Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
No, the fuck didn’t neutralize him there so it could all be over, and Madden didn’t have to live with it. He let him take her and followed Ezra to the cave.
“It was all he could do. The only play he had to make. He was so weak, the only shot he had was going after a child. And the only child who would get your undivided attention, and he thought, though I knew it wouldn’t be true, make you do what he wanted you to do, was that little girl.”
They should have called that.
Though, Rus wouldn’t have expected Ezra to have the balls to make that play.
Still.
“If you could take him down so easily, why didn’t you let her loose earlier?” he asked Richard.
“You needed to be on your way to rescue her, Zachariah. I couldn’t have that little girl wandering in the woods while he lay dead in a cave. She could get lost. You hadn’t found him in days. I don’t blame you. He was not a man I’d peg who could live in that squalor. But he’d grown complacent because you hadn’t found him. I was just outside, listening to the whole thing as he made his arrangements. I knew when you’d be on your way. When the time would be right. In the end, he only had her for four hours.”
“You could have let us know where she was. He was. You could have intervened.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
Not true.
He could.
But he wouldn’t.
Because it was all about the drama with this fucking guy.
“Are there things you did I don’t know about?” he asked.
“You mean, when I was cutting my teeth, as it were?”
Cutting his teeth.
Fucking hell.
“Yeah,” Rus forced out.
“Of course you know I had disciples, and although they didn’t seem to enjoy it, in order to reach for their salvation, the women were very accommodating. And to seek their own deliverance, the men had no hesitation offering their wives. Then again, women always find ways to endure, just as men always find ways to use them to get what they need.”
Oh fuck.
“My mother?” Rus clipped.
“No,” he murmured. “Your father had his limits. I knew that. I didn’t even ask. Many of the other men didn’t feel the same, though. We were a special group within the larger whole. A secret society.”
It was thin, but at least there was that.
“It did get to the point where the women were wondering why things were how they were between us,” Richard shared. “How they didn’t seem to be able to touch the light, and why their men allowed it to happen. It was a period I found very frustrating, because, obviously, back then, I couldn’t bring it to fruition. I couldn’t complete their redemption and send them home. Not really.”
“So you started doing that, the bringing it to fruition gig, when I got in the FBI, thinking I’d catch the case so I could clean up after you.”
A dead, flat, sinister light hit his eyes and he said low, “You weren’t cleaning up after me, Zachariah. They weren’t messes. They were saved. You were part of the process. You took care of them, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “I took care of them.”
It was eerie as fuck how that evil light flickered out like it hadn’t been there, before, straight back to his we’re-all-friends-here conversational style, he shared, “If the FBI hadn’t given me to you, I would have requested you. I think they would have obliged. Though I knew you’d advance very quickly, so my chances were good. You are, as we both know, you.”
Fuck him and his compliments.
“You’re sitting there, looking me in the eye, telling me you started killing women because of me. How am I supposed to live with that?”
“Zachariah.” It was a parental snap. No, it was a reverend scolding a wayward deacon. “You don’t have responsibility for me. Don’t you dare take responsibility for me.”
It wasn’t an admonishment to make Rus feel better.
It was an admonishment not to claim dominion over his actions.
Those were his.
And he was proud of them.
“You know you’re never going to get out,” he said.
The man smiled.
He actually smiled.
“I’m excited for things to come,” he shared. “So many minds to mold. A captive audience. It’s going to be very satisfying.”
Christ.
He’d let the criminal psychologists and profilers work at figuring him out.
He wanted to see Lucinda and Madden and figure out what was next for…no big deal, just the rest of his life.
Rus stood. “I think we’re done.”
“Wait,” Richard called as he started toward the door.
He looked down at a man who took very good care himself. Tall. Nice-looking. Strong build.
And criminally insane.
If he didn’t know him, he’d think he was maybe ten years older than Rus.
But Richard Sandusky was seventy years old.
His dad had been taken in by a guy that was three years younger than him.