‹ Prequel: Beyond
Status: Last story in the Avidity trilogy.

Sinister

Interrogate

The blanket they gave me was warm, the coffee cold now since it had been sitting in front of me for an hour. The detective who sat across from me was looking at me like I was the prime suspect.

And in a way I suppose I was. Because what they found when they got to the lake were two dead people — a killer and a detective — and then there was me, sitting with a gun in my hands, soaked by rain and blood with bodies on either side of me.

"So," he started, "you said you and your partner were here from New York. You were after serial killer John Hayes, is that correct?"

"Yes," I answered. "Could I have more coffee, please?"

"In a moment. How did you come upon John Hayes?"

"A file was brought to our attention," I told him. "I showed it to Scott — excuse me, Detective Malloy — and he thought it was something that we could handle."

Detective Parker stared at me intently. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you had no jurisdiction here. So really what you were doing was against the law. You handle New York cases. Traveling from there to Denver to here wasn't needed. We could have done fine without you." He sounded irritated.

Anger flared inside me. "But you didn't. You didn't even know that he was here. You all thought these murders were unrelated."

For the first time since he brought me in, Parker looked a little less than composed. "How did you know that?"

Well, damn.

"I knew the cops here weren't doing anything to catch him, so I did something about it. I knew where he was and stopped him."

Parker scanned my face. "You talk like you had some connection to Hayes, but you only met him when you came here. But you knew his last victim in Denver, didn't you? Eden Harper."

At the mention of Eden's name, my chest tightened. It was then that I realized how much of that was my fault. I could have stopped him then, could have saved Eden, and then I wouldn't be here tonight.

And I wouldn't have murdered Scott just to keep a secret.

"I knew Eden," I said. "My partner and I questioned her about John before she died." Before he killed her.

"That doesn't explain how you knew where Hayes was headed." His voice rose a little, and he tapped his pen on the table. "So, tell me, then. How did you know the specifics on his location? Are you psychic?"

I smiled slightly. "That would explain so much, wouldn't it?"

Parker wasn't amused. "Detective Mason, you're really trying my patience here. I just need straight answers, and I'm not getting any from you. Now, I'll ask you one last time, because I sure as hell don't believe that story you spun when we brought you in. What happened out at Plainview Lake tonight?"

Brushing my hands through my hair, I stared down at the yellow notepad in front of me. They'd wanted me to write down what occurred, but instead all I did was doodle drawings of ladybugs in top hats.

I gazed up at Parker, and saw the mirror behind him, and my reflection; I looked hollow, broken, empty.

"I killed Scott Malloy."

It was going to be a long night.
♠ ♠ ♠
So, Charlotte's a little more unhinged than I originally planned.