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I would have told him no. I didn’t want Eli thinking he had an ounce of control. But Lock stormed in. He sat in the chair beside me, hate written all over his face. He clenched his teeth hard enough for me to hear it.

“She told you how she met Lock, was that it?”

Lock turned to me. But I only had eyes for Eli. I can’t deny I felt a rush. The same one that happened whenever I knew I was about to break a witness on cross-examination.

“Is that how you met Corrine?” I asked.

Eli laughed. “Corrine was mine. She got to you though, didn’t she? She was exactly what you thought you wanted after Fiona.”

“You killed Fiona because of me,” Lock said. “Not because you wanted her for yourself. Because you’d gotten what you wanted out of her.”

“She told you Lock’s alias,” I said. “His avatar on WhisprMatch. So you could dangle Corrine in front of him as bait next.”

“You put Corrine up to connecting with me,” Lock said, his voice gone flat.

Eli tapped his temple as he sneered. He was enjoying this too much. I should have sent Lock out of the room. But I knew if I did, Eli would stop talking. He didn’t care that he was incriminating himself. He’d signed his Miranda waiver. He only wanted to hurt Lock.

“You hurt her, didn’t you?” I asked. “You brutalized her so she was afraid of you. Then you threw her at Lock like a grenade with the pin pulled out. She told me you wanted to hurt Lock. You were going to blackmail him. You knew his kinks. You took pictures. Videos of them together. But when the time came, Corrine couldn’t go through with the blackmail, could she? Because she fell in love with Lock. Because she figured out he was better than you.”

What had Corrine Egan suffered at the hands of this monster? She was lost. Broken. I hated her for what she tried to do to us. What she did to Lock. But part of me finally understood who she was. I was wrong when I said Corrine was Palicki’s last victim. She was Eli’s.

“She only saw your mask,” Eli said. “I thought she was smarter than that. She thought you loved her. You did a real number on her, Lock. I saw through it. She didn’t.”

“She fell in love,” I said. “Or at least obsession.”

Lock dropped his head. “You put her up to blackmail me? That was your plan? Your idea?”

Eli’s satisfied smile gave the answer.

“You broke her heart,” Eli said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m proud of her though. Sounds like she almost got what she wanted.”

“She told me she came to the police because of the TRACE press conference. Because she knew I’d be there. Did you know she was going to do that? Did you put her up to all the little gifts she left to torment me?”

Eli let out a genuine laugh. “That’s my girl. You still haven’t fixed the lock on the window in your study, huh, Lock? Can’t believe she remembered that. I only told her about that once. You two pulled the pin out of that grenade all by yourselves. Turns out she ended up being loyal to me, not you. She kept her mouth shut about us. Whatever else she did, she did on her own. But she was crazy enough to think you were gonna love her back. Poor kid. Her blood is on your hands too.”

“What about Fiona?” I said. “Why kill her? Following Lock wasn’t a crime. You’d done nothing illegal to that point.” Would he do it? Would he actually admit to killing her?

“Because I liked it,” Eli said, his voice barely above a whisper. “The sound of her neck when I snapped it. The way her body twitched. It was better than sex.”

His words made me feel sick. Fiona McBride was only the first. His escalation. Once he’d taken a life, he became addicted to it.

“It was never quite as good after that one,” Eli half whispered, confirming my suspicions. “But you get to own it. If you hadn’t screwed Fiona, she never would have been on my radar. You put her in front of me, Lock. If she’d never met you, just think where she could be today. Instead, she got to rot in Palicki’s basement. That’s on you. I want you to live with the guilt of that for the rest of your life. Let it haunt you. Fiona, Lara, Jade, Michelle, Elise, Gretchen, Victoria, Jennifer. That one from the grocery store. I never did catch her name. But oh, her screams were the best. Now give me that pad of paper. Wait until they dig them all up. If it weren’t for you, they might all be alive. Just like Bennett. I want you to know all the people whose deaths you’re responsible for.”

It was Lock’s turn to lunge. I tried to pull him back, but he had a hold of Eli. Eli’s face turned purple as Lock tried to choke him. He just kept on smiling through it all.

It was pandemonium after that. The deputies got a hold of Lock. Roy, Mark, and Renee barged in. When Lock’s grip broke, he crumpled against me. Eli gasped, then his hollow laughter echoed as they dragged him out of the room.

FORTY-SEVEN

When I woke from my dream the next morning, Lock was gone. The bed was still warm where he had lain. I found him staring out the window in his study. On the floor beside him, the group photo of him with Eli, Piper, and Fiona McBride was torn to shreds.

“Come back to bed,” I said. “There’s no point in torturing yourself anymore.”

Lock turned to me. “He knew exactly what button to push. He knew if he told me Fiona was his first, I’d do exactly what he said I would. If I’d never tried that stupid app. If I’d never taken her out on a date, she would still be alive. And Corrine…”

“Stop,” I said. “Eli is a psychopath. He used you as an excuse. That’s all. Men like him are born to kill. If it hadn’t been Fiona, it would have been someone else. Piper told the police he was always obsessed with you. She said it broke something in him when he had to go to you for help when his business failed six years ago. She thinks that was his tipping point.”

“I should have seen some signs. How could I not know? I’ve known him almost twenty years.”