Final Kill (IKK Crime Series #3)

by S.T. Ashman

“I hope so. 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.”

Many people judged a parent’s abilities by their financial success or educational background. But from what I’d seen on the job, real love wasn’t reserved for parents with material wealth or a polished resume. It was also in the mom who played Uno with one hand while holding a cigarette in the other, or the mom who lost her temper during her kid’s tantrum in the parking lot but covered them with kisses and hugs before bed.

I was dancing with the devil now, fully caught in the tango. And the thing about dancing with the devil was that once you started, you didn’t get to decide when the music stopped.

But hope in itself wasn’t enough. Not without fuel. It had to be fed and sustained, like everything else in life.

“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.”