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It’s agony. And still they come. To his back, to his head. Blood pours down his face. And then finally, he’s knocked unconscious. And everything slips away.
* * *
His voice sounds unnaturally loud in the silence. He stops talking. He feels Jess move slightly, her eyes in the dark.
“We’d been having strange phone calls for a few weeks. Hang-ups, nothing at the end of the line. I noticed that the gate had been left open one day, but I didn’t think anything of it.”
He shakes his head, feeling the familiar shame of his failure. “I should never have let him tie me up. But he had the gun pressed to her head, and he said he would shoot Mia. But knowing what I know now, what he would do …” His voice catches, the words stick in his mouth. He clears his throat. “One shot would have been better.”
One shot wouldn’t have been the sadistic rape for hours. He’d read the postmortem report. He’d seen the photographs. The broken bones, the blood. The rips and tears on her beautiful skin. The beating reducing her face to an unrecognizable mush.
He feels Jess move on the bed. She rests her head on his chest, and her arms go around him. Her legs intertwine with his.
Griffin feels his hands shaking. “He hit me. Here.” Griffin takes Jess’s hand and guides it to the side of his head. He knows there’s a scar there, a ridge where the hair hasn’t grown back. He swallows. “He broke both arms, here,” he says, pointing to his forearms. “Four ribs, punctured a lung, and fractured part of my L3 lumbar vertebra. I was unconscious for two days. Later, I sold the house; I couldn’t go back there. I got suspended from work for being a detective who couldn’t even solve his wife’s murder. And now I live in a basement in return for offering security to a friend’s garage, and the only way I can get through the day is with hard drugs. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Jess is still holding onto his hand, and now she winds her fingers through his. She holds his hand up to her mouth, and he feels her kiss his fingers.
“Exactly the opposite,” she whispers.
CHAPTER
48
HE STANDS AT the mirror, brushing his teeth. So, they’ve found his apartment. He led them there, he knew it would happen, it’s not a problem.
But he’s lost everything. His belongings. All his treats and souvenirs. So he’ll need to make some more. The thought of it gets him excited. He’s bold now. He’s gotten away with so much, and they know nothing. He thinks about what he’d like to do next.
Bundy, maybe. The man was a fucking pioneer. Maybe he’d do something like the Chi Omega Sorority murders: four women in one night, two of them dead, strangled, one fucked with an aerosol can. He even chewed off one of their nipples. Now there was a man who lost control. If Ted hadn’t been so stupid as to bite one of their ass cheeks, maybe he’d still be around today. Maybe he’d still be killing.
He spits out the toothpaste, rinses his mouth under the tap. He smiles. He’d never be that stupid.
Only a few days to go now, and he still has so much to do.
He remembers something he read about a man who killed his victims in front of a mirror. A cord around their necks, strangling, tightening, then releasing. Letting them breathe just a little, letting them live, then repeating it. Literally watching themselves die.
He feels himself grow hard just thinking about it. What would that be like? Watching the pain and fear in a woman’s eyes as he killed her over and over again. As she lost her grip on reality, then for her to regain consciousness, to find herself back where she started.
He grips himself harder, faster, as the scenario plays out. Different women’s faces flicker through. This seems too good for an unknown. One face sticks in his mind, someone familiar. And as he imagines her mouth, her eyes, her torture, everything he’ll do to her, he comes forcefully, ejaculating into the sink.
Oh God, yes, he thinks, shuddering and breathless. He’ll save this for her.
Only her.
CHAPTER
49
Day 7
Sunday
IM STILL WAITING IM FUCKING FED UP OF WAITING ITS AN ITCH I CANT SCRATCH NOW I KNOW HOW IT FEELS LIKE THE BEST FEELING OF ALL NOTHING ELSE WILL DO THE PORN DOESNT WORK NOT EVEN THE EXPENSIVE STUFF NOT EVEN THE REAL ONES WHERE THE BITCH DIES WHERE HE FUCKS HER TO DEATH I WANT THAT TO BE ME IT SHOULD BE ME NOW I KNOW HOW EASY IT IS I WANT TO GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN I WANT TO STAND IN FRONT OF THEIR DEAD DESTROYED BODIES FULL OF MY CUM AND FUCKING LAUGH LAUGH AT THE DETECTIVES WHO CANT CATCH ME WHO DONT HAVE A FUCKING CLUE LAUGH AS THEY GO THIS WAY THEN THE OTHER FOLLOWING THEIR LEADS THAT I PUT IN FRONT OF THEM I WANT TO BE TED FUCKING AND BITING I WANT TO BE RADER WITH HIS BONDAGE AND TORTURE AND KILLING I WANT TO BE SHAWCROSS AND STUFF LEAVES INTO THOSE BITCHES CUNTS WHEN THEYRE DEAD BERKOWITZ SHOOTING SHOOTING SHOOTING—
“Boss?” Griffin calls from across the room, and Cara holds her hand up for a second. She’s been sitting in her office, one of the many notebooks from apartment 214 in her gloved hand. It’s a cheap A4 spiral-bound pad—lab confirmed available from any Tesco throughout the country—but every page, every line is filled. Marks made in black pen, pushed hard onto the page, sometimes going through the paper. He doesn’t use punctuation, there’s no marking of time or date. Just hard capitals: an incoherent diatribe of darkness and death.
She puts it back into its evidence bag, then pushes her fingertips into her eyes. Colors dance in the blackness as she rubs them. They feel scratchy and sore; she knows she’s not getting enough sleep. And this stuff isn’t helping.
She carries it across to Shenton’s desk. He looks up as she approaches, and she hands it to him.
