Chapter 26 #2
She smiles at the man who snatched her card. “Thank you. I must have left it in the apartment.”
And up we go.
We stop at the seventh floor to let the woman off and then again at the twelfth floor where we get out.
The doors open and we nearly run into a woman who gives us a curious look.
She continues down the hallway while we slowly head toward Colby’s apartment, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves and hoping she disappears inside so we’re not left standing outside of his door and raising questions.
Instead, she starts chatting with someone while standing in their doorway.
“Just… block what I’m doing,” Cassel whispers as he presses something against the scanner outside of Colby’s door.
“I can have Jackson take his shirt off, if you think it’ll help,” I say.
“What would that help?” Cassel asks.
“You think she might like ladies instead? I mean… Jackson does look beautiful as a woman too. If she squints hard enough, she can just pretend.”
“Nope,” Jackson states.
“Jackson, you could save our lives here,” I say.
“I’m pretty sure distracting a neighbor who isn’t even really paying us any attention isn’t saving our lives,” he counters.
“I’m in,” Cassel declares, and at first, I assume he’s talking about seeing Jackson half naked, but then I realize he means that he’s already broken into the apartment.
“That was boringly quick. I was hoping she’d come over and be all like, ‘Who are you?’ And I’d whip up Jackson’s shirt and be like, ‘The strippers you ordered,’ and she’d be like, ‘OH MY,’ and then—”
I get shoved into the room before I can explain my “and then.” They’re really both so jealous of my way of thinking.
We head into the apartment that looks like it’s straight out of a staging magazine. There’s no personalization to the room at all.
“I doubt he’s been here long, and I doubt he’s planning on staying long,” I observe as I start looking around.
“He likely came here because of you,” Cassel says. “I’ve looked at the apartment list and this unit is rented by a Lila Owens.”
“Interesting. A girlfriend? Or just a lie to keep his life separate?” I mutter while I head farther into the luxury apartment.
When I reach his bedroom, I slide open the closet and my fingers drift through his clothes.
I kneel down, looking for something that might have been hidden, but just as I’m reaching out to the tower of stuff crammed inside, I hear a noise behind me.
“In here,” Jackson calls from a room deeper in.
I wander toward him and see the only thing that seems to be personalized in any way being held in Jackson’s gloved hands.
He sets what looks like some kind of album or scrapbook down on a desk and begins flipping through it.
“You think these are people he’s killed? ”
Each page has a name and photograph. Some of them have newspaper clippings. Some have photographs of their dead bodies. There’s so much detail. Where they died, how they died, anything news related to their death. It’s like a scrapbook of dead people ranging years.
“Must be. He seems to glorify them,” Cassel says, but they’re wrong. They’re very wrong. He didn’t kill a single one of these.
I reach out and start flipping the pages myself.
Dean Watkins, a serial rapist and murderer.
Martha Reynolds, a con artist whose actions resulted in the deaths of seven people over the span of one year.
I remember her sobbing, begging, telling me that it wasn’t her fault. It was never her fault.
Why did they always think it was okay to do what they did, but the moment it was their lives on the line, it wasn’t their fault?
Here is Moby Richardson, a man who knew that the chemicals in his company were causing cancer in his workers, but he was too cheap to do anything about it.
He’d rather let people die than face the backlash of what he’d done.
The person who paid for the hit was his own daughter, furious after her mother died working in his company.
It’s fascinating how depraved humans can be when it involves their own comfort.
“They’re not his kills,” I say as I close the album. It’s such a hefty book. “They’re mine.”
Jackson looks over at me in surprise. “What the hell is he… is he wanting to use them against you? Frame you?”
“I… I don’t think so,” I respond, opening it to the very first page.
This one has a newspaper clipping protected behind a plastic sleeve, but even so, I can see the wear on it from someone touching it.
The newspaper is back from when I was seventeen and I killed his father and the other men involved.
“I think he’s been following me for a very long time. But why?”
