Page 23 of Darkest Before Dawn (His Perfect Darkness #2)

I nara

The room I enter isn’t a bedroom. It’s a situation room, complete with whiteboards, cork boards, and a state-of-the-art array of computers. In the center of the room, a round table holds stacks of files. There’s one stamped “Confidential: Elyria Police Department.”

“What is this?” I breathe. Rex hovers at my back.

“A place for you to work. Hamish had the original files couriered here.”

I reach for the Elyria files and pause with my fingertips hovering over the folder. “NRPD needs these files.”

“You can bring them in tomorrow morning if you wish. And there are the Blackbird files.” He points to the murder book I requested at City Hall.

I’m looking at everything I need to put together the profile Bonds requested. This is huge.

I turn to Rex. He said I could touch him, but I’m still hesitant when I lay my hands on his chest. “You did all of this? For me?”

“I’d do anything for you.” His face is a blank mask, but the heat smolders in his eyes.

I rise to tiptoe to touch my lips to his. He doesn’t move except to lightly grip my elbows, steadying me. “Thank you,” I whisper.

He kisses me back but lets me retreat. He’s here to support me, protect me, but he’s trying to give me space. Give me the freedom to fly.

My heart is soaring.

He inclines his head toward the table. “You want to catch him. Let’s catch him.”

My stomach turns over at the thought of the gruesome work ahead of me, but I nod. “Let’s get to work.”

Rex

Inara paces back and forth. She’s set up a wall of evidence by pinning things to the corkboard.

We have the original files, but Hamish also had copies made of everything, and that’s what Inara is putting on display.

She’ll bring the originals into the precinct tomorrow, but we’ll have copies in this room.

I walk over to the wall and stare at the picture of the Bondage Killer. Dennis Bundy is a nondescript white male with a wiry but strong build.

“Alfie,” I say, “give me the bio of Dennis Bundy.”

The computer chimes and reads the file. Inara raises her head from her work when Alfie says, “Dennis Bundy worked in home security. He sold Guardian systems and oversaw their installation.”

“That’s how he cased his victim’s homes,” Inara puts in. “My father was worried about the recent murders in the area and called the security company for a consultation. That was the first time he was in our home.” She’s talking about her family, but her voice is as neutral as the computer’s.

I’ve retreated to that cold space inside me, where nothing touches me.

Most people wouldn’t understand how I can compartmentalize like this.

But Inara does because she’s doing the same thing.

We stare at the body of evidence like it’s a thousand-piece puzzle we need to solve.

Piecing together a picture we’ve never seen before.

“He was strong enough to overpower his victims,” she continues. “And confident enough to put them on display.”

“What else is in his profile?”

She reads from the document she’s compiling.

“White male, now aged sixty-two. No substance abuse. No mild altering drugs or medications. He was—is—intelligent and methodical. He loved the process. He took his time. He displays a psychopathic character style. What he lacks in empathy, he makes up for in narcissism. He believes he’s better than others. ”

“Most serial killers have greater levels of narcissism,” I say.

“Yes. Like most billionaires,” she adds slyly.

My lips quirk, but now isn’t the time for jokes. “His motivations?”

Inara lifts her head. “You’ve killed people. What do you think?”

I take her question in stride. “It’s a compulsion.

He was acting out a fantasy, one he’d rehearsed over and over.

” One board has a list of the Bondage Killer’s original victims. “He was drawn to young girls or younger-looking women. He’d murder their parents or guardians and enact his sexual perversions on them. ”

Inara comes to stand beside me. “But not on me.” Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her feels right. Even though we’re looking at the gruesome details of serial murder, it feels right.

“No. He spared you.” I face her. “You have to acknowledge he’s now fixated on you.”

“The one that got away,” she murmurs and moves to the next board. “In contrast, the Blackbird murders were simple. The killer isolated a single victim, incapacitated them, strangled them. No sexual contact, but he arranged the bodies afterward and left them on display along with a dead bird.”

“Do you think Dennis Bundy also committed the Blackbird murders?”

She chews her lip. “I don’t know. The timeline fits. But why would he change his MO so completely?” She murmurs the last part to herself, gazing off into the distance. “Death. Rebirth. BK was presumed dead in a fire that raged overnight. The warehouse was thought to have collapsed on him.”

