Temptation Trails - Page 154

“I do prefer women, though. We’ll see how it feels to actually kill you. I might enjoy it more than I think.”

Wait. My pain-addled brain was having a hard time keeping up. He was going to kill me. Had that been his plan all along?

“What did you do to Harper?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Nothing. Yet.”

I gritted my teeth and strained against my bonds.

“I don’t have her.” He pulled a phone out of his pocket. Harper’s phone. “But I did manage to lift this when she wasn’t looking.”

“You sent a picture.”

“I’d love to take credit, as it is a convincing picture. But AI software makes it all too easy.”

The photo was fake. He didn’t have her. But he’d said yet.

“Here’s the part where I am going to let you in on a few things.” He leaned forward again and looked me in the eyes. “Because I want you to know. I want you to know what I did to you. How I beat you.”

He paused for a long moment, the dramatic bastard.

“I’d been thinking I needed a new challenge. Nothing was inspiring me. My last victim was so… unfulfilling. I wanted more. Something to really test me. And then you found Jasmine’s bracelet.” He shook his head slowly. “That fucking bracelet. I thought I’d attended to every detail, and there it was, all these years later, just waiting for some eager investigator to find it. That was when it hit me. You were my next challenge. And with you, I could recapture the magic I had with Jasmine.”

“Magic?”

“Oh, yeah. Killing in my own town is, of course, incredibly risky. But it gave me a chance to play first. That’s what I’ve been missing all these years. It’s always so hurried. So rushed. I can’t take my time. Get to know her first. Show her something’s wrong, someone’s watching. That was what I had with Jasmine. I watched her, tracked her, learned her schedule. And I was able to set the stage. Make sure that by the time I took her, she was already terrified.”

“That’s why you took her underwear.”

“It’s kind of a cliché, I know. But effective. It made it look like her ex was stalking her, but more importantly, it made her afraid. And I was the one who got to see her fear.”

“You’re a sick fuck.”

“You have no idea.”

“And funeral flowers?”

He waved a hand. “My attempt at being poetic, I guess. Until recently, I kind of regretted those. They were a bit too on the nose; not subtle. Of course, the idiot investigators had no clue. But as I was planning all this, I realized how much of a genius I really am. They gave me one more way to convince you your girlfriend was in danger.”

Had it been me all along? He hadn’t been targeting Harper. He’d been targeting me.

“How the fuck did you get in her house? And mine?”

“Easy. How do you think I put myself through law school? I’ve been breaking into houses since I was twelve.”

“Was all this just to keep me from solving the Joyner case?”

“That’s more like a bonus. You picking up that case gave me the inspiration I was craving. The challenge I’ve been wanting.”

“Even if you kill me, someone else will pick up the pieces. You’re going to get caught.”

“Will I, though? Your department is strapped for resources. No one has time. Not many are as dedicated and single-minded as you are. Besides, in the aftermath of your death, they’re going to discover just how disorganized you were. How much evidence you misplaced. The entire case is going to look like such a mess, no one’s going to touch it. It’ll be unsolvable. Kind of like the issues with the Trent Jones arrest, only on a bigger scale.”

That bastard. He’d set me up.

“And that pristine, good guy reputation of yours? That’ll be gone too. I’ve already started. A few complaints, unfounded or not, to sow the seeds of doubt. Then convince you someone’s reenacting the Joyner murder with your girlfriend as the target, but without enough evidence to trigger a full-on investigation. Make it look like maybe you’re a little off, and a lot paranoid.”

“You piece of shit.”