“Fuck you, Coulter. You think your perfect family—oops, sorry, the perfect family you let get killed—is the only one affected by shitbags?”
Brad sneered. “Let me guess, you’ve got some sad story you want to tell me. Something you want to get off your chest. Some vast boo-hoo. Tell you what, Toscana, I’m not fuckin’ interested.”
In three strides, Toscana was in front of Brad. She jabbed the cattle prod into his chest. He screamed and struggled against his restraints. Brad’s entire body was on fire. He thought his head would explode.
Toscana stepped back, grinning.
Brad slumped in the chair and gasped for air. An involuntary shiver rolled through his body. He needed to come up with a better plan than pissing off Toscana. Maybe listening was the best idea.
“Tell me,” he gasped. “What happened in your life that was so horrible that you needed to take revenge? What did any of these guys do to you? You didn’t just kill them, you executed them, and then put some on display.”
Toscana ignored Coulter and headed to Michael. She pulled a syringe out of her pocket, injected the needle into Michael’s arm, and pushed the plunger.
Michael’s head wobbled back and forth; his eyes grew wide. Coulter watched Michael’s pupils constrict. His head bobbled a couple of times, then dropped to his chest.
“You’re killing him,” Brad said.
“That’s the point.” Toscana’s lips curled. “Michael first, then you.”
Brad strained against the restraints, wobbling the chair. He was no closer to escaping. Bargain. “Let Michael go. Keep me here.”
“Aw, isn’t that amusing. Coulter being the bigger man.” She touched her hand to her heart. ‘“Take me, but leave Michael alone.’” Her voice was mocking again. “Why would I want to do that? I have both of you. Neither of you are leaving alive. Your deaths, however, will be totally different. When you two are finally found, Michael will be dead from an overdose and you will have apparently committed suicide, not able to live with all the killings.”
“Why not put the energy into making the system better? You’re smart. You’re on the fast track as a cop.” Brad felt some give in one chair leg.
“I’ve done better in the last few weeks than you’ve done your entire career.”
“Mutilating and killing? You call that better?”
“Dealing out justice, the courts couldn’t. If there had been someone like me around twenty-two years ago, my skills wouldn’t be needed. My sister would still be alive.”
Brad rolled his eyes. Finally, Toscana was going to reveal her secret. He couldn’t hold back the sarcasm. “All right, I’ll bite. What happened to your sister?”
“Took you long enough to ask, asshat.” Toscana straightened and paced the room. She’d become a performer in her own play. “See, that’s your problem, you are so egotistical, you can’t comprehend that others have something to say, might have an opinion.”
“Just tell your story.” Brad glared. “Cut the drama.”
Toscana grabbed a chair, set it in front of Brad, and leaned close. “My sixteen-year-old sister was babysitting a couple blocks away. Never made it home. Mom and Dad didn’t know until the next morning, when she wasn’t at home and the bed hadn’t been slept in. The police were called, but it was the usual crap. She was a teenaged girl, maybe she was out with her boyfriend. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet. Didn’t investigate it at all. Two days later, her body was found behind a dumpster in a park. She’d been raped and then murdered.”
Toscana stood and twirled Brad’s tactical knife between her fingers. “I was eight, so I didn’t understand what was happening. All I knew was that my mom wouldn’t stop crying. And my dad was angry. I was scared, I didn’t understand what was happening, why my parents didn’t have time for me.” Toscana’s chin trembled.
She stared across the room for a moment, then bounded back in front of Brad, her voice rising with venom.
“Police didn’t have any suspects and stopped coming by.” Brad was losing feeling in his body. He wiggled his fingers and toes and flexed his muscles in a vain hope he’d beat the cold.
She dug the knife into the arm of the wooden chair, twisting it.
“It wasn’t until the third girl was kidnapped and raped a month later that they finally apprehended the murderer. He was the twenty-year-old son of a judge. A high-priced lawyer got him out on bail. It only took him two weeks to find his next victim. But as the girl was walking home from babysitting, the mother of the kids saw her being dragged into a car. She got the license number and reported it to the police. The police were close and surrounded the car. They negotiated with the guy inside. He threatened to kill the girl and himself. When the police felt negotiations weren’t going anywhere, an officer with a hunting rifle killed him. The girl survived.”
“That sounds like a perfect outcome,” Brad said. “He was stopped and couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. Saved the system a lot of money.”
She stabbed the knife blade into the chair arm. “It has nothing to do with saving the system money. He didn’t pay for his crimes.”
“What do you mean?” Brad asked. “He died for his crimes.”
Toscana shook her head. “No. He got off easy. He needed to suffer, like his victims suffered. The system had failed my sister and my family.”
“I hear ya. But nothing was going to bring your sister back. That’s the hard truth.”
“We suffered.” Toscana’s hands were clenched. “I suffered. My family was never the same.” She stomped a foot. “My mother cried herself to sleep for months. My father was an angry man till the day he died.” Toscana gripped the arms of Brad’s chair and glared into his eyes. “I was the forgotten child. My sister was beautiful and bubbly. Everything I wasn’t. I was shy, quiet, and a tomboy. I wasn’t the daughter they wanted, period.” She pushed away from the chair, strode over to a shelf of
