Page 35 of Carved

"Define 'innocent touching.'"

"Just…exploration. Education. She needed to learn about her body, about what men expect from women." Each word makes my skin crawl. "It's normal. Fathers are supposed to teach their daughters these things."

"How many times?"

"I told you, just a few. Maybe six or seven occasions over a couple years." He's minimizing, the way predators always do.Six or seven could mean dozens. "It stopped when she got older, started fighting back. Got too mouthy and difficult."

The rage that floods through me is unlike anything I've experienced. Pure, white-hot fury that makes my hands shake and my vision narrow to a tunnel focused on his face. This isn't just abuse—it's the systematic destruction of a child's innocence, trust, sense of safety in the world.

I want to kill him slowly. Want to make him suffer for hours, days, until he understands a fraction of the pain he's inflicted. Want to carve my rage into his flesh one precise cut at a time.

Instead, I make myself breathe. Count screws. Focus on the mission.

"Continue," I manage.

"There's nothing else to continue. It stopped. I moved on to more…appropriate outlets." The euphemism makes me sick. "Delilah never said anything, never complained. She understood it was just between us."

"She was eleven years old."

"She was mature for her age. Smart. She understood—"

I drive the knife into his shoulder, deep enough to scrape bone. He shrieks, the sound echoing off the kitchen cabinets.

"She was a child, you fucking monster."

"Okay! Okay, yes, she was a child. But she's fine now, isn't she? She's functional, getting good grades. It didn't damage her permanently."

The casual dismissal of trauma, the complete inability to comprehend the harm he's caused—it's everything I've learned to recognize in predators. They don't see their victims as humanbeings with inner lives and lasting wounds. They see objects, tools, things to be used for their gratification.

"Tell me about the bribes."

"What bribes?"

Another cut, this one across his knuckles. "Detective, we've been at this for almost an hour. Do you really think I don't know about your supplemental income?"

"Five grand a month," he gasps. "Sometimes more. Drug dealers, bookmakers, anyone who needed cases to disappear or evidence to get lost."

"Names."

"Rodriguez runs numbers on the south side. Kowalski moves coke through the docks. Martinez has a prostitution ring operating out of three massage parlors." The names pour out of him now, his entire network of corruption laid bare. "We all take money. It's just how the system works."

"How long?"

"Nine years. Maybe nine. Started small, just looking the other way on minor stuff. But the money was good, and the work was easy."

Forty-seven minutes on the tape recorder. Forty-seven minutes of confession that would destroy not just Jenkins but half the police department. Murder, child abuse, sexual assault, corruption, bribery—enough crimes to fill a federal indictment.

But listening to him minimize everything, excuse everything, blame everyone but himself, I understand that this isn't about justice anymore. This is about removing a cancer from the world. Some people can't be redeemed, can't be fixed, can't be anything but what they are.

Harry Jenkins is a monster who wears a badge. And monsters don't deserve trials or second chances or the presumption of innocence.

They deserve to die.

Eventually, I set the knife aside and reach for my surgical kit, the black leather case I've carried to six previous scenes. Each tool has its place, its purpose, its role in the ritual that transforms murder into justice. Scalpel. Forceps. Suturing needles. Surgical thread. The instruments of my trade, arranged with the same precision I once used for construction work.

Three screws, never two, never four. Order from chaos. Beauty from brutality.

Jenkins watches me lay out the tools, understanding finally dawning in his pain-clouded eyes. "Please," he whispers, the word barely audible. "Please, I can change. I can get help. Therapy, medication, whatever it takes."