“You killed his father who abused him… someone he was incapable of destroying. In his eyes, you accomplished the very thing he probably hoped he could do for many years. I think… I think he became obsessed with you—with the work you did. He did everything he could to be like you and then…” Cassel trails off.
“Then when he met me, I wasn’t the ruthless bastard I used to be, and he hates me for it,” I say. “Is that it? The thing is… I’m not even against killing. I’m not over here living a life of sainthood. He’s displeased simply when I do something he doesn’t approve of.”
My phone beeps, and I look down at it and see that it’s a video call from an unknown number.
I have to assume it’s him, so I accept it.
He’s still wearing the ski mask, hiding his face from me, but does he really think that’ll protect him?
He looks almost cocky as he sits at a desk in front of the camera, watching me with a grin on his face.
“Hello, Colby,” I say.
“Are you having fun, Mr. Sandman?” he asks as I notice him flicking something that’s sitting on the desk in front of him with a pen.
“What exactly is it that you want?” I ask. “You wanted me to destroy the Barlows and we’re well on our way to destroying them, but it’s not enough for you, is it?”
“No… I destroyed them. I had to do your fucking work for you because you were a fucking goddamn coward!” he yells.
“Is that what it’s called when you don’t take risks? Being a coward?”
I hear a noise from behind him and he tilts his head back. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Is that Detective Patel?” I ask.
He tips the camera a bit so I can see her bound and gagged on the floor. “Smile at the camera,” he says in a taunting tone. Her eyes flick up to catch the camera, and even like this, she’s refusing to show fear. She’s going to be stubborn to the very last breath.
But let’s hope I can get to her before then.
He positions the camera back to how it was and this time, when he flicks whatever he has on the desk, I realize that it’s a fingernail. There are a few scattered across the desk that he’s fiddling with and likely came from the very nosy detective.
“So, I save you and your sister when you were children, and then this is what I get in return?” I ask.
“You didn’t fucking save us,” he shouts as he slams his hand down on the desk. “You taunted us with a better life and then you took my sister from me.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“No, worse, you took her from me. You turned her against me,” he says.
“Because she stayed with us? She was living on the street starving to death when you could have gotten her help. Instead, you set her out there to gain my attention, but why, Colby? Did you think we’d take pity on her and bring you both in with open arms?
Lucas is a fucking monster; the last thing he’d do is welcome two strange children into his home.
The only reason he ever let anyone through that door was to use them. ”
“Yet he took in Sera. Why the fuck did he think she was worthy but not me? You really think my sister could have done all that I’ve done? Joke’s on you—I’ve accomplished greatness. I’m better than that asshole could have ever imagined. He missed out by not taking me in.”
“Lucas wasn’t looking for someone who could fight. He liked the fact that Sera could make herself disappear in a room full of people. He was going to use her to gather information. That is what he wanted, and you weren’t happy with her having a place to stay, so you killed her over it.”
“No, I killed her over the fact that she fought me to go back. She wanted you, not me. So then I decided that no one would have her if I couldn’t. That’s when Lucas threw me off that bridge, but he failed at killing me.”
“If he wanted to kill you, you would be dead,” I assure him. “Maybe he thought there was some hope for you, but he was wrong. What do you hope to gain through all of this? Patel plays no part in this. This is between you and me, so let her go.”
He smiles at me. “My eyes have been on you from the moment I saw my dead father lying at your feet. I watched you, I listened for words about you. I wanted you, I wanted to be you. And then you were gone… You were fucking gone, and I couldn’t find you.
I realized that someone must have killed you for you to have turned silent like that.
I vowed to find the parasite that took down the man who I thought was invincible.
But here… I find you playing house with some fucking…
weak man. Pretending like you can just wash yourself of your past life and move on? ”
He shakes his head and then slams his hand down on the desk, making the fingernails jump.
“I will destroy everyone and everything that has done this to you. I will twist your life out of fucking control until you become the man you once were. And then, when you finally are, I’m going to put a bullet in your head for betraying me like you did.
For making a fool out of me. They always say to never meet your heroes, and now I realize why. ”