Page 5 of A Simple Mistake (Deadly Mistakes #1)

FIVE

Gabriel

Present

Why the fuck am I thinking about Liam now, of all times?

My mind is caught up in him as I sit in the corner of the room with no light, cold metal wrapped around my wrists and ankles. I can feel the way it bites into my skin after days of rubbing against it in the hopes of escape. My hands are even taped together, so I can’t use my fingers to aid my escape. Instead, I’m left sitting on the floor, forced to deal with every one of his whims since he placed me in this room days ago.

I’m not alone in here; Rick, a fellow detective, was here when I arrived. The moment the killer left, I tried asking him if he had any idea what was happening, but he could only mumble to me. At first, I thought he was gagged, but as the hours stretched on, I began to question whether the killer cut out his tongue.

My mind goes to the darkest places here in the blackness, here where I can smell blood and decay.

I can’t help but think about Dean Li, another man in law enforcement who went missing four months ago, and I question whether this is the same killer. When he was found, there were only pieces of him displayed on a bench at the local park, including his head. It was like he’d been staged to show that we weren’t invincible compared to the killer… he wanted us to know that he was targeting us.

We were warned to be careful, to lock our doors and keep our security systems up and running. But as the days stretched to weeks and weeks to months, we became lax. The case continued to go unsolved, and the idea that the killer was somehow connected to the officer he’d murdered began to circulate.

But now here I am, aware that when the killer is done with Rick, I’ll be the only one left for him to destroy.

Earlier, exhaustion had coaxed me off to sleep and, in my dreams, I was happy again. I found myself in the presence of Liam, the only man who ever made me feel special in his weird fucking way.

At times, I’d toyed around with the idea of something more. Yeah, I looked up to him… but could there be more to it? Could I let myself fall in love with him?

And then everything came crashing to a halt the night I stumbled upon him in that old barn with a dead body as I realized that Liam wasn’t so perfect after all. For nights I lay awake questioning if I had done the wrong thing by letting him go. Our lives were dedicated to stopping killers, and here I caught one and let him go.

What made Liam so special that I could go against everything I believed in just for him?

As the months stretched on, I’d forced myself to create a wall between us—a wall I swore to never peek over—but as I lie on the cold cement floor, my mind still drifts to him as I can’t help but wonder what he’d do in this case.

Could he have gotten out by now? Could he have found me if he was still a detective? Could he have saved me from this fate since he was able to see solutions when none of the rest of us could?

The door opens and I jump as the man walks in. He leaves the door open every time he comes in, almost like it’s some big joke. Like he wants me to know that freedom’s right there, but I have no ability to reach it. The light that spills in from the open doorway highlights the white plastic mask he wears, like some kid who raided a Halloween store, along with a white suit and a tie. He’s always wearing white as he comes in… but it’s often splattered in red when he leaves.

He turns to look at me before kneeling down in front of me. “Why the long face?”

“What the fuck do you want?” I ask.

“Want? What a question,” he says as his finger pushes my hair up off my forehead. “I simply want you to hurt. Be patient. I don’t enjoy people who aren’t patient.”

He walks past me and over to the other detective, and I watch as he drags Rick from the room before closing me back up into the darkness.