Chapter 5 - Cole

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I have a self-satisfied, confident smirk on my face as I keypad into the precinct the next day. I found a kill-site that might have ended up locked away in that mausoleum. I found those women and saved their lives and today I would interview them myself. I was the one that started the evidence trail and we have never ever been close to finding the Heartbreaker. 

When Eliza had told me the name the media had given the killer, leaning on the origami heart signatures, I had scoffed. It’s absurd, whimsical and far from the sadistic, cruel and twisted killer that tortured a man to death. But, waking up this morning… I kind of like it. Maybe Love Heart Killer would have been too on the nose. 

Striding down the corridor and into the precinct, I absently nod to a new officer that I can’t remember the name of.

“Who’d you piss off, sir?” he asks with a chuckle. 

I’m too lost in my thoughts about better names for the serial killer that I’ve reached the door at the end of the corridor before I realise he asked me a question. But by the time I turn around, he’s gone. 

Frowning, I continue through the station to the bullpen. All is almost normal. But there’s a crowd around my desk, almost every man and woman in the precinct, and my heart sinks. Did I miss something at my desk? I left in a hurry to make dinner for Eliza- I didn’t leave evidence out did I? I hurry over and the crowd awkwardly disperses, leaving a very cocky looking Jahlani standing there looking at me with his arms folded in front of my desk. 

“It wasn’t me. But it’s fucking brilliant,” he says with a smirk. “I don’t know who you pissed off, man, but…” 

He moves aside and I finally see the joke. My desk has been covered… every single millimeter… in stickers. The desk, the files, the pen pots, my fucking laptop right down to every sticker covered pencil in the sticker covered pencil pot. 

Not even good stickers, either. They’re lips and love hearts, flowers and cacti, dogs and cats dressed as teddy bear, Hello Kitty and corgi butts. 

“What in the name of living hell?” I whisper to myself as my wide eyes take in the carnage. I lift my laptop lid, finding that even the individual keys have been covered in stickers. I look up at Jahlani who rolls his lips between his teeth to keep from laughing. “Who did this?” I ask him. I brandish a sticker-covered box of staples. It falls open, spilling dozens of rows of sticker covered staples inside. 

Jahlani snorts a laugh as they sprinkle about like corgi snow. “I have no idea, man. It’s just a prank.” 

I open a box of sticker covered paperclips. “Time consuming prank, mate…” 

Jahlani nods. “Yeah… well, you’d better get unsticking. We’ve got our interview with Jessica Rand in half an hour” 

I sigh and start to unstick my laptop one by one, scraping a nail to the corners to get purchase as I peel off a kitten dressed as a teddy bear from the spacebar. “When I found out who did this, I’m going to get them for wasting police time,” I grumble to myself as Jahlani pats me on the back and walks away. “Damn corgi butts.” 

“Corgi butts are quite adorable sometimes,” says a dry voice behind me as he sits on Jahlani’s chair, which instantly groans about his potbelly. “Redecorating, Maddox?” 

“No, sir,” I murmur, picking off a cactus with a speech bubble saying ‘feeling prickly’. “It’s nothing.” 

“Still do your job?” 

I grab a pen - covered in clouds with grumpy faces- and my pad - covered in t-rexes wearing bows. “Absolutely, sir.” I swivel round to face him and try to look professional. 

The captain looks amused and picks up a very important file now covered in lipstick prints, giving it a bemused look and helping peel off the stickers. “Relax Maddox, I wanted to talk to you about my niece.” 

An image of the blonde with the floaty summer dress and the pouty lips flickers into my head like caught by the swing of an interrogation room lamp. I feel a zing of… something… in my body at the thought of talking about her again. “Daisy?” 

The captain raises an eyebrow at my instant soft murmur of the name. “Yes, Maddox. Daisy.” 

I cough and turn to the stapler, picking love hearts from it one by one, trying to distract us both from my blatant interest in a woman which is not my girlfriend. “What about her?” 

“I gave her your number.” 

I look up at him in surprise. “You did? Why?” 

He sighs and puts the pile of stickers in the bin. I can’t tell if I’m excited or stunned that she’s got my number… that she asked for my number. But I’m waiting far too eagerly for his response. He looks up at me, measuring for a moment. 

“She’s a good girl, Maddox. She needs a good friend. I told her you’re with Eliza and she completely understands. But she’s new to the city and could do with someone to show her round that’s not thirty years her senior.” 

“You want me to take out your niece?” 

He nods. “If she calls. Which she won’t.” He stands up with a groan and a slight pop of joints. I take a moment to process his words.

“She… won’t?” I ask, peering up at him. 

“I don’t think so. Come on, I’ll walk you to your interview. The victim and her family should be settled and calm in the family room now.” 

I rise, gather my stickered files and fall into step with him. I feel weird about asking him again about his niece, but I really want to know why she won’t call me. Thankfully, he answers me anyway.

“She’s a shy little thing…” 

I nearly burst out laughing. Thankfully I smile up at him first to share in the joke but… he’s not smiling. I hide my spilling chuckle with a fake sounding cough.

“She pretends really well, Cole, but she went through a lot when she was a child. She hides behind confidence.” 

It’s difficult to marry that image of Daisy with the woman who pressed her chest against me when we walked this very corridor. But maybe there’s something to be said for hiding behind a screen of confidence so thick even she thinks it’s a mirror. 

