Page 92 of The Rowdy Ones

We stiffen at his words. This killer is relentless.

“I’m trying my damnedest not to involve the Feds, but this is the work of a serial killer. We don’t have the resources for this shit at our department.”

“So call in the Feds,” Uncle Atticus mutters. “Not sure why that’s an issue. You want to catch the guy, right?”

Will says nothing.

This has me and Uncle Atticus sharing a confused look.

“It’s complicated,” Will says, scratching at his neat beard. “Really fucking complicated, in fact.”

“I guess I don’t understand,” I blurt, shaking my head. “Are you going to tell us?”

Will turns his eyes to me and studies me for so long I squirm under his stare. There’s a flash of guilt in his eyes.

“It was another man,” Will says, keeping his voice low so the few others in the shop don’t hear. “Around your age. Your build. Same hair color. Same fucking gash to the throat.”

Uncle Atticus frowns at me. “You think Rowdy needs to be worried? I mean, I’ve seen this guy handle some rough shit. Not sure if he’s the type to be overtaken by some killer.”

Will swallows hard and then stares down at his coffee. There’s something he’s not telling us and it’s weighing on him heavily. My gut twists, souring the coffee in my stomach.

“You’re freaking me the fuck out if I’m being honest,” Uncle Atticus says. “Next you’re going to tell me—”

“The victims all knew Evan.”

My ears start ringing as I comprehend his words. “What?”

“It’s not public knowledge,” Will hisses. “Yet. I just…I needed to wrap my head around it first.”

“No fucking way,” Uncle Atticus grunts out. “Evan wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

That’s a lie.

I know for a fact he’s not past raping someone and injecting them with drugs.

“Was the new body found also sodomized?” I ask, voice hoarse.

Will nods. “Everything was the same.”

Bile creeps up my throat as I remember last night at the party when Alex bitched me out for talking to Evan. He’d said Evan was going to meet up with a friend. What if…no.

“How do you know Evan knew them?” I shift in my seat, needing more information. “You said you knew.”

Will leans closer, voice dipping even lower. “Since the men were sodomized and killed in remote locations, I thought maybe the killer was using a dating app to hook up.” He blows out a sharp breath of air that nearly topples over my empty coffee paper cup. “So I’ve been culling through the victims’ phones, searching for any similarities that might connect us to the killer. The first victims had so many people they were talking to, it was impossible to narrow down. However, the guy from last night must not have been seriously using the dating app because he only had a handful of people on his. I was able to cross reference the other victims’ connections on the app, and only one person showed up on all of them.”

I rub at the center of my chest, needing air that doesn’t want to filter into my lungs. Evan is a lot of things, all of them bad, but I can’t comprehend him being a killer. I just can’t.

“But Evan’s doing so good now,” Uncle Atticus interjects, defending his nephew. “He’s sober. This kind of behavior doesn’t match up to his newfound sobriety.”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t know what this all means, only that he’s the link to all of them.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask. “Are you going to confront him?”

“I have to do something.” Will curses and closes his eyes. “I swear to God that kid has made it his life’s mission to drive me to insanity.”

After I tell Destiny everything in the first few minutes of our drive, we ride in silence. She’s sitting next to me in the truck with her hand on my thigh where it belongs. One of my arms is wrapped snuggly around her and the other is on the steering wheel.

“Evan is a bad man,” she says softly. “But is he a killer?”