousand dollars' worth of athletic wear on a man who hasn't been athletic in twenty years.
This man samples trafficking victims before they're sold.
This man was going to frame Cain for murders he didn't commit while ignoring the ones he did.
This man thinks his badge makes him untouchable.
He's wrong.
Cain moves first, coming up behind Morrison with an inhuman-like quiet.
I watch him hunt, see the predator he truly is.
No hesitation, no doubt, just pure purpose.
The needle slides into Morrison's neck before he knows we're there.
Morrison jerks, hand going to his neck, spinning around.
His eyes widen when he sees us—recognition flooding his face.
"Lockwood," he gasps, already losing motor control. "You... you're under arrest..."
"No," I say, moving into his line of sight. "You're under judgment."
His legs give out.
He crashes to his knees, then forward onto his hands.
Fighting the drug but losing.
His breathing is panicked, ragged.
He tries to reach for his phone, but his fingers won't cooperate.
The paralytic is spreading through his system like winter through water, freezing everything it touches.
"You should see yourself," I tell him. "The great Detective Morrison, on his knees in the dirt. How many girls have you put in this position? How many have begged while you decided their fate?"
"Wallet," Cain says to me.
I pull Morrison's wallet from his pocket, remove his phone too.
Make it look like a robbery gone wrong if anyone questions the heart attack.
His phone is locked but still recording his run—6.2 miles, heart rate 162, pace dropping rapidly as the app registers he's stopped moving.
The wallet is thick with cash—more than a detective should carry.
There are credit cards, a badge, photos of kids who hate him.
And tucked behind his license, a small piece of paper with an address.
I recognize it—a cabin on the north side of the mountains, isolated, perfect for moving cargo.
Morrison tries to speak but only manages a gurgle.
The paralytic has reached his throat muscles.
He can see, hear, feel everything, but can't move, can't scream.
Perfect.
Cain kneels beside him, shows him the second syringe. "Digitalis. It'll cause massive cardiac arrest. With your health, your family history, no one will question it. Just another older cop who pushed themselves too hard."