Page 6 of Darkest Before Dawn (His Perfect Darkness #2)

I jolt. Of course. The letters. “What happened to the letters?” All I remember is gripping them while getting into the backseat of Ivan’s town car. “I need to get them to the precinct. They’re evidence.”

“We have them,” Rex says. “They’re in my lab. We took the opportunity to run some forensic testing.”

“You did what?” It’s bad enough that Hamish so easily uncovered sensitive details of the case, but tampering with evidence?

He’s gone too far. I channel my shock into anger and round on him.

“There are rules about the chain of custody for a reason. The letters are our best hope of finding the killer, and now they’re tainted?—”

“Because evidence is never tainted in police custody.” Rex doesn’t bother to hide his sarcasm.

“I guess you would know.” I remember how easily Rex made evidence disappear in the Martin case, and my face and chest grow hot. “You have no right?—”

“Do you want to know what we found?” Rex interrupts.

I pause with my mouth open. If he compromised the evidence, I might shoot him. Not anywhere fatal, but maybe in the leg or something. He’s lucky I’m not armed now.

But I do want to know what he found.

I nod, and he beckons. “Come see for yourself.”

We end up back in his HQ or, as Hamish calls it, his “lair.” Beyond the illuminated workspaces, the place is as dark and forbidding as ever.

Rex leads me across a metal bridge to a large glass cube, a makeshift room filled with lab equipment.

There are stainless steel counters and a hanging array of computer screens.

“This can’t be sterile,” I mutter.

“Alfie?” Rex asks, and the computer answers in a cheerful, artificial voice. “We maintain the strictest sanitation levels and disinfect all surfaces regularly. Would you like a decontamination report?”

“That won’t be necessary.” I roll my eyes.

“Here.” Rex guides me to a long plastic case that holds each letter.

“We hoped for fingerprints, but there are only yours. The writer must have worn gloves. The paper is aged, but it’s common card stock, a brand that’s been sold in craft stores across the nation for over twenty years.

We’re analyzing for mold spores, bacteria, anything that can give us a hint of the writer’s location. ”

I lean over the case, studying each letter. I didn’t have to read the ravings of the madman to know it was the Bondage Killer. I feel it like a dark cloud hovering over my senses. A poison spreading through my psyche, making me want to rip at my skin to shed the suffocating feeling.

“Most interesting was the handwriting analysis,” Hamish says.

He’s pecking on a computer, pulling up toxicology reports that would rival the best forensic lab.

“The signature matches that of the Bondage Killer.” A picture of a similar letter, written on cream card stock, appears on the screen nearest to me.

“This is a letter sent to the Elyria police station sixteen years ago, around the time the Bondage Killer was active in that area.” By ‘active,’ Hamish means murdering people. Families like mine.

“I remember,” I say. I’ve seen photocopies of the Bondage Killer’s letters in my mentor’s files. “He was confident. Baiting the police. It helped them catch him.”

“Indeed, Detective.”

“We’ll catch him again,” Rex says. There’s a bleak finality to his tone that makes me turn to him. Earlier, he tried to comfort me. Now he looks solemn, like a man who’s just learned he’s been conscripted to go to war.

The letters all have the same handwriting, a spidery scrawl that gets wilder and harder to read in the latest letters.

The latest one reads I’m coming for you in barely legible script.

I fight the urge to take a step back. My stomach twists like I’m going to vomit, but I force myself to swallow. “He’s unraveling.”

“He’s fixated on you,” Rex says. “Has he ever had any contact with you outside of. . .”

“The night he came for my family? No.” I step away from the letters and suck in air. Maybe I will be sick. “It’s a delusion.” I suddenly get a whiff of something foul and turn my head, coughing. “What’s that smell?”

“Smoke and rot,” Hamish says. “The paper is saturated in those scents.”

“You said the paper stock was old,” I say. “Could it be from BK’s original hideout in the warehouse?”

“The one that burned down, supposedly with him in it? Perhaps. Hamish?”

“I’ll see if I can run that particulate analysis, sir.” Hamish presses a button, and a lab machine on wheels rolls forward to insert robotic arms into the protective case. “I’ll have to take another sample.”

This goes against all my training on chain of custody for evidence, but I have to admit that Rex has an advanced lab. I don’t like it, but if he can uncover more clues faster, it’ll be worth it. All that matters is stopping the Bondage Killer before he strikes again.

