In that moment, those words hurt more than any of my injuries. “Mark’s death was a tragedy.” Chest tight, the statement tastes like acid in my mouth. Beside me, Blake looks like he’s about to punch the detective, so I reach over and take his hand in mine, squeezing it tightly until he looks at me. Shaking my head, I wait for some of the anger to leave his eyes before I turn back to Ash.
“I’m sorry,” he begins with a wince, and to his credit, he does appear genuinely apologetic. “I didn’t mean to make light of his murder. His loss was tragic.” My eye twitches at his use of the word ‘tragic.’
Understatement of the fucking year.
“I simply mean that what we found on this guy’s phone and laptop…” He trails off and shakes his head, a look of disgust twisting his features. “This guy wasn’t just your standard, friendly, neighbourhood stalker.”
Something clenches within me. If even a hardened detective can be made uncomfortable by something he’s seen, then it must be bad.
With a growing sense of dread, I lean forward. “What do you mean? Show me.”
The detective glances between me and Blake, as if weighing whether or not I can handle what I’m about to witness. “I will show you, but it’s not pleasant. Are you sure you want to see this?”
“Yes.” My answer is instant. I won’t be kept in the dark anymore.
The detective watches me for a moment before nodding and pushing a stack of papers towards me. Frowning, I reach forward and take them, but I instantly drop them like they have burned me when I see what’s on the paper. They’re images. Pictures of me with the guys, smiling and laughing as we work together, and as I flip through, I see more of when we went out together on dates. He obviously followed us, and we had no idea. There are pictures of the guys in here too, on their own and together, and his sick obsession is obvious just from the images alone—zoomed in on their faces and their bodies, from high angles and low angles. There are so many of them. I flip through them faster and faster, each one almost burning my hands so much, I want to drop them. I want to stop looking, but I can’t. Flipping to the next image, I cry out, my cheeks flushing as I see picture after picture of me naked with the guys, and it’s clear what we were doing. Looking at the timestamp at the bottom of the image, I realise it was just before the bomb. Was this what finally did it for him? What pushed him over the edge?
Did I… Was us making love the catalyst that caused him to kill my friend?
No. This isn’t my fault. He chose to kill Mark. To stalk us. To murder. Anything could have set him off, and I can’t blame myself for his actions. I am not responsible for the unstable bastard, I tell myself sternly, even as guilt flows through me. I should be embarrassed of the image, of the detectives seeing it, but I’m not. I’m drained, tired.
My eyes sting as I try to hold back tears, but they’re not tears of sadness, they’re tears of rage. How dare he? Now all of my memories with the guys will be tainted, wondering if he was there, watching us.
“There’s more.” Detective Ash breaks the silence, pushing an iPad towards me with a photograph. Frowning, I try to make sense of what I’m seeing. It’s a hotel room, and spread out on the bed are all sorts of equipment, cameras, lenses, knives, rope, bottles of chemicals, and items I don’t recognise.
“Fucking bastard,” Blake swears, pushing away from the table as he paces the space behind me again.
Seeing my confusion, the detective takes pity on me. “There’s enough equipment there to make another bomb, so we have enough proof to pin Mark’s death on him, even if he didn’t confess. However, we suspect he was planning to kidnap you and you ruined his plan.” He swipes through to the next and presses play. There is a video of Oliver’s face. He’s pointing the camera at himself, and his lips are moving, but the detective doesn’t turn up the sound. If he doesn’t want me to hear it, then it must be bad, so instead, I watch the video. He talks for a while, grinning before he turns and starts to stroke along the equipment. Ash presses stop as I suck in a shuddering breath. “We will get him for Mark’s death, but you are lucky to be here,” he tells me again.
I suspected as much. It was only a matter of time before he tried to kill me again, but hearing it out loud is another matter completely. My mind spins, and I feel overwhelmed, but from the look in Ash’s eyes, there’s still more to come. I take a deep breath and push those feelings back, nodding for him to continue.
“We also found a diary of his…desires.” I open my mouth, but he holds up a hand, stopping me before I can speak. “I won’t show it to you, since it’s going to give me nightmares. You don’t want to read that kind of crazy shit.”
He’s probably right, and from the haunted look in his eyes, I decide to trust his judgement. Shit, it must be bad. What kind of messed up nonsense did he write in those diaries?
“Can I see him?” I’m not sure where the request came from. If I never see Oliver’s face again, it will be too soon, but I still have questions. I want to see him locked up, to see that smug look knocked from his face as he realises he will never get his filthy hands on the guys.
Cursing under his breath, Blake stops pacing and returns to my side. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Baby Girl.”
Ash hums low in his throat as he contemplates my question, tapping his fingers on the table between us. “Detective Gibson is with him now… I can’t let you in the room.” There’s a pause as he narrows his eyes on me. I see a flash of understanding in his gaze, and I know he grasps that I need this to move on. Raising his hands in a ‘so be it’ gesture, he pushes up from the table, gathering the scattered papers. “But you can watch from outside for a few minutes if you think it’s going to help.” There’s a warning in his voice. If I cause him any problems, I will be out of there before I can even blink.
I nod my head in understanding, ignoring Blake’s curses behind me. “Yes, please.”
Detective Ash asks us to wait in the interview room while he takes the file somewhere else, leaving me with a silent, angry Blake. Thankfully, we aren’t made to wait long before he returns and leads us through a maze of corridors. We almost end up being told to leave when the detective asks Blake to go to the relatives’ room where the others are waiting. Blake, of course, refuses, and I have to pull him to one side and have a whispered conversation with him and promise I’ll be safe. Eventually, and several angry kisses later, he agrees, and Ash leads me away.
We walk in silence, and the detective opens a door, ushering me inside a room. The area is small, and there’s a set of chairs that face a window, which he gestures for me to sit in. I take a seat, examining the door next to the window, when I hear Detective Gibson’s voice.
“We found your diary.”
Spinning around, I see that the window is actually a one-way mirror, and beyond the door I was just examining is Detective Gibson and Oliver. Hands clenching into fists, I slowly step over to the window, glancing at Ash with a question in my eyes.
“He can’t hear you,” he confirms with a shake of his head, and I release a relieved sigh. He points up to the corners of the room where I see a small camera and sound equipment. “There are speakers in there so we can hear everything they say.”