Chapter 28
MI check Lana’s location, and she is at a downtown shopping mall. I hope she is treating herself to some nice things.
I am now at my primary residence and talking to my team.
Oliver and Josh are sitting at my kitchen table, Sara is going over some papers with me, and Adam is watching CCTV footage of Marco.
I’ve ordered Hana to stay away from us for the next couple of weeks because her exams are coming up, and I want her to study.
To which she begrudgingly agreed.
Kids leave school and go to the park afterward, where he snatches them.
He is particularly fond of young teenagers and lures them with candied apples and sweet talk.
In my community, there's been talk about this guy, but it was hard to track him down because he was a master at evading.
There are fucked up people in the world, but they still count as regular people.
And regular people get caught eventually.
Not this guy.
Marco is brilliant and patient.
Once a month, the park near his work has a “sweet day”.
Usually, it’s on the last day of the month or the first day of the new month, but this year it was organized earlier because of New Year’s.
Sweet Day is a day when the biggest park in Sarajevo is crawling with parents, kids, and teenagers, all trying to buy candy for a reduced price.
Vendors offer candy, chocolate, and baklava, among other treats, to satisfy your sweet tooth. But there is also savory stuff.
And Marco takes advantage of that, and he knows his audience.
It’s also one of the times that a lot of homeless teens and less fortunate teens from broken homes come to the park to get food at discounted prices.
Almost thirty-one percent of kids, ages five to fifteen, live in poverty in Bosnia, and a small chunk of that is in Sarajevo.
Maybe that’s a small chunk percentage-wise, but it’s still a lot of kids.
My blood is absolutely boiling at the thought of what he does.
Evil doesn’t look charming; it’s ordinary.
Marco goes to that park with candied apples and hands them out to teenagers who seem different to him—vulnerable teenagers in need of some help.
“Look at this, M,” Adam calls out to me.
I stand behind him and look at the CCTV footage dated a week ago, when the last Sweet Day was.
It shows Marco with a bunch of candied apples, asking a young girl, around age ten, if she wants one.
Then she does something he didn’t see coming, she refuses.
The bastard has become so brazen in his approach that he didn’t know this slipup was happening.
“Is he fucking running away?” I ask Adam.
“He is. Marco runs to a van parked nearby and races off. But—” Please give me good news, Adam. “—one of our team members followed him to a house a bit outside of Sarajevo. And, M, he got him.”
I put my hands on my hips and laugh.
We fucking have him.
“Yes, we fucking have him. Did he scout out the place to see if there’s any movement in the house?”
“He did, and he saw one girl in the house. Our guy is still there, observing. M, the girls are all very young.” That last word came out all angry, and I understand why. This is truly sickening.
“I’m going to torture him until he begs me to send him off to Hell.”
“I wasn’t done.” He points to Sara, indicating I should go to her. “She’ll explain everything to you.” I go to Sara, and she looks worried.
“You better sit down.” So I do. Sara sounds clinical in her explanation.
“Until the next one arrives, I believe he does unspeakable things to girls. He rapes them, tortures them, and after a month, death ensures.”
“Is it because a new Sweet Day ensures?” She nods and then proceeds.
“He only kills when he’s ready to bring home the next one. That’s his reset button.”
“Meaning?” I listen to Sara explain everything in great detail. She is in her element.
“Meaning he can’t let two of them exist at once. It breaks the illusion—that he’s their savior, their only one. He needs a clean slate before he starts the next fantasy.”
“Fucking hell.” I run a hand across my face. It’s been a while since I encountered this level of depravity.
“This is just my assumption. I would have a lot more to go on if I had him right before me.” I raise an eyebrow at Sara.
“I know that he wouldn’t be alive if he were here,” she waves a hand at me. “Anyways. He doesn’t lose control—he maintains it. That’s the difference. He’s not sloppy, he’s ritualistic.”
“We already knew he was smart.” Sara wiggles her finger at me and grins.
“Until a week ago. He made a grave mistake of approaching the daughter of a cop.” Even the most sophisticated killers make mistakes due to arrogance or a lack of it. Sara and I are establishing a pattern, and we have it.
Besides going to that park once a month, after work, he goes to his second residence and arrives at 4 p.m. on the dot almost every single day. He stays there until 7 p.m. and does his thing.
“Wait, you need to see this, guys,” Adam calls out to us. We huddle around him, and he points to Marco leaving with his van. For the first couple of seconds, I don’t see what he’s pointing at, until I see it.
