Marked (A Dark Serial Killer Romance)

People lie, but numbers never do.

My back muscles tighten as I scroll through the last bit of bank statements.

A whole hell of a lot of money fell into their accounts and then rolled right out. They were on the brink of complete financial ruin. The mortgage already had been borrowed against, four credit cards all maxed out, and in her name. Fuck, they didn’t even own the family car, and the payments were months behind.

And then. Snap. All fixed.

“Fuck.” I shove my laptop across the kitchen table, wishing the numbers would change.

A faint ding from my phone catches my attention, and I’m more than willing to be distracted.

Just at the grocery store. Forgot to pick up bananas.

A smile tugs hard on my lips as I read Harley’s text. Such a normal message. Going to the store. I lean back in the chair and cradle the device in my hands while typing out a response.

Great. See you soon. Be careful.

Artie’s phone vibrates on the table. It’s been quiet since last night.

When I turn it over and see the notification that a text from Laurens has come through, my blood heats.

Why did I just get a call telling me Harley Turner is still breathing?

The chair flies back when I shove out of it. I had my suspicion. After the phone call from the reporter, then pushing Harley to drop the whole thing.

Something wasn’t right.

Now she’s got Vince’s name too? Where are you?

I clench my teeth, grab my phone, and text Harley to come straight home after the store. We’re going to have to speed up our visit to Vince. I’m still waiting to hear from Jeff on where I can find him, but staying here at her apartment isn’t safe anymore.

Working on it.

I’m not sure my vague text will satisfy Laurens or not. If she’s smart, she’ll send reinforcements here to see if Harley’s still alive and kicking.

And I’ll fucking kill that fucker too.

Anyone so much as gives her a fucking shiver is going in the ground.

I can’t explain this protectiveness I have for her. But I would burn the fucking world to ashes to keep her safe.

And, if this list of assholes gets much longer, it might be the whole city of Chicago that needs to go up in flames.

Meet tonight. 8 at the usual spot.

Well, that’s not going to work.

I scroll through their past communications quickly, picking on any coding they may have used. None, because Artie was a fucking idiot.

Got it.

I text his usual response when she beckons him and drop the phone on the table. I need to get Jeff on the phone and get a bag packed for Harley.

She can’t tell her mom, either. And how am I going to tell her that?

How can I break her this way, telling her I’m not certain her mother can be trusted?

Maybe it has something to do with that new pension payment she’s getting? From what I could tell, Richard Turner didn’t have any pension with his company when he was let go.

So where did the money that dug her out of her hole ten years ago come from, and where is this money coming from now?

Be there two minutes. Something wrong?

I quickly text Harley back there’s nothing to worry about, and then sit back at the table. Closing out the bank statements for Nancy Turner, I dive into the financials for Vince Scaletto.

Jeff was spot on. This man makes no attempt to hide his tracks, which makes me wonder what he actually does hide. If everything is so open book, it could be a smoke screen for the worst of it.

A quick scan, and I find his local hangout. Cuffs, a bar on the northwest side of Chicago. A divey looking place from the web pictures, but I’m sure that’s a front. There’s probably a whole back room full of money opportunities.

He can keep those secrets.

The credit card statements tell me where he likes to hang, but not when. We won’t be able to have the sort of conversation we need to have at Cuffs.

“Hey. Everything all right?” Harley breezes into the apartment, several grocery bags in her hands.

“Yeah.” I get up immediately. “You should have said you needed help.” I frown at the bags.

“I’m not used to having someone here to help me. It’s not bad. The cans were a little heavy.” She opens the first bag and starts taking out the vegetables. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I grabbed some apples and strawberries, and there’re some chips in that bag over there.”

I stop her before she starts putting things away.

“Don’t bother unpacking them. We have to leave. I have somewhere else we can stay.”

Her brow furrows with confusion. “You said everything is fine.”

“It is for now, but Agent Laurens knows Artie failed last night.”

“Already?” She puts the cans of black beans back on the counter and presses her hip against it.

“Yes.”

“How?”

I bring her Artie’s phone and wait while she scrolls through the texts Laurens sent. Her jaw tenses as she reads and when she brings her eyes back to mine, there’s a mixture of anger and fear in them.

“You think Mom told her?” She hands me back the phone.

“She’s the only one who knew you had talked to Laurens and that you were starting to get your memory back,” I point out, hoping to ease her to the horrible conclusion.

“Well, maybe she wanted to check with her about the case. Maybe she wanted to see if she was going to be following up on the lead with the new name.” She makes excuses for her mother, and I can’t even blame her. If my mother was alive, if I had family that shared such horrors with me, I would want them protected.

But it’s all formed pretty neatly in my mind. Though eyes looking from the outside tend to see more clearly than those within the trauma.

“You think Mom had something to do with it?” She slams the phone onto the counter. “You think she did something to cause us to be kidnapped? My sister killed right in front of me?” Her voice rises with each question.

“I don’t know what her involvement is, but there are things that don’t make sense. After your father passed away, she was given a lot of money, Harley. Half a million dollars.”

“She said Dad had an insurance policy; it was probably that.” She’s grasping at straws.

“No. It wasn’t. Neither of them had life insurance policies. There’s no record of one. There are only random deposits that add up to half a million dollars. And it covered almost all of the medical bills, plus the credit card bills that were maxed from paying doctors after your dad lost his job.”

“I’m not listening to this.” She covers her ears and closes her eyes. “Mom was there. She was taken, too. And then she…she had to make the worst decision. They weren’t going to let us go. She had to make the decision, or they were just going to keep hurting us.”

I pull her hands away from her ears easily and wait until she settles her eyes on mine. Her face is flushed with anger, and her eyes wild with fear.

“Who is ‘they?’ Vince and Artie?” I ask.

“No. I mean, I remember them, but there was someone else. There was a third guy, and he was the one who did it.”

“Did what?” I’m pushing her now, but her frustration seems to be clearing up the cobwebs in her memory.

“He hurt us. Me and Quinn. And then he said time was up.” Tears fill her eyes, glistening before rolling down her cheeks. “He pulled out his gun. He always had it tucked into his waistband in the back, like he was some gangster on TV.”

I wipe away her tears. “Then what, baby? What happened then?”

“He put the gun to my head, then Quinn’s, told my mom she had to choose. If she wouldn’t, they’d just keep going on like they were. That they’d start using our…” she cuts off, a sob cracking through her. “They would start raping our assholes next.”

Artie died too easily. Dustin didn’t get enough payback before he went, too, but Vincent? Fuck, am I going to make that fucker pay.

“He said, they’d bring in more guys and sell us like whores. And she’d have to watch. She had to choose, they said.”

“Okay.” I try to pull her in for a hug. Her breathing is getting erratic, her heartbeat throbs in the vein on her neck.

“They made her.”

“Harley, take a breath.”

She shoves my arms away and takes three long strides away before turning back to me. New tears are filling her eyes.

“He said ‘Which is it?” She swallows. “And she looked at us both, whispered ‘I’m sorry…’” She slaps her hand over her mouth. “And she said my name. A second later, he shot Quinn in the head. Oh, god!” She doubles over, wrapping her arms around her waist, like the pain is too much.

“All right. Okay,” I reach for her, needing to pull her into me, to absorb her pain. I can take it in like a sponge, she doesn’t deserve it. She shouldn’t have this sort of darkness touching her soul.

“No, Zack,” she sobs, falling to her knees. In a heartbeat, I’m on the floor with her, pulling her into my embrace. She sucks in air, trying to fill her lungs.

“She wasn’t choosing me to survive. She chose me to die.”