Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,113
it, turning it into something else. And because I went there to write. When I was stuck. When I needed to be alone. When I needed to soak up even more death than Saint offered.
Margot visited us three times a week. Ernie came over to play poker with me every Tuesday. Not Saint, though. He refused. It was our thing. This amused Saint greatly. And by greatly, his mouth twitched upward ever so slightly when I recounted the poker ban.
Katy moved to Terror, surprising me and herself. She planned on working at the closest hospital, which was forty minutes away. They were shocked to have her and couldn’t afford her. But she had plenty of money, and wasn’t really attached to it. She still hadn’t explained what pushed her to move down here, and I didn’t try to tease it out of her. She seemed happy. As happy as someone like Katy could be. She lived in town proper, and was renting while she built a house on the waterfront. She didn’t like living somewhere that wasn’t exactly how she liked it. I felt sorry for the contractor she was torturing to make sure her tiles were exactly uniform.
Rocko had stayed. I still couldn’t figure out whether Saint was happy or furious about this turn of events. He was at our place at least every second night, eating our food, talking more than both Saint and I combined. He brought an easiness to our house that wasn’t natural and would never be reproduced by Saint or myself. It was baffling and infinitely intriguing that a killer like him could be so easy. So cheerful.
I’d seen the aftermath of what happened. Not the bodies. But when he and Saint barged into the garage, he’d been coated in blood. Like he’d bathed in it. His hair was matted with flesh and bone, like a fucking Viking after battle. He’d smiled at me, showing pure, white teeth, seeing me standing with the gun, man below me with a blood-soaked crotch.
Saint had not smiled.
So yeah, Rocko was his own version of sick.
And he was no longer wearing a cut. Somewhat of a reformed sinner too, though Saint resented that title for my newest series. He didn’t argue on it, though.
Emily’s father was suing me, trying to halt publication of my book. Half the town hated me. I didn’t blame them. Not even a little.
Nor did I care.
His lawyers would never win. He’d already mortgaged his house twice. He couldn’t afford the lawsuit. But once he gave up, I’d already signed contracts to authorize a settlement to clear his debts and to make sure he’d be able to take care of himself for the rest of his life.
There was a restraining order against him, but I knew it wasn’t necessary. He was fighting for his daughter now, because he felt like he’d failed before.
Kent Robins was imprisoned in Georgia, awaiting trial. Multiple states had fought over him, but that was where he was picked up, halfway through torturing a young woman, when her boyfriend came home and beat him half to death.
The woman hadn’t survived.
I’d identified him as the man who kidnapped me, but the evidence against him wasn’t strong enough to garner the death penalty. I got calls, letters from the Feds, imploring me to have a meeting with him.
I was the only person he’d confess to.
That’s what he told the cops, at least.
One last power trip. I had scars on both my arms. From two different men. Saint liked to think of the hammer scars as “his.” It was his punishment, and he liked to have that claim, so I let him. If I could release Kent’s claim to the long, thin puckering on my right arm, I would. But skin shows it all. So, I did the only thing I could. I refused the interview. Refused him the right to summon me like a subject. He wanted me to want to talk to him. He wanted that social cache to take with him to the executioner.
He wouldn’t get it.
And he wouldn’t confess without me, I knew that much. But there was that one piece of physical evidence. The skin underneath the fingernails of his third victim. It wasn’t totally damning, and didn’t tie him to the ten other murderers, but it was enough.
Which meant it was unlikely he’d get the death penalty. But he’d get locked up, no chance of parole. And that was good enough for me.