Page 97 of Playing With Temptation

“If I had to guess, I’d say maybe six.”

“Something’s got him spooked,” Captain Anderson muttered. “He’s scared and it’s not because he’s afraid he’s been caught.”

Radcliff leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

“Then I’ve got bad news for you, Mr. Mercer. Someone’s stolen your credit card. Or wait, do you have a wife or girlfriend that has permission to use it?”

“No. No one.”

“He’s lying,” Ethan noted.

“Well, darn, sir, you need to report your card as stolen.”

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll do that. Thanks for letting me know.”

“That’s my job,” Radcliff said with a slight hint of a southern drawl. “One more thing so I can wrap this up and put it to bed. Is there any reason you’d be in the Oak Crest neighborhood? Friends or family who live on Peacock⁠—”

“I did it,” Mercer blurted out. “I killed those girls. It was me. I did it.”

“Bullshit,” I muttered.

“Girls?” Radcliff asked. “What girls?”

Mercer shifted in his chair. “The girls. I killed them. And the cop, too. I killed the cop.”

“Obviously, the idiot doesn’t watch the news if he thinks he killed you.” Jake chuckled.

Radcliff reared back. “You killed a cop? When was this? Where? Male? Female?”

“Like a month ago or a little longer, in the woods behind Bryant Common Park. I shot him.”

“Now that I believe,” Anderson sighed. “He’s protecting someone.”

“Why in the world would you kill a cop?” Radcliff asked in a disbelieving tone.

Tyler leaned forward, put both of his hands on the table, and very calmly said, “Because he almost caught me. I shouldn’t’ve been there, but I wanted to see who was gonna find her. The jogger with the dog found her. The man pulled her out of the pond. I should’ve left then but I wanted to watch. That’s the best part. The guy at the sand mill threw up after he found his treat.”

“Fact,” Devon mumbled.

“He puked and puked and puked. But see, I had to wait to get rid of her, so she was already falling apart.”

“Fact,” Devon mumbled again.

“Are you telling me you’re confessing to the murders of Ashley Monroe and Samantha Williams and the attempted murder of a Hollow Point Police Officer?”

“He’s not dead?”

“No, you clipped him in the shoulder.”

“Well fuck, I thought I killed him,” Mercer grumbled like he was disappointed.

“Motherfucker,” Ethan growled.

And that was why Ethan could be nowhere near this case. He couldn’t be any more objective than I could.

“Sorry, pal, he got stitched up and released. Let’s go back to the women. How’d you kill them?”

“I strangled them.”