Page 28 of Only for Him

I meet his gaze, steady. “I’ll come.”

“Attagirl.” He hands the evidence bag to a nearby tech, and then leads the way back through the corpse of the house.

We make it to the car without incident. I check the street, the alleys, and the shadows for my stalker.

Nothing.

As Russo starts the engine, I catch my own reflection in the passenger window. My jaw is tight, hair mussed, and my soul seems to shimmer against the blue sky.

I stare at myself for a long time, wondering which part of me he wants and which parts I’ll wind up giving him.

10

GISELLE

FIVE WEEKS LATER

“I hate this,”I mutter, staring at the museum of death that my coffee table has become.

Said aloud, it’s not any more convincing than when it echoes through my head.

I haven’t really slept for all these weeks. Catnaps only. Whenever I sleep long enough to dream, I see his blue eyes, and feel the weight of his hands moving to push my legs apart while his lips hover just out of reach, whispering “little viper” before he bites.

I wake in a tangle of cold sweat and sheets, and the echo of his voice clings to my ear like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

And more than once, I woke up to find that my pillow had migrated between my thighs and my own release frustratingly close yet impossibly far away.

Since our call, he’s been lurking in the periphery of my life, leaving me one disturbing gift after another, carving my nameinto crime scenes across the boroughs, and sending messages to my burner phone.

I try to sort through which of those things is the worst, but it’s easier to sort through the evidence baggies that he’s been sending my way just before a body shows up.

Each bag contains a critical relic from a crime scene, a clue meant to lead us like a dog on a leash to his handiwork.

First, a silver key that opened a safe in a famous pianist’s studio. Inside were videotapes labeled with the name of every girl who never came home after private lessons. The pianist was found with his hands mangled and decorated with a dozen roses—one on each finger and one driven straight through each palm.

Burned into the flesh of his thighs are the words“To Detective Cantiano.”

Second, a gold locket with a single strand of my hair wrapped around two lists: one contains several overseas bank account numbers, and the other contains wire transfers to Russia, Ukraine, and Thailand. Two days later, the owner of the locket washed up in the East River. A Wall Street trader with his heart cut out and pinned in place with a dozen roses.

His chest is split open, and scrawled on the inside in the same clean script are those familiar words:To Detective Cantiano.

Third, a matchbook from a Russian restaurant with a date. When we arrived, we found a basement with sixteen cots, each occupied by a girl too drugged to move. Tucked in the freezer was a man nailed to the shelves by his own cufflinks.

In his mouth was another dozen roses. And on his stomach, the same message.

But those aren’t the only ones.

Every day brings another twisted gift. Another mutilated body. Another gruesome piece of what’s clearly a massive human trafficking network being uncovered in real time.

And all of them have the same maddening message on their bodies.

TO DETECTIVE CANTIANO.

And with every fresh murder, the question continues to haunt me:why?

Why was he doing this?

The most important question, of course, is also the simplest one. Why me? I say it’s a simple question because, clearly, he chose well. No one else would have kept his secrets and willingly engaged to the extent that I have.