CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
“You came,” he said, opening the door to the outside with a flourish. “Shall we?”
Kate didn’t move. “You dragged me halfway across the city for this. If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”
Cox smiled faintly. “I’ve never wanted that. You are my witness, Kate.”
Her voice was steady. “What does that even mean?”
“It means,” he said, turning to face her fully, “that each life I claim, each death, has a purpose. And that purpose is you. Without you, none of it matters. Please…”
He walked out of the door, crossing the flat roof to a ventilation shaft shaped not unlike a ship’s funnel. A pair of kitchen chairs sat next to it, commanding a view of the whole city. Reluctantly, Kate joined him.
“But they don’t matter. That’s the point.
The killings—your so-called messages—they’ve changed nothing.
The world hasn’t repented. People haven’t flocked to churches.
The bankers still work weekends, the lawyers still cheat on their spouses.
The very existence of the Ten Commandments proves the opposite of what you think—it proves that human beings struggle with these things. They always have. They always will.”
Cox watched her, his hands on his knees, eyes glittering. “The work has barely begun.”
“But you’re not a prophet,” Kate continued.
“You’re not an instrument of divine will.
You’re a murderer. You take pleasure in pain, in fear, in your own myth.
The Commandments are your branding, your marketing strategy—a way to make yourself stand out from all the other sick little narcissists who like to watch people bleed. ”
The faint smile faltered. His breath caught almost imperceptibly, and Kate saw it—the stiffness in his shoulders, the subtle wince as he shifted his weight.
“And you’re getting weaker,” she said quietly. “Climbing up those stairs—don’t tell me that didn’t hurt. You haven’t fully recovered from your last escape. You’re sitting because you have to. You move slower. You’re in pain.”
His jaw clenched. “The spirit cares nothing for the flesh.”
“The next time you’re locked up,” Kate went on, “you’ll see it slipping away from you.
The power, the control. Some of the younger ones—they’ll start to doubt you.
Then they’ll start to talk. Before long, you’ll be just another old man in the corner, giving away his commissary for protection, terrified of losing his glasses, his dentures.
You’ll rot like the rest of them. That’s my prophecy.
And it didn’t come to me in a dream—it came from watching men like you decay in real time. ”
She leaned closer. “Because that’s all you are. A twisted, ugly old man.”
There was silence. The city murmured far below, a constant hum of unseen life. Kate’s phone buzzed three times in her pocket. Cox noticed it. Kate noticed it. She didn’t move.
Cox inclined his head slightly. “Impressive. Your self-control has improved. You would have made an excellent disciple, had you the courage.”
He folded his hands. “You have a choice, Kate. You can arrest me, and your mother will be executed. Or you can let me walk out of here and disappear into the city. You’ll never find me again, but in exchange, she lives. And perhaps, one day, I’ll even tell you why your father really—”
Kate cut him off sharply. “You really think that’s the key, don’t you? That I’ll trade everything for an answer? That I’d compromise my badge, everything I stand for, because I’m so desperate to understand what your game is?”
“It isn’t a game.”
“No, you’re right about that. It’s something sicker.
” She took another step toward him. “You don’t understand because you can’t.
You’ve never loved anyone, never lost anyone.
Every day I deal with people who have. They sit across from me, broken, asking why.
And most of the time, there isn’t an answer.
Life is cruel. Life’s a bitch. Death is random.
For most of us, the gap that’s left behind—that absence—that’s the only truth that matters. ”
Her voice steadied, cold and certain. “You are desperate for me to ask why, aren’t you?
How? Who? How did Gadd fill his journal with things that hadn’t happened yet?
What did you have to do with my Dad’s death?
How could you know about a little girl, building a treehouse with her Dad, all those years ago? What purpose do you want me to fulfil?”
“Oh, Kate. I can see you’re not ready to understand. The journey isn’t complete, the lessons have not yet been taught. You need more time in the crucible.”
“Bullshit. I see you. And I’ve seen your tricks.
You find some part of my past, and you leave it at the crime scene when you butcher someone.
So at the same time as trying to make me believe you’ve been watching me my whole life, you make me part of your ongoing bloodshed.
You make me believe that solving one will give me the answers to the other.
And it looks so clever from the outside, but really, it’s a crude and simple trick. And it doesn’t work.”
“My mistake,” Cox said, holding up his hands, a parody of apology. “I thought you had grown. You have merely become louder. You’re drowning out the voice inside you, that truly yearns to know. To understand the suffering you’ve undergone and behold its higher purpose.”
“Why do you think understanding is so important? I don’t care why my dad died.
I don’t care if it had something or nothing to do with you.
I only care that he’s gone. That’s what it means to be a real person, Elijah, to have real feelings for other people.
And it’s the one thing you’ll never, ever grasp, because there’s something missing from you, and I pity you for that. I pity you.”
She stood up, drew her cuffs. “Stand up.”
He hesitated, and she took a half step closer, weapon visible at her hip. Slowly, Cox rose. His knees cracked audibly in the silence.
Kate read him his rights as she snapped the cuffs closed around his wrists. “Elijah Cox, you are under arrest for the murders of Bartholomew Yang, Patricia Kellerman, and Richard Brennan.”
Cox gave a thin smile. “You’re making a mistake. Your mother will—”
“My mother is safe,” Kate interrupted. “I alerted my partner on the way here. Those three rings you just heard?” She nodded toward her phone. “That was him. We have a code, for when we can’t speak. Three rings. Received and understood.”
Her voice hardened. “But what have you understood, Elijah? After all that blood, all those sermons, all those corpses? Nothing. There is no revelation.”
“You are wrong.”
“You’re going back to jail.”
The sound of sirens began to build from the street below, faint at first, then swelling, a wailing chorus that carried up through the broken windows.
Kate stood motionless, holding him in her gaze as the light from the rooftops flashed red against the glass.
Cox said nothing. For the first time, she thought he looked afraid.