17. Running With Scissors
Chapter 17
Running With Scissors
MARCO
“ T his can’t wait?” I asked. She’d asked the agent what she needed to know. After everything that’d happened earlier, I didn’t want something to set her off again.
Especially not that slimy prick.
“The sooner we ask our questions, the sooner we can do our jobs.” Nash’s gaze narrowed. “Unless there’s a reason you don’t want us to find who did this.”
I shifted to stand, happy to force them from the room, but she put her palm on my leg.
Her soft whisper was just for me. “It’s okay.”
I dropped my hand to cover hers. The men watched the movement with the same surprise and interest they showed at the three of us being there. I didn’t give a damn.
Agent Nash slowly dragged his attention from our hands to look between us. The distrust on our faces was mirrored on his. “Another tie between Eternal Sun and Black Resorts. Once, maybe I could dismiss that as a fluke. But repeatedly?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy the coincidence.”
I hated to agree with the bastard, but he might’ve been onto something.
Until he veered so far off the course, it was a wonder he didn’t crash into trees.
Or a fist.
“I already know these… men ,” he spit, clearly not the word he wanted to use, “are associated with Ash Cooper, but what about you, Calliope? Has he threatened you?”
She reared back. “What? No. I barely know him.”
I kept my voice a helluva lot softer than I wanted so I didn’t scare Callie. “He was also at his wedding when she was attacked. There are about a million pictures to confirm his alibi. Again .”
He wasn’t deterred and raised his chin, the smug bastard. “We’ll see.”
“Let’s focus on last night,” the detective said, doing his job instead of jumping to asinine conclusions.
“Do you think it’s related—” Freddy started.
He gave a sharp, subtle shake of his head. “ Just last night,” he reiterated. “What were you doing when you were attacked?”
“I don’t know,” Callie said.
Nash’s jaw clenched, and he was lucky I didn’t break it for the way he scowled at her. And then the fucker made it worse for himself. “If you’re covering for someone”—he scanned us—“or someones , I suggest you rethink it. More people could get hurt, and that’d be on you.”
“Whoa, what the fuck did you say?”
“Say that again.”
“And I suggest you get the fuck out of here while you can still walk.”
Freddy, Cole, and I spoke over each other as the two of them stood. I stayed where I was, gripping Callie’s hand when she let out a rattled whimper.
It wasn’t the insinuation that we were somehow guilty of something that was the problem. He could’ve launched every accusation my way, then started making up more for all I cared. My issue was with the pile of heavy bullshit he’d tried to place on her shoulders.
He’d already caused enough damage.
Boden’s pinched face grew red. Either they were playing decent cop, dickhead agent , or he was genuinely livid. “Take a walk.”
Nash threw his arm out toward the bed. “We don’t have time to waste while she?—”
“I said take a walk.”
He muttered something as he stormed out, slamming the door behind him like we weren’t in a damn hospital with countless other patients.
The prick.
“As much as it burns my ass to say this,” Boden said, “Agent Nash is right. Every second counts.”
“But I really don’t know.” The tears that’d just stopped began to roll down her pale, scrunched face. “I don’t remember what happened.”
We hadn’t even gotten the chance to talk to her before Agent Douchebag had stormed in to set her off. I’d assumed she knew what’d happened. That her earlier tears were because of the trauma she’d been through. That was bad enough.
Not knowing what’d occurred had to make it far fucking worse.
“What do you remember?” the detective asked.
“Being at work, but that’s hazy. Then nothing until a little bit ago.”
“What about the parking garage?”
She frantically shook her head and winced. “I wish I did. And I want to help, I swear?—”
“I believe you. The security footage is too dark to see, but once our techs work on it, I would like you to watch the footage. See if it jogs your memory.”
I looked at Cole, but he was already pulling his phone out.
He tapped the screen a few times and dragged his finger across. “You feel up to watching this?”
“How’d you get that?” Boden asked. “We took the files as evidence.”
Cole didn’t bother to explain that nothing was deleted forever, he had an intricate cloud storage backup, and he could hack into the police system to access anything he wanted without setting off a firewall or whatever mediocre defenses they thought covered their asses. He turned his head toward the detective and arched a brow. “You want answers, or do you want to discuss my IT system?”
The detective dipped his head for Cole to continue.
“You feel up to it?” he repeated to Callie.
She nodded.
Freddy took the spot on the other side of her again as Cole handed her his phone before pressing play. The footage didn’t show much—we’d been through it frame by frame until it’d blurred together—but it was enough.
