Shades of Sins (New York Sinner Series Book 2)

20| Suspect

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Suspect

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Chapter 20: Suspect (Dante's POV)

It seemed like no matter how far we went, we'd still end up back to the beginning. The next morning's early hours bled into the late hours of the afternoon, and before we knew it, the sun was on its way to set. 

Anastasia and I spent the entire day looking through all the information we could find on the victims, and it took much longer than we anticipated to draw links between the victims and the guests attending. It was hard to determine who was an acquaintance of the victims and who was an enemy. 

Whether we liked to admit it or not, the truth was that we wouldn't be any closer to finding our culprit until they wanted to be found. The killer had a very strong motive here, some kind of mission or goal that they wanted to achieve, and until he or she did, we had to admit that we may not find them. 

But... at the end of the day, we were on duty, and as per the rules, we were obligated to work our asses off. Hence, we followed the sad excuse of a lead that we found, and that was Monica Coleman, our second victim's ex-husband. 

Looking through her belongings and searching through her apartment, police had found a man's belongings along with boxes of packed things and divorce papers from just three months ago. We had no evidence pointing directly at the man, but with no other option, we decided to question him so we could rule him out. 

The man's name was Sebastian Carter. Despite not having any connection to the first murder, we still had to look into him. Sebastian Carter wasn't exactly a stranger to this world. He was fairly well known as a smuggler and dealer across the city. Also infamous for often laying his hands on women around him, along with rumors of him beating his ex-wife. 

"I'm telling you," I said, drawing her attention to me as we walked across the parking lot and got in my car. "We're going to come up empty-handed again." 

She rolled her eyes as she buckled herself in. "Will you stop being so pessimistic? We're doing the best we can." 

"We're wasting time. You and I both know he's not the killer." 

"We won't question him assuming that he is. I just want to use this opportunity to see if he may know something that could help. He might know if someone wanted to kill his ex-wife, don't you think?" 

I shook my head slowly and started the car, driving to the warehouse we'd been informed he would be at tonight. "We're raiding his lair," I said, "I don't imagine it will go very well." 

"We'll ask nicely," Anastasia shrugged in response. "We come in peace." 

A man known to beat women, and Anastasia coming face to face with him? Peace? I highly doubted it. 

I glanced at her before diverting my attention to the road again. My gaze drifted to her one more time as I slowed the car at a red light and took that chance to take in her attire. 

I hadn't seen Anastasia dressed this casually in a long time with a pair of flared-out jeans that fit her body snuggly, kissing the curve of her hips; the jeans were low-rise, showing off a sliver of skin at her midriff. A plain black tank top hugged her upper body, with a black leather jacket covering her up.