He nodded, a look of relief in his smile. “I get to choose what we cook!”
He ran to the kitchen, and my chest tightened. How could I ever give him up? Best to continue working on my resignation letter.
***
When we were in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Barney’s visit bothered me. I kept hearing his words echoing in my head. Beside me, Cosmo was sleeping, his naked ass nestled into my crotch. I ran a hand down the gentle curve of his hip, feeling his bones through his skin. So tiny. A fierce need to cover his body with mine and protect him surged inside me.
I would always protect him. I didn’t know any other way.
I stirred and turned. “Daddy? Is something wrong?”
He sat up, but I pushed him gently back down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “No, don’t get up. Just getting some water. I’ll be back soon.”
“Okay. Don’t be too long. I miss you when you’re not next to me.”
I chuckled and dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder, then slipped out of bed. When I got to the door, he was snoring. So much for him missing me when I’m not next to him. I pulled the door closed behind me and went downstairs for a glass of water, but that didn’t work. I picked up the stack of letters Barney had brought by earlier.
Just as I’d suspected, they were postcards. The first was from a woman whose case I’d worked on when her fiancé was murdered. She’d been pregnant at the time. Her envelope comprised a picture of her and her daughter and the news she was getting married. I’d only meant to read a couple of the letters, but the mail was such a pick-me-up after the confrontation with Barney that I ended up going through them all.
The last envelope was heavier than the rest and a little bulkier. I opened it, but instead of a letter I’d expected, I found a thumb drive but no name or anything that indicated the sender. How strange. Who would have sent this to me?
I got my laptop from my office, set it on the coffee table in the living room, and powered it on. Not taking any risk, I scanned the drive first for any viruses, and when the report came back negative, I clicked Open. Only one file appeared. A video. I turned down the volume and pressed Play.
At first, I could only see a room. A room I had seen before. The forbidden room where Cosmo hadn’t been allowed. Virgil Manning appeared on-screen and took a seat in his den.
Watching the man live on the screen was strange after I’d seen him with parts of his head blown away. He stared straight into the camera.
“Today is April fourth, and I, Virgil Manning, am of sound mind and body at the time of creating this recording.” He shifted in his seat. “Although if you’re watching this, Detective Neely, then you would probably already be questioning my sanity.”
I sucked in a deep breath. My name on the man’s lips hadn’t been a mistake. He’d created and sent me this tape a week before his death, given the date he’d announced. Was this his confession of all the heinous crimes he’d committed before he blew his brains out?
“I’ve done many wrongs in my life, of which I do not seek repentance nor do I require forgiveness. Not for the many lives I willfully took for money. I can’t even pretend this was always about the money. Plain and simple, I enjoyed playing god, or maybe it’s the devil. But I do have one regret. Eighteen years ago, when I was still new to my chosen profession, someone approached me who wanted me to get rid of a problem for him. He was a married man with a promising future but two enormous problems. He’d knocked up some woman, and although she initially agreed to stay out of his life, she reneged on her promise. She wanted him to acknowledge the child. Now this man was already married and tired of her demands, so he hired me to kill her and the child.”
My heart pounded in my chest.
“But for all my faults, I’d never killed a child before. That child was to be my first, and I couldn’t do it. Instead of killing him, I took him home to my wife to raise him as our own. I told the man we buried the child’s body where no one would ever find him. We named him Cosmo because he became our universe.”
The man chuckled. “Little did I know how fitting that name would be. Detective Neely, that boy is special, and before you know it, he’s become your universe, and you’ll do anything for him.”
What the hell was he getting at? Unease settled in my stomach.
“At twelve years old, he didn’t just want to dress as a doll anymore, but he wanted to learn how to shoot. At first I denied him. I never planned to teach him my ways, but if you’ve met Cosmo, chances are you’ll have realized he’ll get you to do things for him without much effort.
“He had an aptitude for using a gun. He was smart as a whip, which was surprising, considering he preferred acting like a baby for the most part. For three years, I taught him how to shoot, and when he was fifteen, he asked to go with me. I didn’t plan to take him, but he hid in my truck, and when I noticed him, it was too late for me to turn around. That day, he pleaded with me to be the one to take the shot. I placed the gun in his hand, and he did me proud. One bullet to the brain, just like I taught him. He was impressive.”
Lies. He had to be lying. Cosmo had told me he hadn’t shot anyone until last year.
“If you’re getting this video, it’s because I’m dead, most likely killed by Cosmo, or I’ve put a bullet in my own head before he can get to me. You see, for a while, he became more than just a son to me. I fought my lust because I loved my wife, but she became irrational and jealous. When I wasn’t home, she would take out her jealousy on him—not feed him, lock him up, and treat him like an animal. That’s when Cosmo planted the idea in my head that I had to kill her. He told me if I loved him, I would kill my wife, and so I did it. For him. He even told me how he wanted me to do it—with a plastic bag over her head, so he could watch her struggle and take her last breath. I held a plastic bag over her head and killed the woman I loved while he watched from the doorway.” As if fighting back tears, he breathed deeply. “I remember looking down at her lifeless body when I was done, and I cried. I loved her, but I loved him more.”
Virgil got up from the chair and walked out of view. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to breathe past the tightness of my chest. None of this could be true. It couldn’t be.
He returned to the chair with a bottle of water. “For a few years, it was just the two of us. Sometimes I took him with me, and he’d take the killing shot, and sometimes I did. Two years ago, he convinced me to quit, and he took over the contract killing. I was still the face behind the operation, so I conducted the business side of things to keep everyone from knowing who he was, but he carried out each kill. He was good at it. Too good at it. He makes you care so deeply about his little side that he sucks you into his world without you realizing until it is too late.
“I realized too late that Cosmo had to be stopped. If you’re watching this tape, it means the attempt I made to kill him failed, and if it failed, there will be a chain of events set in motion. Cosmo has to be stopped at all costs. I told him that his latest ploy was foolish and would get us caught. I told him we’d done well for ourselves over the years and it was time to retire, but he wouldn’t. Not until he assassinated Governor Roffe.”
Now I knew this was all bullshit. Why on earth would Cosmo be interested in killing Governor Roffe?
“Governor Roffe is his father, the man who hired me to kill Cosmo’s mother and Cosmo when he was just two.”