Chapter 26
NO REMORSE
Graham
I didn’t watch Maggie as she started on the path back to the manor. Didn’t want to take my eyes off Hunter, even as her footsteps echoed in the darkening night.
They told us back in police training to never let your emotions in when you were dealing with a killer. Only shoot in defense. Only kill if necessary.
It was fucking necessary.
I stepped around Hunter. Pacing. Each step, like the hands of a clock, marking the timeline on my decision as to what was going to happen next.
Every time I looked at him, I wanted to end him. Take what he took from over a dozen women—as far as we knew. I didn’t want to risk the lawyers he had access to. He wouldn’t even flinch at the money he’d hemorrhage trying to win a plea deal with this one.
If I did it here, I’d have to clean up the evidence. Outside would be better. The elements could do most of the work. Needed to be a place he frequented. A place that made sense.
The bike trail.
Yes.
He was always there. The perfect accident.
God, what are you doing, Locke? You’re plotting. Plotting makes you guilty. Plotting makes you like him… Like Donovan…
I shut my thoughts off… but maybe I shouldn’t have. But I had to. Because everything they said meant Hunter lived to try again.
Do it fast, Locke. Don’t let it drag on.
Pulling back the tarp revealed his beaten body. Blood stained his face and hands. No time right now. Even if he was only 160 pounds, carrying him plus his mountain bike onto the bike trail at night wasn’t an easy feat.
It was awkward.
But I didn’t care.
Reason said to follow protocol, collect the evidence, cuff him, put him in jail.
But my heart told me a different story, one that said to put him away for good.
Where the right lawyer or judge couldn’t touch him.
And the only place I knew that wasn’t touched by a corrupt justice system… was six feet under.
I propped Hunter up against a stump halfway up the hill. His breathing was quick, with short gasps of air fighting to enter his lungs.
“Must’ve broken a few ribs when you hit that rock during your most recent crash there, bud…
Those icy spots will sneak up on ya,” I said, picking up a heavy stick—more like a small log—one I couldn’t wrap both hands around—and swung.
It landed right where it hurt. “Your bike slid right off the side of the hill. And then once you left the trail, you hit almost every”—I struck him again— “damn tree… and a few boulders on the way down.” I palmed a fist-sized rock and chucked it hard at his face.
He barely moved. His breathing—labored.
God, what the fuck was I doing?
I couldn’t kill him like this.
I turned away from him, both hands on my head, staring into the trees.
Searching for an answer. I had to think.
Right now, it looked like Hunter had crashed his bike in a bike park he frequented regularly.
This was good. But I’d have to take his bike up top and throw it down—it’d probably get caught up in some trees or the brush or something.
I’d have to cover my tracks. Not many hiked up there, and the patchy snow didn’t help my situation.
Shit.
I couldn’t let the bastard get off on a reduced sentence for good behavior. Not after he did that to them. Not after what he did to her.
The crisp leaves crunched under my boots, muffled only slightly by the light layer of snow covering them.
“You know,” Hunter groaned, blood curdling in each broken breath, “she’s not like the others.” He let out a wet cough. “She’s a fighter.”
My face twisted, rage burning behind my eyes. I could feel just how fucking evil I must’ve looked, because in that moment, after that fucking confession… The only thing I wanted was to use my bare hands to rip out his throat just for thinking about them.
But I couldn’t look at him.
Not yet.
Not until I figured out what the fuck I was doing. How I was going to hide it.
BANG!
A fiery crack echoed off the trees.
My vision blurred. My ears rang with that familiar high-pitched squeal that came from a close-range gunshot.
I turned toward where the shot came from, and the blood drained from my face. Everything moved in slow motion. Maggie stood there, white as a ghost, shaking like a leaf. Tears streamed down her bruised face as her chest rose and fell with an angst that even I was scared to witness.
My eyes flicked to Hunter.
Fuck.
He was done. Right between the eyes.
Good girl. But—fucking goddamn it. Bad timing.
I rushed to her, took the gun from her shaking hands, and stuffed it in the waistband of my jeans.
I pulled her in close, kissed the top of her head like it would make all the bad in the world go away.
She sobbed, collapsing into me.
“Shhhhh—shhh, it’s over now. He can’t hurt you anymore… or anyone else.”
