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Sadie sits in the leather chair behind the desk, her feet propped up on the corner of the desk. “Already been searched,” she acknowledges me as I enter.
I shut the door behind me and cross my arms. “How good?”
She stares straight ahead at a framed picture on the wall. “Pretty thorough. There’s nothing here.” She glances at me. “At least, nothing of importance within the parameters of the search warrant.”
I roll my head, working out tense knots in my neck. I get nervous when Sadie slips into these cryptic funks. Granted, she is sitting in the office of the man she hunted and poisoned. A serial killer that stalked her, threatened her and her loved ones, and almost killed Avery. She’s not the sentimental type. But I guess this is as disturbingly close to sentimental as my sociopathic partner gets.
As I give the office a once over, I decide Sadie profiled Wells perfectly. Clean. Orderly. Almost OCD-like qualities. Every inch of the room is spotless and organized, highlighting his methodical nature. I could almost respect this guy, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a fucking sadist.
“See why I worry so much about your OCD?” Sadie says, attempting to lighten the mood.
A tight smile lines my mouth. “Funny, Bonds. So what did the team miss? What did you find?” Hopefully something to shed light on this law firm.
She lowers her feet from the desk and swivels my way. “I think I know why the Alpha brought in Maddox.”
I stop my search. She has my full attention.
“Think about it: what if Wells was the Alpha’s original contact for The Firm?” she says. “The Alpha needed Larkin’s club for his operation—either for slave auctions or a diversion from other trafficking operations—and Wells was that connection.”
I nod along. “Makes sense. But what about the serial murders. The Alpha doesn’t seem like the type to gamble his operation on someone so risky. Say, like a serial killer.”
Sadie leans forward. “The Alpha, above all, is a businessman. Supply and demand. What if they bartered. Wells provided girls to the Alpha—maybe as proof. Maybe for money—but I think it was more a shared bond between them. To show trust. Wells got to hunt on the Alpha’s turf, and the Alpha got merchandise and a venue. Until—”
“Until Wells was killed,” I conclude.
Her green eyes lock on to mine. “Yes.” She doesn’t blink. “Wells was devolving near the end. The Alpha probably knew as much, and put Maddox in place beforehand for insurance.”
I pace the length of the office. “How did you get to that?”
Sadie’s silence stretches out until I’m forced to look at her. She’s again staring ahead. “When you dig deep enough into the bowels of evil, you cannot hope to reemerge unscathed, unaffected, unchanged—but rather you know without doubt that your character is as fragile and susceptible to fate as the changing tide is to the sea. It’s very little to do with choice. And everything to do with risk.”
My eyebrows draw together as I turn to assess the picture. I study the framed verse, the one Sadie just recited word for word. “Interesting. Dark. Insightful.” I glance at her expectantly. “Who wrote it?”
“Me.”
Tension threads the air between us. Every molecule heavy and loaded.
With measured grace, she stands and advances toward me. “It was an entry from my journal. I always wondered why Wells didn’t take trophies
. Whether he thought them cliché, or if he was in fact too methodical to chance any mistakes.”
I inhale a deep breath. “A missing—I assume taken—page from your journal, and you didn’t think to report this during the time?”
She shrugs. “I wasn’t dead. Technically, a page from my journal didn’t register as a trophy. Not yet.” She moves closer to the framed verse. “But I guess Wells was confident. And I was naive.” Her gloves in place, she takes the picture down and removes the backing.
Beneath the particleboard are pages. Pages upon pages of script.
“Fucking hell,” I breathe.
Sadie lifts her gaze to me. “I’m taking these with me.”
Fury bites my nerves. “Like hell. That’s evidence—”
“Of what? A serial killer that doesn’t exist?” she challenges. “If Wells had more victims, then they’re a possible link to the Alpha. These women might not be dead, Quinn. Their words, these pages…it could lead us to him. It could lead us to them.”
I brace my hands behind my head, feeling each pulse-pounding thump of my heart in my temples. “I can’t do this again, Sadie. I’m fucking sick of it all.”
She touches my arm, and every cell in my body rebukes that touch. “Then let’s end it so you can go back to being a hardboiled detective who never sees gray.”
