Mrs. Suarez from forty years ago stared back at me.
I didn’t know if Luisa was Mrs. Suarez’s granddaughter or daughter, or something else, but it was obvious that they were related.
And she had been murdered because of me and me alone.
That was the obvious meaning of the sign and the direction. Subtle enough that the cops likely wouldn’t connect the two, but obvious enough that I might. Even if I didn’t get the east-facing thing right away, I’d know something was up when the girl got identified.
I stared at her, my head ringing. Ever since the killings had started months ago, I’d known it had something to do with me. Seed was dead, but somebody was killing like him. And with each new dead woman, the killings drew closer and closer to me.
Five dead women—six now that Luisa was gone—each coming closer and closer until finally a woman was killed with a direct connection to me.
Luisa Suarez. I didn’t know her, but she didn’t deserve to get fucking killed.
The piece of shit. The son of a bitch. The mother fucker was going to burn. He was going to fucking pay for this.
I stood up, seething with rage.
The fucking game was changing. I had hoped that the real law enforcement was going to help fix this fucking mess, but they were clearly inept. They couldn’t fix shit unless I got involved.
I couldn’t sit by anymore and let this fucking bastard kill again.
I was going to have to find him and end it myself.
15
Laney
I sat there staring at the gun for longer than I realized.
One second he put the thing in front of me, and the next it was almost an hour and I hadn’t so much as moved.
Shoot to kill kept ringing through my head. I kept imagining picking the thing up, feeling the weight of the metal, and squeezing the trigger.
It looked so easy in movies. You squeezed and it made a little popping sound. But I knew the truth was completely different, that the gun would jump in your hands and the sound was deafening.
And someone would get killed at the other end of your gun.
I stood up and carried my laptop into the back room. I hadn’t spent much time in here, mostly because it was Easton’s private space. I didn’t feel like I was welcome.
But tonight, I didn’t much care.
I sat down on the futon and opened my laptop, scrolling through Facebook. I needed to keep my mind occupied. I could easily spiral into fear and uncertainty, but I needed to avoid doing that.
Easton was clearly worried. He wouldn’t leave a gun with me unless he thought I was in danger. I knew he’d felt that before, but now it was just so clear.
I didn’t know how long I just sat there, staring mindlessly at Facebook. It had to have been at least an hour.
But suddenly I heard the sound.
The sound I had been dreading and imagining all night long. A scratching at the door, and the jiggle of the knob.
I got to my feet, fear spiking through me, and walked into the main office. The handle was moving, and someone was clearly about to come inside.
I grabbed the gun without thinking. It was heavy, substantial. It was exactly what I thought it would be, and way more terrifying.
The door swung open.
“Hey, sis.” Easton looked at me, a small grin on his face.
“Easton.” I slowly lowered the gun.
“You can relax. It’s just me.”
“Okay.” I put the gun back down on the desk, relief washing over me.
He shut the door behind him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Why didn’t you knock?”
He just shrugged and walked past me.
“We’re heading out,” he said from the back room. “Come grab your laptop.”
I followed him and closed the lid, picking it up. He was packing another bag full of stuff.
“Two murders in two days,” I said softly. “It’s crazy.”
He looked at me seriously. “We’re closing the office.”
The words hit me like a hammer. “No way!”
“Sorry, sis. We have to.”
“No. We can’t close this office. We’re helping people!”
He gave me a wry smile. “We’re taking pictures of perverts and cheaters.”
“We’re saving marriages and getting people out of bad ones.” I paused. “And what about Mrs. Suarez? We helped her.”
His face clouded over at the mention of Mrs. Suarez. “We can’t help anyone anymore,” he said softly, and he went back to packing.
What was he talking about? We couldn’t just give up. We hadn’t even started investigating the murders.
“Easton,” I said, walking over to him. “Stop.” I put my hand on his arm.
He looked at me sadly. “We’re going to do more harm than good if we keep seeing clients, Laney.”
“What happened?”
I could see the pain in his face. But more than that, I could see the anger. Brutal anger, fierce and intense.
“The girl was Mrs. Suarez’s daughter. She was only sixteen.”
My mouth dropped open and my hand fell away. “What?”
“Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.”
He continued packing and I stood there, completely numb.
Mrs. Suarez’s daughter had been murdered? Easton clearly thought that we had something to do with it. Because we were helping people, they were getting killed.
I shook my head. That couldn’t be true. What we were doing was good. Sure, it wasn’t the most important or vital thing in the world, and mostly it was catching cheating husband, but still. We brought peace into people’s lives. We did things for people that they couldn’t do for themselves. We found the truth.
I didn’t want to give that up, not when I had finally found it.
Easton stopped in front of me. “Laney,” he said, snapping me out of my trance. “We’re leaving.”
“No,” I said, but he was already walking into the front office. I followed him out there. “No, Easton. Wait.”
“Listen to me,” he said, wheeling around and staring at me. “This young girl is fucking dead because of me. Do you understand that?”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, barely a whisper.
“Her fingers were cut off. She was strangled to death. All because her mother asked for my help.” He shook his head, practically vibrating with rage. “We have to close the office until this piece of shit is dead or caught.”
I nodded slowly, stupidly, unable to say anything more. How could I argue with that?
He slung his heavy bag over his shoulder and grabbed the pistol from the desk, slipping it into his pants. He gave one more look around the office and then nodded.
“Come on,” he said.
I followed him out. He locked the door behind us.
I felt like my world was suddenly shifting again. The last two days had been an insane rollercoaster. I had gone from being annoyed that he had moved into the room next door to suddenly afraid and nervous when he wasn’t around.
And the bodies were beginning to pile up.
I followed him silently out to the car, nervous about where this left us, or if that even mattered anymore.
16