“I’m sorry, Graham.” She sobbed, clutching my jacket like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Hey—hey—it’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
I held her for a moment—steadying her until her breaths evened out. But the moment they did, I pushed her back and made her focus.
Lifting her chin, I leaned in and gave her a hard kiss. When I pulled back, my eyes locked on hers. “I get it, princess. I get why you did it.” I kissed her again. “And I’m not mad. But, Max… now we have a big fucking problem.”
My heart climbed to my throat at rapid speed, racing against the bile to see which would be the first to choke me out as I wracked through the case files in my head.
We needed a way out of this. We needed to stay ahead of the evidence.
We needed someone to think it was an accident.
But bullet holes didn’t usually mean accidents—at least not like this.
I stared at Hunter.
Fuck!
There was only one option. I had to take him home.
Bury him someplace no one would ever suspect.
The garden? No. Too likely to run into him with the rototiller.
I couldn’t leave him in the woods for the wild animals to take care of.
My property butted up against the bird sanctuary.
And with that came hiking trails and the eager trespassers ready to veer from them.
The last thing we needed was some granola-crunching explorer stumbling on a dead body.
Then—
I got it.
The perfect place.
“Okay, Max, look at me.” I cradled her face in my hands. “I need you to find your casing as fast as you can. Can you do that for me?”
She gave a silent nod. Tears still streaming down her face.
“I’ve got to get him back to the truck.”
“W-what? Why?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just do as I asked.”
I threw my jacket and flannel shirt down and ripped my T-shirt off. I had to contain as much of his blood as possible.
Kneeling beside Hunter, I reached around to the back of his head, my fingers pressing the shattered bones just beneath the surface of his unbroken skin. They moved freely, and I felt something hard moving with them. The bullet. A deep sigh escaped me before I could even recognize it.
“Okay, good. No need to go on a wild goose chase for that,” I said to the air.
Wrapping my shirt around his head, I tied the sleeves into a knot to hold it on and hefted him over my shoulder.
“Hey,” I said, carefully keeping my tone in check so as to not sound pissed. I hauled Hunter past Maggie as she frantically searched the leaves and debris for her casing. “Try not to disturb too much. Once you find it, put it in your pocket. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Goddamn it, I knew she saw me punch him. I knew she saw when I didn’t stop. I knew she saw when I threw his barely alive body in the back of my truck and hid him under the tarp. What I didn’t know was that she’d followed me, or that she knew exactly where I’d take him.
How could she have known that?
Why didn’t I realize that this was deeper than a fucked-up curse?
I dumped Hunter’s body back into the truck and wrapped him loosely in the tarp, propping a spare tire on top to hold it down.
On my return, Maggie stood in front of the stump. Staring, a fist of dirt in one trembling hand.
“It should have been me,” she whispered, still fighting the tears. “I should be the one in the back of your truck. I should be dead.”
“Hey! Don’t you ever fucking say that!” I let out a breath and grabbed her shoulder, turning her toward me. “Get in the truck.”
“Maybe we can say it was self-defense,” she offered.
I climbed in.
“We’re looking at the same body, right?” I said dryly.
“Yeah. And you’re injured.” Her gaze dropped to my lip.
“Me? I’ve got a fuckin’ cut lip. That’s it.
” I slid the key in and turned the ignition.
The truck came to life with a low growl.
“If we call it in, I’ll get excessive force and then some.
Don’t forget tampering with evidence and moving a body.
There’s just no good that will come from getting the police involved. ”
“The police are already involved.” She gestured to me.
“No.” I shook my head. “Not a cop right now, Max.”
I took her back to my place. The truck ride was painfully quiet. Every bump we went over, I watched Hunter’s body rock in the rearview. Bile rose in my throat at the thought of how I was about to hide a body. How I’d become what I fought so hard to protect the world from.
The truck rolled to a stop, and I got out and opened Maggie’s door.
“I need you to wait inside, princess.”
“Can I see him first?”
“You don’t want to do that.”
“I need to.”
“Fine.”
I led her to the bed of the truck and pulled the tire and the tarp off of Hunter.
Maggie gasped. Her eyes instantly welled.
“Graham, I want you to know something,” she said, taking my hand in hers.