The scent of smoke coats my lungs. It’s more than a smell; it’s a taint soaking into my pores. The sensation is mostly psychosomatic, but I pace to the end of the glass cubicle to suck in some fresh air. The lair has great air circulation for being underground.

Rex follows me. “Are you all right?” He hovers at my side.

I rub a hand over my face as if I can wipe the psychic stink away. “A madman has come back from the dead to kill more people to get to me. I won’t be all right until he’s stopped.”

“He will be stopped,” he vows. “One way or another.”

“Everyone thought he died in the fire.” I never realized how much that comforted me. My family was gone forever, but the murderer met his karmic end. I could breathe easier, knowing that the case was closed.

Now, I feel like all hope has vanished.

I want to lean into Rex and accept his comfort, but I don’t. No more. I can’t allow myself to indulge in him.

“Inara,” Rex hesitates, as if choosing his words carefully. “Have you sensed anything since moving to New Rome? Anything strange, like the feeling of being watched?”

“Yes.” I give a bitter, broken laugh. “But I thought I was you.” Some of it was him. The body of my attacker on my doorstep, the gift box left on my desk—they were Rex’s doing. I didn’t realize another killer was also stalking me. “Where did you find the letters?”

“They were in your mailbox. A whole stack, all together. No envelope, so they had to be hand-delivered.”

I shudder. The Bondage Killer was at my apartment. On my front stoop. “He must have been writing them and waiting until he found where I lived to deliver them.”

“You’re sure it’s him? The original Bondage Killer and not a copycat?”

“It’s him,” I don’t think before I reply. “I don’t have proof, but I know it.” My psychic senses tell me it’s the same man who entered my bedroom all those years ago.

“All right.” Rex doesn’t ask how I know, he just takes me at my word.

And it would be heartwarming, having him believe me without having to expose my secrets, if the reality wasn’t so horrific.

“We’ll look for a connection, see what we find that can help us catch him now.

How he could have escaped the burning warehouse and lived and what he’s been up to all this time. ”

“Thank you.” I glance back at the cubicle where Hamish is bent over a microscope.

Rex puts his hand on my back. The heat from his large hand should comfort me, but it only makes me realize how chilly I am. “One more round of tests, and we’ll send them to the precinct.”

“When will the testing be done?”

“In another few hours. The crime labs are backlogged. This is the most expedient solution.”

“All right.” I want to get to work as soon as possible, but Rex is right. I’m uncomfortable with breaking the rules, but if unconventional methods are the best chance of stopping the Bondage Killer, I’m all for it. We don’t have much time.

He’s going to kill again, and soon. I know it.

“When you disclose that BK sent you the letters, you’ll be at the center of this thing,” Rex says quietly.

“I’m already at the center of this thing.” I blow out a breath and say what needs to be said, even though it makes me want to weep. “I’m the reason he came back. He wants to finish what he started. It’s my fault.”

“Inara, no.” His shadow falls over me. “It’s not your fault.”

If only Rex knew. For the past two nights, visions of the victims have haunted my sleep. If only I had heeded the visions earlier and figured out how to act, the family on Green Street and poor Emily Rodriguez would still be alive.

“You can’t blame yourself,” he says, but he’s wrong. I can, and I do.

Stopping the Bondage Killer is the only way to atone for my failure.

“Little bird,” Rex calls softly. He’s right in front of me, but with all the thoughts crowding my head, he sounds far away. “Look at me.”

A few hours ago, I would have let that deep voice soothe me. But now, comfort is a luxury I can’t afford. I need to leave all intimacy behind. It’s the price I pay in service of justice.

I shake my head. “I’m wasting time. I need to focus.” My involvement in the case and my psychic instincts might be the only way to catch the Bondage Killer. “I need to get to work.”

“I’ll set up a meeting with the NRPD. They can interview you here.”

“What? Why?” I glance up and take in his impassive expression. “I need to go in.”

“You can’t be thinking of going into the city. There’s a killer looking for you.”

“All the more reason for me to go in. I might be the only one who can stop him.” I turn to find my way out of this cave, and suddenly, Rex is looming over me, standing in my way.

“If you think I’m going to let you leave here to hunt down the Bondage Killer alone, you’re delusional.” His voice is as hard as I’ve ever heard it.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” His gaze is so cold and hard it’s like looking down the barrel of a gun. He’s never looked at me like this, glaring at me like I’m the enemy.

I’m the one willing to cross him, so I guess I am his enemy. “Rex, you can’t keep me here.”

“Can’t I?”

“You wouldn’t.”

He leans in. “Watch me.”