“The robot,” she whispered.
Boden’s brows lowered as he pulled out a small notepad and pen. “Like the food delivery robots?”
I’ve been telling Cole the smart tech he installed everywhere was gonna revolt and kill us like some shit outta a horror movie.
“No, it…” Callie shook her head to clear it. “Or he, I guess, because being a robot is insane. He had a shiny mouth.”
“Braces?” I asked, unable to picture a ruthless killer setting aside time to pop in for an ortho appointment.
Wilder shit happened, though.
“No, not his teeth. The outside. His whole mouth.” She lifted her hand to the bandage on her forehead. “I already felt off and had hit my head by then, so I might’ve been seeing things. But his voice sounded robotic.”
The room went wired.
“Must’ve been a voice modu—” The detective’s words and pen froze, and his attention snapped from the pad to Callie. “Wait, he spoke? What’d he say?”
“That he warned me.”
“He warned you? Have you received any threats lately?”
“Not a credible one.”
“But you did receive one?”
Callie’s nervous eyes darted to Freddy, Cole, and me, and it gutted me.
Because, Christ, she had a point.
We wouldn’t hurt her. We wouldn’t hurt any woman, but especially not her. But we had threatened to fire her.
Audience be damned, I was about to make sure she knew that she was safe with us when she shared, “One of the chefs from work. Well, an ex-chef.”
Her hesitancy had been because she’d been worried about how we would respond. And it was a valid concern. If she wasn’t in the hospital, the three of us would’ve been out the door to find that fucker.
As it was, Freddy bolted up from where he’d just sat back down. “ Putain. Nico Benson threatened you?”
“Kind of, but it was just?—”
“When?”
“A couple of days after you fired him.”
A couple of days. That would’ve been close to—if not the same day—we’d turned our backs on her.
We’re dickheads. Dumbass ones, like Juliet said.
“Nico Benson,” the detective muttered as he wrote.
Regret that I’d played it safe ate at me. We should’ve dealt with him that night, fuck waiting.
Fuck the risk.
Fuck the damn FBI.
And especially fuck Nico Benson.
Boden looked up from the pad. “Why’d you fire him?”
Freddy filled him in, and I knew the same regrets were going through his mind.
We’re damn sure gonna figure out how he broke the ban.
And why she didn’t say anything before now.
“Do you think this Nico Benson is the one who attacked you?” Boden asked Callie.
She didn’t pause to think. “No.”
I gently cupped her chin and tilted her head so she looked at me. “You sure? This is important, and even if you don’t think he would?—”
“It wasn’t him.” She lifted her shoulder. “I don’t know how I know, but I do.”
“But he did threaten you?”
“Kind of. He wanted me to help get his job back.”
“What’s the kind of part?” I needed to be sure I had an accurate tally of everything he’d done before I hunted him down.
“He said he owed some people money and was going to tell them I was the one who cost him his job. Is that what happened?” She looked up at me with wide eyes. “Are they after me now?”
TV and movies didn’t get a lot right, but they were usually correct on one thing. Dealers and loan sharks rarely killed the person in debt. They went after the people closest to them, but only when it made sense.
If Benson had tried to shift the target to Callie, it was more likely they would copy Benson’s attempt to intimidate her into cooperating. They would want his income source back, not her hurt.
I wasn’t taking that chance. “I don’t think so, but we’ll make sure you’re safe.”
I hadn’t meant to say we . I wanted to say that I would keep her safe. That I would do what I should’ve done in the first place. But I didn’t correct myself.
“Agreed,” Boden tossed in like his two cents mattered. “But I’ll be talking to Nico Benson when I leave here. Did you call 911 or report his threat?”
Callie pressed her lips together. She twisted the blanket between her fingers and stared straight ahead as she quietly admitted, “He didn’t really do anything, so I didn’t think anyone would care.”
I didn’t think anyone would care.
Her softly spoken words ricocheted through my head. Not like a bullet. They were a damn cannonball.
We’d made her feel that way. We’d cut her off because ignoring her was easier than dealing with our feelings. We’d hurt her. Put her at risk. For what?
Jack-fucking-shit.
That time and space we’d forced hadn’t done a damn thing to lessen our attraction or make us move on.
If I was keeping my self-hatred close to the vest, Freddy might as well have been broadcasting his to the world. His pretty-boy face was distraught as he dragged both hands through his hair.
And not just him.
Cole held his phone tight enough that his knuckles turned white. It was a miracle the thing didn’t crush like an aluminum can against a frat bro’s head.