A car with scratched plates is following our predator.
“Who the fuck is that?” I ask Adam.
“I don’t know. I wish I had the CCTV footage of the last five months.” I grab my phone, dial Kanita, the head of the Municipal Control Center, and put her on speaker. I own this fucking city because I have dirt on all of them.
“Kanita. How may I help you?” Her professional voice fills the room.
“M here, Kanita.” What follows is a sharp intake of breath from her.
“How can I help you?”
“I need the CCTV footage of Alija Park from the last five months.”
“I… I… can’t give that to you, M. It’s illegal.” Her words hold absolutely no weight right now, and I am at my wits' end.
“Fine.” I turn my attention to Oliver, and I talk loud enough for her to hear. “Who is the closest to Sloboda Street number fifteen?”
“Enes, he is about two minutes out.” Yes, Enes is almost as good a sniper as Adam.
“Kanita, one of my best snipers is on his way to your house, and I will give him particular orders.” I motion for Oliver to have Enes stand on the lookout and have his scope on her big house.
“M, please no.” I can hear her talking like she wants to cry. Her emotions are not my fucking concern. Oliver motions for me that Enes has positioned himself and waits for the order.
“CCTV footage.” No time to waste.
“I can’t—” While she is listing reasons she can’t send me the footage, I give Oliver the signal for Enes to proceed. Not my fucking problem that she lives all alone in a secluded house, which she paid for with bribe money.
“…and that’s why I can’t give it to you. I’ll lose my job!” Before I can say anything, I hear a loud screech from behind the line.
“What the fuck was that?!” She is out of breath, and it’s like she forgot who she works for.
“You won’t lose your job, you are very valuable. But, I won’t repeat myself.” I try to compose myself. “CCTV. Footage.” I hear Kanita go to her computer and work on it. After a couple of minutes, I receive an encrypted file in my email via an undetectable channel.
“I have sent you—” I don’t let her finish.
“If you ever try to disobey me, I’ll kill you myself.” And I hang up. Usually, I'm calm, but now is not the fucking time.
“Got it, M. It will take a while for me to go through the footage because Hana is studying,” Adam announces.
“Fine. Take those two boys and look for any clues.” I point to Oliver and Josh. Oliver stands up from his seat and kisses Josh on the top of his head.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get to work.” His playful manner will never go away, especially not with Josh. He stands up and follows Josh to Adam’s workstation, aka my living room table.
“Men, I don’t think I’m being serious when I tell you all that we need to act fast. I think Marco will escalate right now because what gives him power was taken away,” Sara exclaims as she taps her pen against my kitchen table. We all turn to listen to her.
“I think he will become desperate and prolong the torture of his previous victim. To feel something.”
“Sara, we have to go through all the footage first,” Adam tells his girlfriend. I take out a cigarette and light one up.
“To speed things up, check the footage of the last day of each month and the day after between 3:30 and 5 p.m.” Adam and the guys nod at me, and they get to work. I go and sit on one of the kitchen chairs. Sara looks at me with disgust.
“How can you smoke that thing around your gorgeous vest?” Sara nods toward the vest I wore to the wedding. This vest is special. Lana touched this vest.
“I’m never going to rewash this vest, she touched it.”
“You are even worse than Adam.”
“Not possible!” Adam screams, then winks at her. Oh, dear God.
“Where is Lana anyway?” I check my tracker on her, and she is now on her way home. I show Sara, and she nods approvingly. The rest of the night goes by smoothly, and just after midnight, the men are done. Adam, Oliver, and Josh join Sara and me at the kitchen table.
“So, what do you have? Who is driving the car?” Nobody says anything, and Oliver gives me one of his puzzled looks. Both he and Josh look at Adam, and he mouths assholes to them. He is obviously apprehensive about telling me what is happening.
“Okay, so, a man is driving, and he has a tattoo of a serpent on his ring finger.”
Oh shit.
“M, what is it?” Josh asks me as I stare into nothing.
I motion for them to continue reviewing the footage.
The car has been driving for a long time along abandoned green roads—which is typical for Bosnia.
There are many places where roads are unkempt, yet people still live there.
It’s their way of being secluded and still included in society.
They want to live close to the city, but not so close that people can count their nose hairs.
The footage ends, but not my thoughts.
A tattoo of a serpent.