One Step Ahead, Audrey Walker [best book club books of all time TXT] 📗

could you? I should have seen this coming. I should have never put you on this case. I failed you, Robin, and I am sorry.”

“You have to believe me, Captain! I am innocent! I didn’t do this!” Robin shouted, but the Captain just looked away.

Kyle slapped the handcuffs around her wrists, and Robin felt herself become numb. As she was thrown into the back of the van, all she could think of was the fact that she was innocent. Robin couldn’t be the killer. And yet, as she thought back to her nightmares, she remembered looking into the darkness and seeing the mirror. Robin remembered looking at herself. She remembered seeing herself as the monster.

Chapter Sixteen

“I was suspicious of you from the start,” James said. “The notes, the killings, the locations, it was all so personalized. It was as if someone knew everything about you, your past, your emotions. It was almost as if it was you. You fit perfectly into my criminal profile. Your parents died when you were a child, and you lived a traumatic childhood, shifting from foster home to foster home. You lived only to protect your sister from abuse you received at the hands of your foster parents. I had your file drawn up from social services. You had a difficult life, and eventually, you managed to pull through and became a detective. And you did well. No signs of the childhood you had lived through. And then, the Butcher happened.”

“It was the final push—the thing you needed to push you off the edge. You were a genius. One of the best detectives, as the Captain said. You were the only one actually to get close to capturing the Butcher. You were highly intelligent. I read all your files. Some of the cases you solved, well, even I was impressed.”

James paced around the interrogation room as Robin continued to gaze into the distance. She knew across the one-way screen stood Kyle and the Captain. Maybe even the rest of the task force. They were all looking at her, observing her, probably wondering how to control the media backlash. The mayor will be informed and every higher up in the police force.

“It soon became obvious to me that you were not intentionally committing these murders,” James said softly. “I suspected some dissociative personality disorder, or possibly a split personality. A part of you was committing all those murders, but you were not aware of it. You had flashes of memories, and then you would faint. A constant headache that you complained about. The murders stressed out the part of you that was Robin, and the other part of you was doing these murders.”

“I don’t think any of us realized how horribly you had been affected by the trauma,” He said. “The Butcher had messed you up so much that it caused you to finally become insane. You were killing your own self, picking out all those women that resembled you. You knew there was a monster inside you, a type of darkness. But you couldn’t kill yourself, so you killed the women that looked like you.”

“You are wrong,” Robin said. “I am innocent! I didn’t do anything. Go to my apartment. You will find the notes with the hidden message. You will see that the killer wanted me there. Wanted to frame me!”

“We caught you red-handed,” he said. “Disposing of the body. She had just been freshly killed. The coroner estimates it was no longer than an hour before she was found.”

“I couldn’t have killed the Butcher!” Robin shouted. “What about that! What about that hand? How do you explain that?”

“You killed the Butcher,” James said. “I went through all your files. I saw that you hadn’t given up searching for him. All these ten years, you had been slowly looking. Any sign of him anywhere, and you investigated it. You had been looking for him, and I guess you finally found him, didn’t you? I sent a team to the last known location of the Butcher. The location I found in your files. And guess what I found there? A rotting corpse of the very man.”

“It’s not me!” Robin shouted. “It’s not me! I didn’t do it! I didn’t –”

“No, it wasn’t you,” James said. “At least not the Robin part of you. But it was you, in the end. I am sorry I played you. I had to do it to get close to you. To get you to trust me. But in the end, I was here to catch the murderer. And now, I have.”

“You don’t know what you have done!” Robin shouted. “Kyle! Listen to me! You know I wouldn’t do this! You know it!”

“Think about it,” James whispered. “Close your eyes and remember. Tell me you are a hundred percent sure it wasn’t you.”

Robin thought back to her nightmares and the basement corner. She opened her mouth to reply, but she couldn’t say anything. Words died in her throat, and James sighed.

“Even you don’t believe yourself, Robin,” he said. “I am sorry I didn’t stop you sooner. I just recently finished collecting all the evidence. And tonight, when the detectives I put on you told me you were gone from your apartment, I had you followed. I should have been faster. I should have solved this earlier. I could have protected you. I could have saved you before you got so much blood on your hands.”

Chapter Seventeen

Robin looked into the darkness, her body trembling and shivering.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

In reply, a hand extended toward her—a small, pale hand, waiting for her to take it.

“Why?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”

“I want to help you,” the voice whispered back. It was a gentle, small voice, like that of a child.

“Then why don’t you come out of there?” Robin asked softly. “Come out, and let me see you.”

“No,” the voice said abruptly.

“Why not?” Robin asked.

“Because if you see me, you will be scared,” the voice said back.

“I won’t