Page 31 of The Serial Killer’s Sister (The Serial Killer’s Daughter #3)

Cross my heart and hope to die,

Stick a needle in my eye.

FEbrUARY

This year

He dragged the body to the doorway and let go, her arms slamming to the floor with a thud.

Standing back, he looked around at the penultimate murder scene.

Adrenaline shot through his veins. One more after this and he’d be done.

How would he feel once it was over? A little lost, he imagined.

Bored, even. The planning, the execution, the end goal; they’d taken over his life for such a long time, driven his existence, given it meaning.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel as though justice had been done, that his job was truly over.

He picked at the tip of his gloved index finger and found a tiny hole.

Dammit. He went to his kit bag and pulled out another, swapping it and pocketing the damaged one.

He couldn’t slip up now – he was almost at the final hurdle.

He’d dreamed, fantasised, about finally having her in front of him.

She’d been the focus of all his hurt and pain, his inability to move on; he could barely wait to punish her.

But he had to be patient. Not only in getting to her and ensuring everything was in place, but when he had her, too.

Killing her would be pointless before he got what he wanted.

Shaking himself awake from the fantasies of what was to come, he took the Tupperware box from his bag and returned to the dead woman.

For the first time since his debut, he kneeled down beside the body and touched it.

Took in the details. He hadn’t allowed himself to do that for the last three murders.

He’d tried to keep any private thoughts, sentiment, out of the process.

It was never about them; it was always about her.

The woman was about fifty years old, he guessed.

Obviously she looked after herself; she was fit – a sporty type if the photos on her dresser were anything to go by, but not too muscular.

Still had feminine curves. She wasn’t like those body-building women who were all sinewy and shiny.

He appreciated women who made an effort.

He also appreciated clever women – a hangover from living at Finley Hall.

Miss Graves had drummed it into everyone, sometimes literally, that intelligence mattered.

Girls in particular had to be clever, she’d said, to make sure they could fight for equality, like she’d had to do to become manager of the home: because ultimately, it was a man’s world.

He huffed. Such bullshit. In his experience, women fought for equality, then when they had a sniff of it, they scuttled back into the safety of their stereotypes and let the men do the hard stuff.

They picked and chose and that really got his goat.

If it was a promotion, more money they wanted, then they would shout from the rooftops, but when it came to security, they weren’t so vocal.

Who did they turn to when they were frightened, concerned for their safety?

Men. Men were the protectors. Men had the real power. He was proof of that.

As he positioned the heart from the last victim next to the freshly murdered woman, he laughed.

Joke’s on them , he thought. He stuck the cross of the necklace into the cold, dead muscle – it protruded from the heart like a tiny headstone.

Then, he scooped the woman’s left eye out, jammed the needle into it and lay that beside the heart.

‘Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.’

If she didn’t work it out after all that, she wasn’t as clever as he’d given her credit.

Given that he was making it so clear who his final intended victim was, an obvious problem was that the police could offer her protection. He enjoyed a challenge, though, and he was resourceful.

He’d find a way.