"You threw acid on Bernice and disfigured her. I haven't even settled that score with you yet."
"Bernice is carrying my child now. You keep pulling this from beyond the grave, and I will dig you up and desecrate every bone you have left."
I drifted in front of him.
Those eyes that once brimmed with love now held nothing but blinding resentment.
Curt, do you really believe I'd haunt you even in death?
Ten o'clock. Another scream.
Blood spattered across the camera lens, and Curt jerked back hard.
The kidnapper wiped the lens with a blood-soaked glove,
leaned in close, and laughed.
"I'm not here to watch you put on a show."
"Professor Baxter, if you won't talk about yourself, let's talk about Bernice Barnes."
"How did she convince you to forge that autopsy report? With her body?"
The words landed, and Curt's breathing went heavy.
Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes turned razor-sharp.
"How do you know about that?"
A crack in the mask, just for an instant.
He caught himself almost immediately, smoothed his expression back to calm, and signaled Captain Carter to pause.
He walked straight out of the interrogation room and knocked on the Forensics Unit's door.
"I can stall him another hour at most. The kidnapper's patience is running out."
"Bernice is still in his hands. You need to trace that IP—now. As fast as you've ever done anything."
He paused, hiding the tremor in his hands that the urgency had drawn out.
"One more thing. The kidnapper's wearing a designer shirt. Track it down. There can't be more than a handful sold in this city."
I trailed behind him as he walked out of the office.
He stopped in the corridor and burned through three cigarettes, one after another.
Then he opened his phone, scrolled deep into a hidden folder in his gallery, and found my picture. He stared at it for a long time.
"Millie Sullivan, why won't you let me go?"
"Bernice just slipped up. You're dead already—why can't you just forgive her?"
"You always were petty..."
His head tipped back.
His body slid down the wall until he crumpled to the floor, all the strength drained out of him.
There was a folder in his gallery named after me.
Tens of thousands of photos, every one taken by his own hand.
The one glowing on the screen: me holding up my wedding ring, laughing.
Ten years, and he'd opened that folder more times than he could count.