The Broken Protector Read Online Nicole Snow

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Culver even flipped and spilled his guts in interrogation—feeding the girls to the pigs, helping Ulysses with his sick games, engraving that bracelet that was passed from one victim to the next, carving open Roger Strunk’s body after Ulysses killed him with a drug overdose they snuck him at a bar—and then pinning it all on Ulysses.

Culver swears he’ll cough up descriptions of more girls in exchange for a lighter sentence.

What the fuck ever.

Even though we might never recover Celeste’s body, I’ll have a headstone put up for her in the town cemetery. I think she’d like that.

Recognition that she lived and died in Redhaven. A marker that there are people who still remember her. Still love her, and always will.

After all this time, she deserves a proper burial, even if it can’t include her remains.

Maybe I deserve a day off, too, but I’ve still got a mountain of evidence to scrape through so when the state goes in to prosecute, they’ll have an ironclad case for seeking maximum sentences.

Murder and attempted murder for sure.

Then there’s the matter of the cocaine brick we found when we tore apart Culver’s little workshop, but he got real silent about that. Especially when we asked where Ulysses got the cocaine he loaded into Emma to hide the traces of what really killed her from toxicology.

Old Ephraim Jacobin just shook his head and muttered something about corrupting city influences.

I don’t believe that, either.

I don’t let things go easy. Not when they matter.

I’ve been patient this long. I can wait. Whatever’s still waiting out there with Montero and the rest?

We’ll find it.

Of course, Ulysses denied everything. It’s his word against Culver’s in court, but we’ve got our evidence.

The photographs we recovered from Ulysses’ room. A few pieces of jewelry that can be tied to Emma and the other missing women. Tons of testimony from Delilah.

It’ll go through and he’s cooked.

It has to go through.

Once Ulysses Arrendell falls, then I’ll knock that entire fucked up family off their pedestals one by one.

Yes, it’ll take time.

Every journey starts with a single step, and if the man who killed my sister is bound for jail, that’s a damned good first step.

Someone nurtured Ulysses into what he is.

Someone enabled him.

I’d almost pity him, if he was already 'initiated' into murder at age twelve. He never stood a chance at being normal.

Then again, pity’s for people who don’t have a body count.

For Ulysses, there’s only hard contempt and horror.

Plus the grim satisfaction that he’s going to rot behind bars.

Emma Santos keeps helping us from beyond the grave, too. The new evidence got the county coroner to re-open her case and do a deeper toxicology run.

This time, they found the same stuff in her veins that was in Delilah’s, once her tox screenings came back the other night.

A nasty little benzo that’s normally used as an antidepressant. One hefty dose in the neck knocks a person out.

The cocaine was added to Emma’s bloodstream immediately after death to cover Ulysses’ tracks, when that second look at toxicology showed the real cause of death was a benzo overdose.

Ulysses has a pattern. The coke perfectly concealed the other crap in Emma’s posthumous blood tests. Further forensic investigation into the substance found at the still confirmed human DNA was also in the bone chips recovered from the digested material.

Now we’ve got the county DA authorizing us to reach out of our jurisdiction and subpoena footage from venues where Ulysses and Emma were seen together in Los Angeles.

Yep.

That fucker is going down.

I’ll finally get some peace.

And if I’m lucky, a nice long stretch of quiet with the amazing woman who helped me find it.

I stretch my arms out, leaning back in the desk chair, glancing around the back office of the station.

I’m the only cop on duty right now, except for Mallory on dispatch. She’s on her phone passing time, whipping through another dirty little interactive story.

I smile and glance at my folders and case reports.

That shit can wait for tomorrow.

I’m still recovering from a traumatic brain injury after all, even if I only stayed in bed for one day.

What really kept me there was Delilah.

I hope she’s still there when I get home.

She’s been staying with me, ordered on bed rest and to watch for negative side effects of the drug. She’s been recovering fine so far, this restless bundle of energy, pouting at me every morning about missing her class.

I bet the kids miss her, too.

I’ve just about made up my mind to call it a day when the desk phone rings with a Raleigh area code. I roll my head, cracking my neck before I pick up.

“Officer Graves, how can I help you?”

“Officer Graves? This is Officer Karl Everett, Raleigh PD. Do you have a minute? It’s important.”

I sit forward.

Tell me those fuckers didn’t get out on bail.

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