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He’d never looked more serious. “Yes it is.”
And she needed him to know that she measured up. “Show me everything. I’ve taken several classes on crime, I’ve visited my share of morgues, and I’ve stared at a lot of carnage. I even researched thoroughly the most recent case you solved. I’m not unversed in your world.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute. You mean the one with the beheadings made to look like wraith-pair attacks?”
Again, she inclined her head.
“You looked at those pictures?”
“As many as I could find. I’m not as fragile as I look.”
“I guess you’re not.” For a moment, he searched her gaze then reached up and stroked her cheek with the back of his finger. Because of the temporary bond, she felt how much he wanted her and it spurred her own desire. She felt his compassion and something more, a longing so deep that for a moment she lost all thought.
She knew then that he hadn’t remained single all these years because he loved the bachelor lifestyle but because he didn’t believe he deserved anything else. How ironic, since in her opinion, no one seemed better fit for intimacy than Willem.
He lowered his hand, shifting his gaze back to the table. “If you could stomach the beheadings, you might be okay with this, except this case involves children. Young boys, the oldest barely ten.”
She turned her attention to the portfolio as well. There was no question that children would make it harder, but she was determined to see this through. On some level, she owed Willem that.
He tapped his fingers on the top cover. “I’ve worked this case for decades and still haven’t been able to find the killer. Besides being brutal, he’s clever in a way that hasn’t allowed modern forensics to trace his crimes back to him.”
As he slowly lifted the cover, laying it flat, Charlotte knew this case was deeply personal to Willem, but she wasn’t sure why.
When she saw the first set of pictures, a terrible suspicion entered her head, but she really didn’t want it to be true. She quickly set it aside and focused instead on the case file in front of her.
The child had been savagely beaten and cut, but he’d also been branded and bore several figure-eights in various places on his body.
The Infinity Killer.
She stared blankly for a long time though her fingers crept up to cover her lips, and her throat grew tight. The boy was a troll, the three ridges of his forehead in different shades of purple, which meant some bruises were older than others.
He turned the first page to display a different child, a fae boy this time, the pointed tips of his ears sliced up. Like the first victim, he bore a horrendous number of bruises and cuts, as well as the same brand, repeated at least a dozen times.
He glanced at her, but she didn’t meet his gaze. “You have a choice, Charlotte. At any point, just tell me to stop and I will. I’ll close this up and put it away.”
Part of her wanted to rewind time and never look at anything so vile again as long as she lived. But another part felt compelled to move forward for reasons she didn’t quite understand, reasons that went beyond even her connection to Willem. There was a larger, realm-ish reason why she was here.
She put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “I want to see them all.” She knew that if she had any hope of moving forward with Willem, she had to look at this case file, she had to go the distance.
Willem didn’t turn the page right away. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“I know, but this is something I feel I must do. Can’t explain it.”
He nodded. He seemed to understand.
The whole world felt shrunk down to this moment, to standing beside Willem and bearing witness to his determination to run a psychopath to ground.
For the next several minutes, he turned the pages, showing her victim after victim. Somewhere in the middle, he began telling her about each of the boys, his family, his name, his species, how and when he’d been abducted, all the details of the file. The dates appalled her because the crimes went back for so many years. Decades.
Minutes grew to an hour, then a second hour.
The tenor changed as well. Charlotte grew oddly comfortable with the terrible material in front of her and began asking questions, which deepened the discussion about the killer, about Willem’s failed efforts to find the bastard.
But she felt something else as well, something Willem held back. When he reached the last page, there was data but no crime scene pictures, just the name of a boy, and a recent school photo.
Then it hit Charlotte. “Oh, dear God, this is your latest case, isn’t it? The killer has struck again, but you haven’t found a body. When did it come in?”
Willem grew very still as he responded, “Yesterday, at full-dark.”