“How could he have survived?”

“There must have been a bolt hole of some sort. It would make sense for him to have an escape route planned. He knew the search was closing in. If he’s alive, I want to know where he’s been all this time.”

“If he was wounded, he might have needed time to heal. Get medical care. Lie low.”

“In addition to an escape route, he might have had friends. You know there are chat boards filled with his fans. Sick minds, swapping fantasies.”

“I do know,” I say grimly. When I was a boy, I found those chat rooms and lurked long enough to learn a few things.

I also worked on turning some of the worst offenders over to the authorities.

I followed the cases and learned that money could buy a reduced sentence.

After a few murderers proved to be so well-connected that they were let off without serving any hard time, I realized that there were better, more final ways to dispense justice.

I bow my head, reviewing the analysis Hamish sent over regarding the birds left at Inara’s townhouse. Barn swallows, all of them. The same bird left at the last murder site.

And BK calls Inara My Swallow.

Inara is right. This is a clear tie to the Blackbird murders. But does that mean the Bondage Killer is Blackbird?

We need more evidence. The timeline fits; if BK survived the fire, he could have committed the Blackbird murders. Those murders all happened a few months after the warehouse fire. But then why did he stop killing for so many years? And why did he start again?

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I sense Inara staring at me and finally ask, “What is it?”

“Who was your first kill?” she blurts out.

Inara

I’m caught in limbo, a place where time doesn’t exist. This is how I get when I work on a case.

But Rex is here with me, and it occurs to me that if I want to get into the mind of a murderer, I have one right here.

Rex raises his head to meet my stare. I sense the danger lurking in him, the violence barely leashed. “Who do you think?”

“The man who killed your family?” I guess.

“Actually, no, it wasn’t the man who pulled the trigger. It was the man who ordered the hit. My father’s business partner.”

I come around the table to get closer to him. “What did you do to him?”

This is a strange conversation, but I don’t know if Rex and I have ever had a normal one.

“Not much. I met him in an alleyway and shot him. Not my most satisfying kill.”

“And not your last.” I don’t feel any pity for Rex’s first victim. I’m guessing he was a wealthy man who thought himself above the law. “Did they tie you to the murder?”

“No. No one even knows he was behind the deaths. Back then, I was inexperienced. I lured him there with a text. I knew how to hide digital traces, even then. But I’d do it differently now.”

I chew on this as he adds, “The man who pulled the trigger died in a gang altercation before I could get to him. In my search for him, I learned he was just a hired gun. He wasn’t the mastermind. It wasn’t until I killed the man behind the crime that justice was done.”

Justice. Strange that Rex should use that word. We disagree on its meaning, which unsettles me, but not as much as the thought that by taking one life, he might have saved many.

People die in accidents every day. After my family died, I tortured myself with what-ifs. What if Dennis Bundy had been hit by a drunk driver on his way to work before he became the Bondage Killer? Would his death result in the greater good? Would that absolve the drunk driver of manslaughter?

What is justice? What is its purpose? Is it better to kill one and save many, or better to avoid crossing that moral line?

Rex has made his choice. He’s become a god, calling the shots. I don’t like it, but I understand it. What better way to make sure nothing terrible ever happens to you again? You become all-powerful or as close to it as money and prestige can make you.

“Did it help?” I ask. Rex tilts his head, and I get the feeling that only he knows what I’m really asking.

What if the Bondage Killer was right here right now? Would I pull the trigger? Would I tell myself it’s the best way of stopping him, of saving his future victims? Would I stick to my deals, pull out my handcuffs and bring him in properly?

I can’t even imagine touching him long enough to arrest him. But I can imagine standing over him once he’s dead and reduced to a sack of meat.

It’s horrifying and fascinating how quickly I can entertain thoughts of murder.

I could blame it on Rex rubbing off on me, but my thoughts are my own, and if I’m honest, I’ve wished the gods had given me the power to strike a man dead on that fateful night BK came for my family.

That’s why I cling to the concept of justice.

I know how easy it would be for me to cross a line.

“Did it help to kill the man who was behind my parents’ murder?” Rex sounds thoughtful, like he’s considering a hypothetical. “Yes, but not in the way you think. It helped to know that it would never happen again. But in some ways, it was worse.”

“Why?”