The idea of Daisy going through something as a child makes me feel a surge of protectiveness for the innocent, sparkly woman. I open my mouth to ask what it was she went through. 

But we had come to the family room where the first survivor waited inside. 

“Good work with that weird little scavenger hunt, by the way. Any advance on the number that messaged you?” 

I shake my head, jumping into the cold water of the case once again. “No, cap. Just that the messages were sent from within a two-mile radius of the churchyard so they were likely watching. I believe it’s the killer who couldn’t free the women themselves. It took both Jahlani and me to move the sarcophagus together, so…” 

“... so that means that we can rule out bodybuilders and that’s pretty much it,” the captain finishes for me. 

I nod. “Pretty much.” 

The captain looks at the door to the family room as though seeing through it to the woman on the other side. “To these women, you’re their hero, you know that.” 

For some reason, my heart sinks at his words. I heard that word a million times after I returned to civvy life. A million times. And not once did I feel like I’d earned it. 

Now I know I’ve earned it. I know I have. But it doesn’t make it any easier to believe it. 

“You know what I’m saying, don’t you, Cole?” 

I nod, my eyes refocussing on the gentle crinkly eyes on the Captain. 

“I’m saying don’t be a dick in there, OK?” 

I laugh a chuckle, but again, he’s not joking, and I wipe my face clean as I nod somberly. “Yes, sir. Won’t be a dick.” 

He claps me on the shoulder, making me stumble forwards like always. “Good man, Maddox. And remember, if Daisy does call…” He gives me a look that would be threatening if he didn’t look like a jolly gift bringer. “I love that girl better than her own father did. Do you understand me?” 

I look at him genuinely. “I understand, sir.” 

With another total personality flip, he chuckles and strides away, calling, “let’s find that Heartbreaker now, shall we?”

“Yes, sir. Absolutely.” I say to the closing door. But… the Heartbreaker found these women, then made sure we found them ourselves. He made sure they were safe. And it was a risky thing to do for him. I shake my head, willing the stupid thoughts out of my ears. He should have called the police with his evidence. 

I look up at the closed door of the family room with a sigh. The woman on the other side had been hurt immeasurably in every way that you could imagine. She thought I was her hero. If only she’d known… 

I knock and push open the door, peaking around it cautiously. There she is. All of twenty-three but looks too underfed to be any older than fifteen. Her hair, although now freshly washed, hangs limply around her face like it’s lost the will to live. Her eyes are sunken in her face, a haunted grey. Next to her is a woman who looks exactly like Jessica should. Early twenties, blonde cared for hair, shining eyes creased in concern.

“Ms. Rand? My name is…”

“Detective Maddox.” Her voice crumbles, like it’s unused to anything but screaming. “I remember.”

The woman by her side strokes her arm. “I’m her sister, Lucy,” she says in a voice that apologises unnecessarily. 

“It’s nice to meet you both, although I wish it were better circumstances. Do you mind if I sit?” I ask, pointing to the armchair. 

Jessica nods cautiously and I move slowly so as not to scare her. 

“Thank you for coming to meet with me,” I say, channeling business. “I know that this is likely to be difficult for you. And if you want to stop or pause, or if you’d feel more comfortable with a woman interviewing you, I will make it happen, OK?” 

She nods. 

“Thank you. I’d like it if you could tell me about how you ended up where I found you, Jessica.” 

Jessica sighs, and with a look at her sister for strength, she tells me the story of how she had come to the tomb under the graveyard. How she’d trusted the priest when she moved to the city, that he’d taken her after inviting her to the church early to help arrange the flowers and forced her into a dog cage for months. 

I take down dates, interject questions whenever I need clarification, and let her talk. 

She tells me what he did to her. She tells me the pains he dealt her. And she tells me the love she has for the three other women under the ground with her. 

“And… what do you remember of the night before you were rescued? Was there-” 

“I’m not telling you any of that shit,” she cuts me off sharply with a confidence of a woman who’d rather die than share. 

I look at her in stunned silence for a moment, unable to comprehend what’s happening right now. “I’m sorry…” 

“No comment,” she says, folding her arms decisively. 

Lucy just sighs. “Look, detective…” 

“No! Lucy, you promised.” Jessica looks horrified. 

“I’m not going to… I just…” The twin looks at me kindly, with none of the distrustful stubbornness of her sister. “You have to understand, they were rescued before you came into that tomb, Detective. They knew they were saved the night he died. They owe the Heartbreaker their lives.” 

I have to check that my jaw hasn’t fallen open in shock. I’m not a hero to these women. Far from it: I’m the tool of the real hero. It’s the killer that’s their saviour. 

Jessica builds on the words of her sister as my gut wrenches. “None of us are going to say anything about that night, Detective. I’ll tell you anything you want about the perverted priest but.. As far as we’re concerned, the Heartbreaker came to protect us and did everything she could to save our lives. It’s our turn now. It’s our turn to save them right back.” 

She sets her jaw and I know this interview is over. It takes everything in my gut to get up and move away. Military interrogation just won’t float here, no matter how frustrating it is that this is all I’m going to get from any of the witnesses. 

I don’t react to her words. I just nod, get up and thank her for her time, leaving the family room, my mind a tornado around one word. 

A word I’m certain she didn’t realise she said. 

As I walk away towards the bullpen once again, I mouth the word that’s going to haunt me. The word that changes everything: 

“She.”