Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Sweat trickled down Zoe’s back. Her clothes stuck to her like a second skin.
Her breaths were jerky and her heart careened lazily.
She tightened her hands into fists, knuckles cracking and blood pounding.
The chorus of people chanting names and hooting dissolved in the background and so did their faces.
All Zoe saw was one face—Viktor Axenov. It was him who circled her in the ring and not the brute Benny had arranged her match with.
Her vision molded around him until she only saw him.
He lunged forward but she moved deftly to one side, delivering a sharp uppercut.
Before he had a chance to recover, she looped him and struck him behind the knee.
His legs buckled and down he went with a grunt.
This is what she would have done to Viktor.
But she had been ambushed. He was strong.
Unlike some of the men she fought in these underground fight clubs, that man had a defined, specific skill set that came from training and not just experience.
His movements had been sharp and controlled; his blows had been effective.
She wrapped an arm around her opponent’s neck and locked it in place.
His body writhed; his arms flailed as he tried to free himself.
But Zoe tightened her grip, crushing his windpipe with her arm.
She let the rage drive her. It pumped through her body, burning her insides, coating them with a thick layer of ash.
She was so close to finding out who Rachel was hiding from.
Viper . The man who pulled Viktor’s strings.
What had Rachel stolen from him? Who was so powerful that he had found Rachel in witness protection?
Why had she lied to the police about Rachel’s death?
Each question burrowed deeper into her skin.
Soon the opponent transformed into the man she saw at the subway station yesterday. Then suddenly his face blurred—the faceless entity who had sent her the lock of hair and buried Annabelle Stevens in the woods. And then his face changed again.
This time she saw her own face.
A sharp thread of shock pulled through her and she let go of her opponent, staggering backward and gasping.
The crowd around her erupted as the man went slack-jawed and dropped unconscious. The referee, Benny, raised her hand in triumph. But Zoe didn’t register anything—not the noise, not her body’s soreness, not that sweet feeling of victory.
Because she knew deep down that it wasn’t Rachel’s killer or the other bad people in her life she wanted to inflict pain upon; she was the biggest villain of her life.
Back at the station, Zoe’s finger grazed the edges of Annabelle’s autopsy photographs in the file.
Snapshots of her arms, collarbone, and legs sprinkled with distinct purple puncture wounds.
The dimensions were measured and noted in the file, along with test results pending for particulate analysis.
There wasn’t a single part of Annabelle’s skin that was devoid of injuries.
It was as if someone was determined to systematically inflict pain on her—piece by piece, slowly and steadily pushing her because he wanted to see that first crack in her resolve and then the next, until she broke down completely.
Like Annabelle was a lab rat in a twisted individual’s experiment.
Unlike Zoe for whom pain was a quick fix like a drug. She chased those blows and punches and kicks to assuage some of the guilt that had a permanent grip on her insides.
“How can someone do that to a person?” she wondered out loud, wincing at another photo of Annabelle’s thigh where the imprint of barbed-wire fencing was etched into her skin.
Aiden appeared over her shoulder, startling her. “Dehumanization—” He stopped when he saw her watching him flatly. “Ah, it was a rhetorical question.”
Zoe rolled her eyes and closed the file, swiveling on her chair. “We might have another missing woman.”
His face fell. “Did you get another riddle?”
“Annabelle was last seen at the café and talking with her friend—Jackie Fink. No one has heard from her since Annabelle went missing.”
“Did the husband, Trevor, know Jackie?”
“I got off the phone with him an hour ago. He said the name doesn’t ring a bell.”
He stroked his jaw and slowly sat down. “ Both women could be in danger?”
She nodded. “The last sighting of Annabelle was with Jackie. Why? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking it’s not an easy feat for someone to kidnap two adult women.” His voice trailed off as he did some calculations. “We might have to revise our profile.”
“How?”
“It’s more likely that the killer knew both of them, which is why he was able to lure them at the same time. Maybe they were on their way to meet him.”
Her chest constricted. “Do you think Jackie is being tortured as we speak? There’s a reason I haven’t gotten a riddle yet.”