Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I smile tightly and I leave the building. There’s nothing for me there anymore. He’s seen to that.
I know who did this. The man in the mask. The man I have let fuck me twice for god knows what fucking reason. I must be insane. That’s the problem. I didn’t even call the police when he came the first time. Or the second. I let him do this.
I won’t let him do anything else ever again.
My fury is so complete it feels as though it animates every cell in my body. How dare he do this? How dare he destroy something so precious to me? Something I worked so hard on? Something that has become the core of my sanity for the past few years? Tears are blurring my eyes, but I sniff them away, and then wipe them.
This is not fair. This is not okay. I feel betrayed, but I can’t really say why because there’s no sense to it. He didn’t owe me anything, but it feels like he did. Fuck. I am so mad at myself—but I am even madder at him.
As my brain starts to work following the tidal wave of emotion, I formulate a plan.
He’s not the only person given to creepy surveillance. Anybody walking around with a fucking mask and exposed tattoos is going to be remembered by people. It is especially going to be remembered by the security cameras networked around the city.
I have contacts. I don’t often reach out to them, but that does not mean they are not willing to help me.
“Commissioner Brown, how are you?”
“Calista! I have not heard from you in years, how are you?”
“I’m afraid someone committed arson in the old newspaper archive,” I say, getting to the point immediately. “I was wondering if I might be permitted to review some of the nearby footage to attempt to get some leads. I know it’s usually something the police would get a warrant for, but they’re so busy.”
“Of course, Calista,” he says. “Just let me know the time and the area, and I’ll have the footage sent to you this afternoon.”
It’s really that easy when you’re well connected. I do favors all the time. Well, my estate does.
I go back home, set up my laptop, and wait. I sit in my armchair and I just look at my email, tapping refresh every now and then while thinking about all I have lost.
The footage comes in an hour or so later. There are three cameras facing the office. Every single entrance and exit is covered by our own security, which seems to have stopped working at the time the arsonist entered. That tells me he has someone on the inside. But I am more in the social interior than he will ever be, which means I have traffic, bank, store cameras. If I really wanted to, I could access cellphone footage. That would be a bigger ask, but I would ask for the moon if I thought it would bring him to justice.
He took it upon himself to stop me, to interfere in my research and my life as if he had the right to either. I am furious in a way I have not been in a very long time. This work is not some little dalliance to entertain myself, the way the people at the paper think it is. I am not some eccentric heiress who needs to busy herself with senseless engagements.
This mattered to me.
I scan the faces of everybody who filters in and out of the building. It’s not going to be as easy as I thought. For starters, some people are wearing baseball caps, or other headwear that protects them from the gaze of cameras.
I order Chinese food, and I keep scanning. I know he’s right in front of me in some of this footage.
I email back and request a little more footage, from further down the street. Having identified a few possible subjects, I keep requesting, keep following until one of the men makes a mistake. He takes off his jacket and removes his hat. His hat doesn’t reveal anything, because I don’t know the face of the man who accosted me in the basement. But when he takes off his jacket, he’s in his shirt sleeves—and I know that tattoo. That tattoo was in front of my eyes as I was pinned down on the desk. Fangs. Fur. Geometric savagery.
“Got you,” I say, tapping in closer, enhancing. I go back. I see the frame where his face is revealed.
He’s chiseled. Hard jaw. Long nose. Wide eyes. Thick brow. Very, very heavy brow. There’s animal in that face. And those eyes, blue eyes and black hair. He’s magnetic.
And I know him.
“No. Fucking. Way.” I breathe the words in a long, slow exhale.
“You’re fucked,” I tell him. “I’m going to fucking ruin you.”