“Can you think of anyone else who would want to hurt you?” Boden asked.
Callie took a few beats before shaking her head.
“Okay, walk me through exactly what happened.”
Callie recounted what she remembered, going back to fill in more details as they came to her. There still wasn’t a lot until she added, “Wait. When he covered my mouth, his hand felt weird.”
The detective stood a little taller. “Could he have been wearing a glove?”
She turned her head to look at the boxes of rubber gloves mounted on the wall. “No, it wasn’t?—”
“A leather one,” he amended.
“Yes, that could be it,” she said.
He had that locked and loaded.
The dread that’d sat in my gut since finding out she was stabbed turned to poisonous rot.
“Anything else you remember? Sounds? What he wore?” She started to shake her head but froze when he added, “Smells?”
“The glove smelled weird. Like sickly sweet.” A hard shudder rocked through her. I carefully wrapped an arm around her, and Freddy took his spot on the other side again. Cole fussed with her blanket that time.
Boden watched the scene as he flipped a page in his notepad. “Interesting benefits Black Resorts offers. Do you provide this level of care to all your employees?”
Callie’s breath hissed out, and she shifted right back out of my hold. I let her go so she could find a comfortable position.
“This line of questioning mean you’re done and will be on your way?” I shot back.
“Not yet.” He looked at Callie, noticing her pain. “Unless you need a break. I can come back later.”
“No, that’s fine. This, um, feels better than just sitting around with no idea about what happened.”
“A lot of victims say that.” His tone and expression were both sympathetic. “Based on the evidence and what you’ve shared, I strongly suspect your attacker is the same person behind the recent stabbings.”
“The serial killer?” she asked. Not in a frantic, panicked way. It was more curious. Like she didn’t believe it.
Boden nodded. “Until now, none of the victims have been connected. But you and Veronica Rogers are both members of Eternal Sun.”
“I was a member,” Callie corrected again, looking more upset at being lumped in with the group than she was about being the target of a serial killer.
I wonder if she’s in shock.
I tried to reach for her, but she shook me off and kept going to firmly make her point clear. “My parents are members. I was there because of them. Now I’m not .”
“But you knew Veronica Rogers?”
“Barely.”
“Can you think of any reason someone would want you both dead?”
She shook her head.
“Did you work together to recruit? Target anyone who would hold a grudge?”
“No. I rarely did my own enlightenment workshops, much less try to rope anyone else into that place.”
The detective’s expression turned dodgy as his eyes shifted. “Can I have a minute with Calliope?”
“No,” Freddy, Cole, and I said instantly.
He didn’t seem surprised and put his effort toward reasoning with her. “This will be easier for you if we’re alone.”
If she told us to go, I would.
Outside the door.
No farther than that.
But she didn’t take his advice. “I want them to stay.”
I wasn’t sure if it was because it was specifically us or that she wanted anyone there and it didn’t matter who. I also didn’t care.
I took the win.
“My next questions are delicate. Personal .” When we still didn’t move and Callie didn’t kick our asses out, Detective Boden tapped his pen on the pad. “Do you participate in any risky behaviors?”
I knew what he was asking, but Callie didn’t.
Brows lowered, she tilted her head to the side. “Like running with scissors?”
“The detective wants to know if you sleep around or use drugs,” I told her. If it weren’t for the circumstances, I would’ve smiled at the way her cheeks flushed at just hearing my words.
She transferred that shock to Boden. “Oh. No. Drugs annoy me, and… No . Why are you asking?”
“Part of the reason the connection flew under the radar for so long was because the killer targeted random, high-risk victims. Sex workers, drug users, the vulnerable. The only reason we linked them is because the MO changed.”
“How?” Cole asked. If he was making mental notes so he could create something to scan through the public reports for similarities, he was out of luck.
Boden shook his head. “I can’t say.”
“Veronica and I don’t fit that,” Callie pointed out.
“Veronica had a rap sheet, CPS cases, and a long line of dysfunctional relationships.”
“Oh.” Her lips curved down. “Well, I don’t fit that.”
“And nothing you’ve done would make someone think you did?” I sat forward, but the detective held up his hand. “I’m not victim blaming. I’m simply trying to figure out why someone might incorrectly make that assumption. Dates, club hopping, online habits, anything?”
She shook her head.
“Sometimes the little things are the biggest clues. Walk me through a typical day,” he pressed.
Her cheeks turned bright red.
What the hell?