Page 25 of The Italian Reckoning (A New York Criminal Empire #3)

SARAH

C rack .

The sudden sound sends a pulse of alarm through every fiber of my body and I snatch my hand away from my coffee cup as if it’s going to leap up and attack me. The painful crack is merely one of my coworkers cracking his knuckles sharply as he walks past, but that’s not what I hear.

All I hear is the sickening sound of Rocky’s arm breaking under the orders of his father.

My stomach rolls with nausea and bile tingles at the base of my throat, but I swallow it down and focus on furiously stirring my coffee. It’s been over a week since that terrible day at the casino and it feels as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

Matteo Barati injured his own son to prove a point. I don’t even know if Rocky is alive and I’m too scared to reach out in case contact from me brings him to further harm. Everything so quickly got out of hand and I have no idea how to regain control.

I’m cut off from everyone, not even risking contact with the Irish. The killer is still out there, the cops are finally on the case of the second body, and I’m no closer to tracking down the identity of the asshole who’s creating so much pain.

Can I really stand here and call myself a detective when a killer is walking all over me?

My turbulent thoughts and desire to get away from knuckle-popping Pete bring me outside, where the scorching June sun stings my bare arms and warms the top of my head within just a few seconds.

Luckily, I brought my shades today. My taste for coffee has waned this past week since I’ve been unable to sleep without the aid of several strong glasses of wine.

It’s hard to rest when I’m unsure whether the Italian Mafia are about to kick down my door. Or worse, The Painter.

People mill about in front of the station, going about their business with no clue to the real dangers that lurk in the streets of New York.

One man skips gleefully down the steps and is reunited with a loving woman at the bottom.

They share a kiss and a hug, and she dances around him with the biggest smile on her face, then takes his hand.

Walking off together, they become intertwined and I watch them until they blur into the same person.

A woman with her arms full of groceries and children climbs the steps toward the station, trailed by an exhausted man wrestling a pushchair.

How different everyone’s lives are, and how little it really matters in the grand scheme of things.

The Painter kills without care, and any one of those people could be his next victim, provided they are young enough.

“Sarah?” Brant’s voice pulls me from my thoughts and I turn to face him. I didn’t hear him approach, but his stance is relaxed enough that he must have been here for a couple of minutes at least.

“Sir.”

“I want your theory on something?”

“Mmhmm?”

Brant’s eyes narrow slightly and he looks me dead in the eye. “Why do you think it took so long for the second body to be found?”

My heart jumps slightly and I force myself to remain calm even as nervous energy pulses through me with a shiver.

Keeping the case open has only been allowed because I’ve been pretending it’s a dead case, and I’m only leaving it open due to the pressing questions of loved ones.

The discovery of Kara’s body led to Brant getting praise from higher up since clearly, the two cases are going to be wrapped up soon.

If only Brant would listen to me about Montana.

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t give me that.” Brant sucks briefly on his upper teeth. “Look… I’m not saying there’s a direct link, but other people have noticed the similarities so I’m asking you, if this case is what you thought it was, why do you think it took so long for the second body to be found?”

I could tell him the truth. That the Mafia had control of the crime scene and we were conducting our own investigation into the serial killer and were doing it without the restraint of badges.

But I can’t. As soon as anyone finds out I was there, everything about Kara’s murder will be compromised and with it, possibly the entire case. So I lie.

“I have no idea,” I say quietly, burying my nerves in a few gulps of my now lukewarm coffee. “Maybe he miscalculated the foot traffic of the area so she wasn’t discovered in time. Or maybe you were right all along and there’s no connection so it was just a bad coincidence.”

“You don’t believe that, Sarah.”

“No.” I sigh deeply. “I don’t.”

“So, what’s your theory?”

“My theory?” I drain my cup and crush the cardboard into a ball. “My theory is that we shouldn’t have waited for a second body to start investigating this properly.”

“Sarah—”

“If there’s nothing else, I have to get back to work.”

Brant lets me leave with a nod of his head, and I disappear back inside the station with my heart pounding.

It’s bold of me to push with such an attitude when I’ve already broken so many rules, but I can’t outright state what I really think anymore.

My confidence in this department's ability to catch The Painter diminishes by the day, and with Rocky out of the picture and my link to the Mafia cut off, I’m alone.

And alone makes me an even bigger target for that asshole.

Back in my office, the front desk clerk drops off a cryptic message from Evelyn.

It seems to be some kind of apology from Rocky, but I can’t read too deeply into it.

I’ve no idea what kind of state he’s in, and every time I think about him or the time we spent together, all I hear is the disgusting snap of his arm and the screams that followed.

How could Matteo do that to his own son?

To anybody ?

At least the message assures me of one thing. Rocky is alive.

My head ends up in my hands while my thoughts race.

Do I tell Brant the truth? Will that be the only way to catch the killer? Do I call Rocky and try to find a way through this mess with him? Or do I just take a step back and hope that somehow, New York is better at catching a serial killer than Montana?

The answer doesn’t come easily so I pour myself into catching up on the paperwork I missed while on ‘vacation’ until a call comes through on my desk phone.

“Hello?” I tuck the receiver into my shoulder, expecting to hear either Brant or someone from down in records ready to tell me that the files I’ve asked for no longer exist.

