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Deakin had moved to the Major Crimes team. He’d tried to get away. But Noah had known the murders were still going on. He felt the guilt. He couldn’t bear their pain. He felt sick, all the time. He couldn’t sleep, and when he did, the nightmares came.
And he met Cara.
She was everything. She was his boss, but more than that: his friend, the person he trusted. He was welcomed into her home, and for the first time in his life he had a family. He could almost forget about Shenton. Until one night he showed up at his house.
“Come with me,” Toby said. The gun in his hand shone in the moonlight, and there was something in his voice Noah didn’t dare disagree with.
They drove to a house and pulled up outside. It was way past midnight; the roads were quiet. The two of them crept around to a side window, Shenton forcing it open, and they climbed into a bathroom.
“Wait here,” Shenton whispered, then pulled a ski mask down over his face.
And then he heard the screams. A male voice: shouting, angry. A woman, pleading and frantic. He put his hands over his ears, trying to block it out, to no avail. Half of him wanted to leave; the other half knew he should intervene. Stop Shenton, do anything. Something. He was a cop, for Christ’s sake. Police. But the old fear from that first kill rooted him to the spot. He didn’t want to see what Shenton was doing.
After what seemed to be hours, the bathroom door opened and Noah jumped. Shenton stood there, calmly eating a sandwich. In the other hand he held a cheap plastic Polaroid camera.
“I have a present for you,” he said, as casually as if they were out for a drink at a pub. He put the sandwich in his mouth and took another bite. He chewed, watching Noah, enjoying making him wait. He swallowed. “Come with me.”
The house was now quiet; Noah’s heart thudded in his chest as they walked down the hallway, through an open door, into the lounge.
The lighting was dim. The television was on, muted, a towel thrown over the screen so only a dull glow lit the room. And it was a mess. Furniture had been tipped over, paper strewn around, shards of glass from a broken cabinet scattered across the floor. Pieces of something brown littered the carpet and Deakin numbly picked one up, rolling it around in his hand. Bark.
In the center of it all, a woman lay on her front, half naked, hands tied behind her, hair spilling over her face.
“I’m not …” Noah started, but the words came out thin and weak. Shenton just put a finger to his lips, telling him to be quiet.
He led Noah away from the woman, toward the bedroom. Then he opened the door, pointing at the man on the floor.
He was bound, breathing heavily through his nose, a gag on his mouth, blindfold on his eyes. The man heard the door opening and turned, as much as he could, struggling uselessly against the cord.
Noah inhaled sharply, and Shenton pulled him away.
“What have you done?” Noah hissed, outside the room. “That’s Nate Griffin. Are you crazy?”
He frantically looked back at the closed door, then to the woman on the floor in the living room. “Is that … is that Mia?”
“Was,” Shenton said with a brief chuckle.
“You’re insane,” Noah managed to say, before he felt the pain in his stomach. He doubled over, winded in response to the blow, looking up in shock. Shenton’s demeanor had completely changed. His face was contorted in anger, hands in fists by his side.
“You think I haven’t noticed?” Shenton jeered. “Your little crush on our very own DCI Elliott? I’ve watched you follow her around, moon after her like a lovesick puppy. It makes me sick, the way they treat you.”
Noah had taken in a deep gasp of air, his eyes still watering from the punch.
“I hear them laughing behind your back, Elliott and Griffin. Calling you pathetic, saying how worthless you are to the team.” Noah shook his head, silent. “Believe me, Noah. They think you’re nothing. Nothing!” Shenton carried on talking, poisoning his mind. The same words he’d heard all his life: Insignificant. Nothing. Useless. Waste of space. Forgotten. And he felt the anger build. Tensing his muscles, blood rushing in his ears. Useless, pointless rage.
Until Shenton put the piece of wood into his hand and pushed him back into the room. And he funneled thirty-six years of helplessness and fury and loneliness into Nate Griffin, feeling the warm blood hit his face, hearing the bones break until eventually the man lay unconscious on the floor, and Noah couldn’t stop sobbing, the log fallen from his hands.
He heard Shenton come into the room behind him. Noah watched him prod Griffin’s lifeless body apathetically with his foot.
“She’ll never love you now,” Shenton said with a theatrical sigh, and Noah felt the dread, the horror of what he’d done. Toby was right. Any hope he’d had with Cara? It was gone.
He’d known, at that instant, his life was over. And he hated Toby Shenton.
* * *
Shenton taps his fingers on the table in the interview room. Deakin glares; he can barely stand to be in the same room with him.
“I’ve confessed,” Noah hisses. “That was the deal.”
