The Incel. Now I understood why he hated it. It wasn’t a nickname at all.
He took his shot, hair spilling back. “Now I can say whatever I want, and whether you like it or not, you’re still going to fuck me. Better if you don’t like it, actually. That’s more fun.” He looked up at the screen. “I used to watch this shit and fantasize about doing it myself.”
His gaze was caught by the film, the images throwing shadows over his face. “There was this girl who used to torment me. She was a first-rate bitch. I wanted to fuck her so bad, and then I wanted to fucking kill her. I used to imagine… Well. No more imagining.”
He jerked suddenly, rolling his shoulders like there was a tick sliding under his skin. “The pill’s hitting,” he said, rubbing his thumb along my lower lip. It took all of my power to hold still against the animal smell of his skin. “The old bastards are right about one thing.”
Over the Incel’s shoulder, a familiar face flashed at the edge of the dance floor.
“Everything gets better once women learn their place,” the Incel said.
The crowd shifted at the same time the strobe lights struck, jagged flashes revealing the man moving along the outskirts, his thick body straining a suit rather than a uniform.
It was Chief Adam Dorsey.
As I watched, another man waylaid him, clapping Dorsey on the shoulder and drawing him in to talk. Dorsey listened, then looked up at the snuff film and laughed.
The officer who’d handled Laurel’s rape case twelve years ago, the chief in charge of her suicide investigation, the man Jamie and I were gathering evidence for—he was a Pater.
His eyes searched the room. Any second now he would spot me, recognize me as the woman from the station, Laurel’s old roommate. My heart beat unnaturally fast. What would the Paters do?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nicole stiffen.
I seized her arm. “I have to go.”
“Like hell,” the Incel said, wrapping a hand around my wrist. “You’re not walking away from me.”
“You’re right, you should go,” Nicole said dazedly. She pushed between me and the Incel, drawn like a magnet toward whatever held her attention, snapping his hold on my wrist.
I didn’t pause to look; I turned and ran, shoving through the crowd of dancers. I could hear the Incel yelling, commanding me to stay. In the darkness, colliding with the whirling bodies, I couldn’t tell which way was out and spun in every direction, claustrophobia clutching at me. I was going to be trapped, and Dorsey would find me, or the Incel, and I’d never see outside again. I’d end up like the nameless woman whose death was unfolding in high definition across the wall.
The bass dropped and the blue strobe lights struck, thunder and lightning, like a miracle sent by Laurel herself, suddenly lighting the path to the door, igniting my outstretched hands and filling them with fire. I ran out while I still could, not a minute too late.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I paced Jamie’s living room. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”
He sat on the arm of his couch, watching. “The actual chief of police.”
I spun on my heels and started circling again. “I knew it wasn’t right, how dismissive he was of Laurel’s death. He’s covering for them.”
Jamie leaned forward and scrubbed his hands through his hair, leaving his fingers tangled. “It makes sense now. That’s why there were so few details in Laurel’s police report. Why they didn’t mention her arm was branded, why there weren’t any pictures.”
I froze midstride. “Clem’s record was slim, too.”
“When you were in college, Adam Dorsey was just a detective, and Reginald Carruthers was only the provost,” Jamie said. “Now look at them. They’ve climbed so high.”