Free The Darkness Inside: Writer's Cut by John Rickards Page B

body?”
    “Yeah.”
    I frowned. “Where?”
    “Took her out and buried her not far from the shore, maybe a mile from that first girl.”
    “You don’t remember more exactly than that?”
    Williams shrugged. “Hey, she was a piece of meat.”
    “If this shit is all you’ve got to tell me, Cody, then as far as I’m concerned we’re finished here.”
    “Easy, Agent Rourke. I’m thinking about it. You’ve just got to give me time to remember back to these things. Bring that map tomorrow, that should help. It ain’t easy, especially not now.” He coughed, something wet rasping at the back of his throat. I was certain he was only doing it for effect. “But all this talking about old times is making it clearer, and that’s helping some.”
    I remained unconvinced that he was telling the truth. “Really?”
    “Yeah. We should talk more. How about we talk about Clinton Travers while I’m trying to remember what I did with them girls? You could tell me all about him, and maybe while I’m listening and thinking back something’ll shake loose.”
    The room darkened, the air becoming thick and cloying, as Cody’s intentions became clearer. We had our shared past and the ties that bound us, and now he was pulling them anew. I wondered how far he’d go with this.  
    “There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “We can stick to the girls and nothing else. I’ll have the map with me tomorrow. Between then and now, you think hard. If I don’t get some clear answers from you soon, these conversations will be over for good.”
    I stood and made for the door. Behind me, I heard him give a satisfied little sigh. “Oh, come on, Agent Rourke,” he whispered just loud enough to hear. “Let’s talk about what happened to Travers.”
    I didn’t look back.

09.

    Hartford, CT. 1997.

    March, four months before Holly Tynon failed to come home, and I was in Hartford trying to find a rapist who’d committed a string of attacks with alarming frequency and regularity. The cops had decided they needed help, and they’d turned to the Bureau. Technically, it should have been the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s baby. But while they’d done a large chunk of the initial analysis work, they were too busy with other cases to provide operational support for the investigation and suspect interviews, so it had been passed to me.
    “I was jogging. Before breakfast. Just like I always do,” the woman said. Thin lipped, fighting to concentrate and stay focused. Her red eyes and creased brow above showed just how much emotional strain she was under talking to us. Her hands clasped around the coffee cup played and fiddled with each other incessantly.
    Naomi Carson, the detective with Hartford PD heading the investigation, gave her a warm, understanding smile and said, “You were near the river?”
    “I like to run there,” the woman, whose name was Mary, said. She was the rapist’s ninth, most recent victim. The only one he’d snatched in daylight so far. “I always go jogging there. Unless it’s raining. Or I’ve got to hurry to get to work.”
    “So you jogged from your home…”
    “I jogged from home and I’d almost got as far as the river. I was by that… that row of stores on Henry Street. That one that sells all the chocolates and things. And then I felt a… his hand… I…”
    “It’s okay, Mary,” Naomi said softly. “He grabbed you?”
    She sniffed. “From behind me. I didn’t hear him. He had his hand over my mouth… and he dragged me back… He had a knife. He held it by my neck. There’s an alleyway behind the stores. He dragged me back there…”
    “And that’s where he attacked you.”
    “He put something over my eyes. Like… like a bag or a blindfold. I thought he was going to kill me. I thought I was going to die. He kept saying I was a… a… bitch. All while he was… And then, then he left. When he’d finished.”
    Naomi nodded. “What happened when he left?”
    “He took the thing he