Page 71 of Vicious Hearts

I cast around, looking for the danger. She looks for what she fears, the thing she wants so desperately to escape from.

Other figures are running behind me in the blackness. Faces flash past me—my father and my mom. The cop I killed sometimes appears in the bright spots, looking bewildered as his chest blooms red.

Then all the others are gone, and I can't see Roxy anymore. Did she escape?

The light grows bright and sharp, like a blade, and I understand.

Roxy was running away fromme.

* * *

The sun crests the window ledge and casts a bright stripe through the gap in the blind, right across my face. I reach for Roxy before I remember that she's not here. She's home or with Ali or wherever.

My mind chatters as soon as it's awake, like a toddler. Tossing scraps of knowledge around, still trying to piece together a puzzle already solved.

The cops will find everything, Roxy will tell them about the acid, and Graham's filthy little drug mule will be offered a plea bargain in return for their cooperation. Hopefully, no more bodies will be found.

I never had the epiphany I was waiting for. That buzzing in my head is still there. I expect it's driven by my ego, pissed off that I didn't figure it out. I mean, Roxy and I had the fucker pegged, but before we could nail down our hunches, Graham went and killed himself.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. The blank space helps me slow my thoughts and allow the critical stuff to float to the top.

Graham Fisher. Roxy's ex, who she refused to sleep with. Killed his son but killedtwoother kids first?

There's something I'm missing there.Park it and move on.

Trustee for a children's charity, Always Home. He had been a big money donor for years and liked to make sure it was his name on those giant cheques.

Figures. He was a narcissist; many enjoy altruism for the accolades it attracts. He must have liked being perceived as a generous, caring man. I'll bet he got quite the kick out of hiding in plain sight. He certainly manipulated Roxy into believing he was decent, at least until she got to know him better.

Just like I did.

Don't think about her.

The buzzing in my skull is working up to a shrill pitch, as though someone is using a bandsaw on it.

Graham Fisher. CEO of the East Coast logistics side of Fisher Pharma. Wealthy, well-connected, with access to drugs. Anyone can buy LSD, but it's a different matter to swap it for real medicine. Graham must have found an employee he could manipulate.

Only child. Distant, cold father. Coddling mother. A classic combo to create a killer.

Tried to kill Roxy. Maybe it was because of her support for Farraday, but it could be because she rejected him. Men like him don't respond well to that kind of thing.

When I first gathered intel for the profile, Graham was the grieving father of a murdered son, a married man with a beautiful home that was searched from roof to foundation. Nothing of interest was found there.

There wasn't much in the shipping container either, now that I think of it. There were photos, files, and a box containing locks of soft, child-like hair, each tied with ribbon. All very incriminating. But when the cops went to his house, they found only more of the same.

What troubles me is the lack of posturing. I get that Graham was losing his shit, but his fundamental nature would not change. He got away with six murders and framed an innocent man—failing to kill Roxy sent him off the deep end, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't want the world to know what he'd done.

Once he decided it was over for him, I'd have expected to find a glorious manifesto of his mission, surrounded by his various trophies from the bodies. All those fingers are somewhere, still hidden.Why?

My head is starting to really hurt.

I didn't expect the killer to be a family man. It surprised me with Farraday, and it surprises me now. Why thefuckwould a man kill two random children, then kill hisownson, drawing massive attention to himself?

Graham's wife alibi's him. I assumed she'd lied, as though assumptions are worth a damn.

I'm too restless to lie in bed anymore. I get up and find the case file, dumping it out onto the floor. One of the pieces of paper is a list of when and where the bodies were found.

Found.Not killed. We don't know when they were killed because they weren't identified, except for Graham's son. He was the only one who was found buried, many miles away.