Final Kill (IKK Crime Series #3)

by S.T. Ashman

Because God be my witness, I won’t be some forgiving, sweet old lady if we find my little girl dead in some ditch.” Her voice quivered. Her eyes met mine again as tears streamed down her face. “I’ll carry hatred and rage in my heart until the very last breath I take. And I’ll pray to God, Satan, or anybody else who’ll listen to bring nothing but pain and misery to whoever did this to my daughter.”

“Fucking bitch,” I heard McCourt mutter as I left his office. But to me, it wasn’t an insult. Not the way he said it, laced with defeat and rage. He was like a child throwing a tantrum, with no other way to vent. In this context, it was almost a compliment. Maybe the only time in my life when being called a bitch felt like one.

That’s the nature of human potential. It’s capable of both brilliance and horror.”

we only get to see what happens if we don’t quit.

Doctrine of Double Effect,” I said. “Allowing harm as long as it’s an unintended consequence of achieving a good outcome, as long as the harm isn’t the goal and the good outweighs the bad.”

“And the doctrine is flawed because it lets people justify morally questionable actions just because they claim good intentions. The harm is the same, whether it’s deliberate or not. Richter and I live by a much simpler doctrine: the one where monsters are taken out, no innocents harmed. Smaller-scale justice. But even a bathtub fills if the drops keep coming.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I hope there’s nothing after this. No smiles. No tears. No love. No hate. No afterlife. No rebirth. Just … nothingness.” I felt a sharp ache in my chest as the weight of my lifelong loneliness pressed in from all sides. “I’m not sure I could bear to live another life as lonely as this one.”