“Hello, Sarah.” That familiar, scratchy, robotic voice that answered my call back at the casino fills my ears and sends my gut plummeting down into my ass.

“Painter.”

“I do so love it when you say my name.”

The phone display only shows a withheld number, but these phones run on a closed network. “How are you calling me?”

“Is that really the question you want to ask?” The Painter drawls in his painfully screechy voice.

Staring out the window of my office, my eyes dart between every single person currently on the phone. “This is a closed network.”

“And not as secure as you might think. Although you should get that looked at because who knows what sensitive information could get passed between unsuspecting cops.”

My heart begins to race, jumbling my thoughts as every sensible idea flees my mind. Part of me wants to curl up and cry just from hearing his voice, while another part desperately wants to find a way to lure him out of hiding. “What do you want?”

“Can’t I call and talk to my favorite detective?”

“I know you,” I reply. “You don’t just do anything. What do you want?”

“I wanted to express my sincere… gratitude that you’re back where you belong.”

“Back where I…?”

“I did so miss you. But you have to understand something, Sarah.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t leave me again. If you do, I’ll kill again. And this time, I won’t stop. I’ll keep going and leave a trail of bodies right to your door so we can finish what we started.”

Every person on the phone within my eyeline gets a second glance but no one’s lips match the searing words pouring from my receiver. “And in your opinion, what counts as leaving?”

“You’ll know when the next body turns up.” Those are his last words. The line clicks and falls dead with only a soft hum to fill the space. No one in my eyeline hangs up.

He’s not in the office, I don’t think. But if he has access to our internal network, then things are way worse than I first thought.

Slamming the phone down, I lunge from my desk and sprint all the way down the hall to Captain Brant’s office.

Once there, I barge in while knocking quickly on the door, then close it firmly behind me and rush up to his desk.

Brant watches me with wide, shocked eyes as I lean across and end his current call with a push of a button.

“The hell do you think you are doing, Sarah?”

“Brant, listen to me. I just got a call from The Painter on our closed network. Do you know what this means? Somehow, he got onto our network either by hooking himself in or stealing a connected phone. Honestly, I have no idea how because this is beyond me, but it means he can call anyone, he can pretend to be anyone to get details and answers! We need to either move this case to another station or set up a secure, closed network with only a few trusted detectives!”

Brant sets his phone down painfully slowly, letting my pants fill the air between us.

“Sarah.”

“What?”

“Why is he calling you?”

“I… I don’t know. You’d have to ask him that.”

“Is this the first time he’s had contact with you?”

“Ye—” I hesitate, catching myself before I say too much. I could lie, but that lie would unravel the second we had The Painter in custody. One word from him and everything about me would be thrown into suspicion. Hell, he could even claim we were working together. “No.”

Brant’s brow twitches up. “What?”

“He… he left me a note at the crime scene with a number to call.”

“And you called it?” Brant lifts out of his seat slightly as he hisses at me, then he sits back down and rakes his hand through his hair.

“Yes.”

“Did you report it? Record it? Did you catalog the call in any way?”

“No.”

“Dammit, Sarah.”

“I know?—”

“No, you don’t know! Do you have any idea how fragile this case is?

When it was just a single murder, having you working on it was fine because I stand by the decision that the similarities between Belle and The Painter’s victims were circumstantial at best. But with this second victim?

Having you, of all people, on this case puts the entire thing under a microscope.

And now!” His voice drops to a hiss. “Now you tell me you’ve been having private calls with the killer?

Do I have to tell you what this looks like? ”

“But I brought it to you!” My heart races as Brant’s implications settle like a weighted hand on my shoulder. “We can trace the call and try to find out how he got onto the network. We can maybe even find out what connector code he used, and that will tell us whose phone he hijacked!”

“You’re off the case.”

My mouth hangs open with words catching in my throat. “What?”

“You’re off the damn case, Sarah! Listen to yourself!

This is your second call with the suspect and you didn’t even report the first one.

And I don’t even want to know how you got a note from the killer when you were never at the second crime scene, but open your damn eyes and tell me what you see. ”

“You can’t think?—”

“That you’re working with him?” Brant catches himself raising his voice and sighs deeply, puffing out his cheeks.

“No. After what you went through, I don’t think that, but other people won’t be so kind.

When people find this out, every single piece of evidence you have ever touched, from here to Montana, will be thrown out.

Don’t you see? His defense won’t even need to be good to showcase how badly you’re fucking this case. ”

“But I haven’t done anything!”

“And who's going to believe you when the defense attorney spins your calls—on an internal system, mind you—as your passing The Painter information or even messing with evidence?”

His accusation forces me to take a step back. “Brant, I would never. You know me. You know this case.”

“I know,” Brant says solemnly. “Which is why I’m throwing you off the case with immediate effect. The sooner you’re away from this, the sooner we can build a strong case.”

“Please, I need this. I need to be working on this. It’s me that he’s taunting, me that he wants to piss off! You can’t take this from me when I’m the only one who’s been fighting for this damn case.”

“I don’t care.” Brant picks up his phone and dials a number, presumably to resume the call I interrupted. “I’m trying to protect you, Sarah, so please. Hand everything over to another detective and step away.”

“And if I don’t?” The challenge rises like vomit.

Brant’s fingers hover over the final digit on the keypad. “If you don’t, then I’ll be forced to take your badge. Is that what you want?”