Sinners are Winners (KPD Motorcycle Patrol 5)

That was when I saw the background of the last picture.

It wasn’t just the bedspread that had been in all the others. It was a picture.

A picture of a woman, dead in a car. And the man coming on the picture.

I felt bile rise and threw my hand over my mouth to keep it at bay.

It didn’t work.

I made it into the bathroom in time to lose all the contents of the sandwich I’d eaten before Lock had arrived home from his run.

I’d gone on that run with him, but like instructed, I’d turned around after a half a mile and run back home.

I’d been so hungry that I hadn’t been able to wait until he’d finished all seven of his miles, though.

Which led us to now, me emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet bowl.

When I was done, I flushed, washed my face, and rejoined Lock in the kitchen.

He was on the phone with whom I assumed was his dad.

“…No. It was addressed to both of us. All of the pictures are nearly identical except for the last one. It shows a picture of the accident. The one that that young girl died at,” Lock continued.

When I arrived back in the kitchen, his eyes immediately shot to me, assessing me.

I gave him a weak thumbs up, and he nodded once, gesturing at the chair that was sitting next to him.

I was thankful to see the pictures gone.

However, just because they were no longer there didn’t mean that I couldn’t still see them. They were permanently seared into my brain.

Who would do a thing like this? Who would take a picture of themselves masturbating to something like that?

That was sick.

“No,” Lock continued. “There’s a postage stamp on the envelope. One for twenty-five dollars. Like he bought it and attached it to the envelope so he didn’t have to go into the post office and mail it. There’s no way to track that.” He paused. “Yes. Both of us handled it, but I wouldn’t say we handled it that much. There might be some prints they can pull. Yes. Yes. We’ll be down there in about thirty minutes. Meet you there.”

When he hung up, my eyes lifted to meet his.

“We’re going to the station?” I asked.

He nodded. “They need us to give our fingerprints so they can rule them out. Hopefully the sick bastard made a mistake and didn’t wear gloves when he put those pictures in the envelope.”

I shuddered and stood up, heading for the bedroom to collect my shoes.

When we arrived at the police station twenty minutes later, Downy was already there waiting for us.

I smiled at him timidly when we arrived, and he slung an arm around my shoulders and walked with me that way into the department.

Five minutes later I was having my fingerprints run through a fancy machine.

“I guess I thought this would be with an ink pad,” I said to them as they waited patiently for me to get done.

I did all ten of my fingers, and for shits and giggles, even the palm of my hand.

“We’ve moved into the twenty-first century,” Downy laughed. “I don’t think they’ve done an ink pad for the fingerprints since I was a rookie.”

I was a little more bummed about that than I should be.

“That sucks,” I admitted. “I was kind of thinking it’d be cool.”

Downy laughed and tugged one of my curls. “I’m sure that we could scrounge some up for you.”

Laughing now, Lock went through the same song and dance as me, giving his thumbprints.

“They don’t have this stuff on file?” I asked curiously.

“They do,” Lock said. “This is more for expedience.”

Downy went with us into a detective’s office next, and I was surprised to find an officer I knew in it.

“Officer Sage,” Downy said to the woman behind the desk. “This is…”

“Saylor!” Detective Sage, better known as Anna to me, smiled. “What are you doing here?”

I waved but stayed where I was sandwiched between the two men.

“Sadly, it’s not under as fun of circumstances as the last time I saw you,” I admitted.

The last time I’d seen her, I was handing her a birthday cake she’d ordered for her daughter’s fifth birthday.

This time? I was handing over a bunch of masturbation pictures.

Detective Sage listened intently, even went through the pictures with Downy as Lock and I sat in the seats across the desk from her.

I studiously avoided looking at the desk. In fact, I chose to stay focused on my hand, and the way it looked so small in Lock’s hold.

He had such big hands. His fingers practically twice the size of my own…if not more.

In fact, those fingers could crush mine if they wanted.

Not that they ever would, of course.

But he had so much contained power in his grip that it would be possible for him to do.