“What is it?”
“Hunter wasn’t all bad. Before the murders, before you returned, he was sweet, honest. Kind.
He genuinely cared about me.” She glanced to my bruised knuckles.
“And I think I really loved him,” she said, her voice fracturing as she covered her face with her hands.
“I probably would have said yes if you hadn’t come back. I just wanted happiness.”
“Hey, Max, that’s okay,” I told her. I pulled her to my chest. “I’m not mad at you for caring about someone other than me while I was gone. And I’m glad he was better than what he became when I showed up. But he was still a killer… before you cursed him.”
“I know. I just wanted you to know that I didn’t stay with him only because I cursed him. I stayed because he made part of me feel okay after everything, and I needed a minute to say goodbye to that part of him.”
“That’s okay too.”
As hard as it was for me to see her love a part of a monster that killed thirteen women, I had to push it aside.
I had to accept the fact that he filled a void that I created.
He had to try to put together the broken pieces, even if it meant calling on Derek and Katie to do the heavy lifting.
I had to accept that I had to like that part of him too.
I opened the garage door to grab a shovel, but turned back just to catch a glimpse of her.
To my surprise, she’d clasped his hand in hers, and for a minute I didn’t understand why she was so still. Then I remembered—her visions. Shit!
Maggie
My body ached. I was cold. Tired. My eyes barely opened.
I couldn’t make my mouth work. Every time I tried, a garbled wet cough came out.
Then—
WHOMP!
A log to the stomach.
My vision blurred.
Every breath was wrong.
Graham’s voice was distant, the words he spoke barely registering, muffled by the throbbing in my head. My mouth was coated in a salty, metallic flavor—blood.
I tried to open my eyes again, but my vision blurred, my head wobbled—too heavy to lift.
But I heard footsteps.
I forced air into my lungs. Pried my eyes open and gasped. My own body emerged from between the pines. Furious. And for a moment I thought I’d been saved, but I realized I was Hunter. These were his final moments.
I kept hearing his voice whispering my name. A hopeful warmth rushing over his body. But when I looked back to myself, I’d raised the pistol. Tears streamed down my face, my lips quivered, my hands shook. I let out a breath.
The last thing I heard was the shot cracking through the woods. The last thing I saw? My face, followed by a blind flash of light, then—pure blackness.
I gasped, life shooting back into my soul. My breaths came in gasps as Graham directed me to sit on the bumper of the truck. I leaned forward, hands on both knees, and tried to blink away the vision.
Deep breath, Maggie. Come on, deep breath.
“You okay?” Graham rubbed circles into my back.
“Yeah,” I said, shakily bringing a fist to my mouth, pressing my lips between my thumb and index finger.
“Did you really have to touch him?”
I shot him a dirty look. “Yes. I wanted to know what the last thing through his mind was.”
“And?”
“It was me. He saw me shoot him.” I swallowed, rubbing my eyes.
“Well.” Graham paused. “Seeing your face probably brought him peace.”
“I wish it didn’t,” I said, my muscles stiffening. “He had no remorse for any of them—I could feel it.”
“Max, I’m sorry.”
“I had to know. I mean, I knew there was something wrong with him to want to hurt those women, something more than the curse. But the evil I felt inside of him, the need to kill, it was still there. So, I guess part of me is glad I did what I did.”
“Don’t say that. You’re too good for that.” Graham pulled me in and kissed my forehead.
“Am I, though? What about all the people who’ve lost their lives because of me?”
“Look at me.” He stepped back. “You’re not a murderer.”
“No, but I’m still a predator. I still hurt people. People I can’t apologize to. People I can’t break this curse for.”
“Stop talking.” Graham’s brow pulled tight.
“We are going to find a way… and don’t you fucking tell me that there isn’t one.
Because there has to be.” He let out a breath then hefted Hunter over his shoulder.
“I don’t care if we have to fly to Bermuda and swim to the bottom of the sea to find some obscure relic that only Indiana Jones could, we will break it. ”
I sat in silence, staring at my blood-covered hands.
“Stay here. Or go in the cabin. Do not follow me.” He grabbed my chin and kissed me. “Do you understand me?”
I nodded.
He grabbed the shovel and headed deep into the woods behind his garage.