CRIMINAL INTENTIONS: Season One, Episode One: THE CARDIGANS by Cole McCade

Author:Cole McCade [McCade, Cole]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2018-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

[12: THE BOY WHO CRIED]

SEONG-JAE LEANED OUTSIDE THE door to wait for Khalaji, folding his arms over his chest and propping himself against the wall. Half of his mind was preoccupied with the case; it was unusual for a serial killer to make such a rapid escalation. From eight months between the first and second kill to less than twenty-four hours between the second and third. Normally escalations happened over the course of several kills, closing through timelines that narrowed by months, then weeks, then days. Something must be driving a sense of urgency, something the perpetrator felt a need to complete before he was caught.

The other half of his mind was annoyingly preoccupied by the differences in Khalaji by day, and Khalaji by night.

By day, Khalaji was a contradiction in his smoothly tailored suits paired with that grizzled, wolfish beard, wild hair, wilder eyes, animalistic things that didn’t belong to polished patent leather shoes and the touch of slow, lazy elegance in his movements, in his smile, in the kindness in brutal hands. He looked as though a wild man of the woods and an intellectual had merged into some hybrid breed who could arrange delicate fabrics into confections of drapery—or just as easily crush a man’s throat in with his bare hands, knuckles bloodied raw.

By night, Khalaji was pure beast, eyes hot and livid.

The suit had slimmed and disguised his bulk; he was a monolith, arms burly, waist thick with hard-corded muscle, his entire body slashed over with gnarled scars that looked older than a lifetime, making fault line maps down his arms, over his chest, his stomach, his back. Several had that tight pucker that promised bullets had kissed his flesh many times, while others looked like injuries from accidents or bladed weapons. One, a snaking line that looked as if it had been cut with a serrated blade edge, slashed right through a tattoo on his bicep, one that resembled a yin-yang symbol without the counterbalancing dots, inked in dark blue above a flowing 29th in stylized black letters.

Military. Army. He’d glimpsed that in Khalaji’s personnel file, before the call had come in for the case and drawn him away. Mizrahim, he’d said, yet he’d violated Torah by desecrating his body with a tattoo, although Khalaji had said he was non-practicing and—

And Seong-Jae was wasting mental energy that should be focused on figuring out the case on, instead, figuring out his temporary partner.

The door creaked open at his side. Khalaji stepped out of his apartment—what little Seong-Jae had glimpsed had been tasteful, stylish, eclectic and spacious—fully dressed, his suit a sleek dark flint gray this time, fingers busily knotting a slim black tie under his collar with a deftness that could only be born of practice.

For some reason, Seong-Jae found that tie immensely irritating.

Khalaji tossed him a sharp look, smoothed his tie, and swept his hair back in both hands. “Are you with me again, or do you have your own car?”

“I will ride with you and return for my vehicle later.

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