Killing Me Softly Read Online Free

Bryan on the shoulder to get him moving, and in spite of his resistance to the notion, Bryan fell into step, the two of them following close behind the chief.
    â€œYou didn’t hear anything?” Chief Mac asked without looking back.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCareful, don’t touch a damn thing,” the chief went on as he stomped through the house and into thebedroom. Just inside the bedroom door he stopped, and his voice, when he spoke again, was lowered. Maybe out of respect for the dead. “In fact,” he added, “stay out of this room, Kendall. Di Marco, get in here. But be careful.”
    Nick went into the bedroom with the chief, while Bryan stood in the doorway, his eyes riveted to the blue-tinted skin of Bette’s face, those sightless red eyes, the grotesquely twisted mouth.
    The chief looked closely, not touching anything. “Strangled. Sure as shit. And she— Holy fuck.”
    â€œWhat?” Bryan asked from the doorway, even while the chief gripped Nick Di Marco’s wrist and nodded at the nightstand.
    Bryan followed their gazes and saw what was sitting there. A shot glass with a black scythe painted on it, a red rosebud above, severed from its stem by the blade and trailing tiny red droplets.
    It was a design the three men had seen before.
    â€œThat can’t be,” Di Marco whispered. “There’s no way.” And despite the whisper, his voice trembled. “Sniff the glass, Chief. Check—”
    â€œWhiskey,” the chief said after leaning over and in haling. He turned to Nick. “Check her mouth.”
    Nick nodded and leaned close to the dead woman, his face so near hers it might have seemed to an outsider that he was about to kiss her. Without touching the body at all, Nick sniffed, and then he jerked upright again. “Whiskey,” he said. “God, this can’t be happening.”
    â€œWhat?” Bryan asked. “What…what the hell is going on, Nick?” But he had a sinking feeling that he knew.
    â€œIs that your shot glass, Bryan?” Nick asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’s a trademark, Kendall,” the chief said. He came out of the room, flipping open his phone as he did and hitting buttons. “Calling card of the Nightcap Strangler.”
    Bryan blinked in shock, processing that, along with all that he knew about the old case—which was probably a lot more than either of these two men realized, considering that all the files and all the evidence was currently taking up space in a storage bin in his garage. The three of them walked out of the house and stood in the driveway again, and the chief ordered up a crime-scene investigation unit and an ambulance.
    When he hung up, Bryan faced him. “Chief, how can this be? The Nightcap Strangler was caught, what? Sixteen years ago? Nick, you caught him. You put him away. You solved it. It was the biggest case of your entire career. He’s in prison.”
    â€œNot anymore, kid,” Nick said softly.
    Bryan blinked, puzzled for one terrifying moment before he remembered that the convicted serial killer had died in prison three weeks ago.
    â€œHe bought it in a fight,” the chief said. “Didn’t you see it in the papers? So there’s no way this was him. Unless…” He looked at Nick, not finishing the thought.
    â€œNo way did I bust the wrong guy, Chief. No way in hell.”
    â€œYou’re confident about that?”
    Nick was offended by the question. He looked mad enough to punch something, Bryan thought. “He was guilty as hell. And you know that, Mac. You know it as well as I do!”
    The chief nodded, keeping his trademark calm. “I also know that we never released certain details to the public. No one knew what the design on the glasses was, Di Marco. Or the specifics about the kind of whiskey he used. No one but you and me. Unless you told your protégé here,” he added with a look at