Page 112 of A Taste like Sin

It feels like too pointed a statement to serve as general advice. Paranoia, I tell myself for the second

time.

“I would hate for his condition to worsen,” Harrison reiterates. “Which is why it is imperative that

you tell me of any information that can help. Anything at all.”

“I…” Motion catches my eye before I can finish the statement: another officer walking by, slim and

pale. Familiar. The man who canvassed my apartment the other day.

“I have my men on him around the clock,” Harrison explains as the man marches past my father’s

room. “Don’t worry. He’s in good hands.”

“You’ve known him for a while, my father,” I say. “Do you know anything about my case?”

He strokes his chin with the pad of his thumb. “The Borgetta case?”

“No.” I shake my head while watching his reaction for any subtle shift. “Mycase. Leslie Matoda’s

case?”

And in some ways, Heyworth Thorne’s case.

“My knowledge is a bit rusty on that front,” he admits, shrugging. “I know they never caught the guy.

He must have been quite the powerful man to avoid detection for so long. Or perhaps one with very

powerful friends.” He laughs, but there is no warmth in it. “I admire your strength to have survived

such an ordeal. Even with your scars.”

His gaze darts to my hip and I subconsciously run my fingers over my thigh, my cheeks heating. Did

Daddy mention my old injuries to him?

“I’m sorry if discussing this upsets you,” he says. “I know it was never closed.”

“He wasn’t caught,” I admit thickly. “But… Hypothetically speaking, what if there was no real

evidence? Just the word of a traumatized little girl. A girl in the crosshairs of a powerful monster.”

A girl who someone inhisdepartment put on Heyworth Thorne’s radar decades ago.

He sighs. “Some might say nothing would matter without hard evidence.” Despite his blank

expression, his tone hardens, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Others…might suggest that a little girl’s

testimony, no matter how fragmented, could have an impact on a jury’s ultimate decision. That, all

discussions of her trauma aside, she would have to testify.”

“And if she couldn’t?”

“Couldn’t?” A harsh sound escapes his throat. “Pardon my bluntness, Juliana, but what would matter

more? The police doing their duty by putting a monster behind bars or one little girl’s psyche?”