“And the blood we found on it, the blood that our lab is currently testing, you don’t know whose blood that belongs to?”

Vic shrugged. “Nope. Not my knife. Gotta ask Nate.”

There was a quivering in his voice, and he didn’t quite meet Wishard’s eyes when he spoke. He was lying. Quite badly, in fact.

“Okay, you’re the one who said you wanted to talk. We ID’d the body of the woman in Venice Beach. Her name is Leslie Doyle, but I’m sure you know that. You said that there were things you needed to, and I quote, ‘Get off your chest.’ So start talking.”

“Yeah, I knew her. I’m the one that beat on her. Then I slit her throat and dumped her body near the toilets.”

The tiny hairs on the back of Becca’s neck stood up. She was shocked by the sheer casualness with which Vic spoke about killing someone. Leslie. Her name was Leslie.

Becca couldn’t begin to imagine what Leslie’s parents were going through. She wondered how long she’d been missing, couldn’t bear thinking about that horrible moment when the phone rang and they learned their daughter was never coming home. If Wishard was shocked by Vic’s callousness, she didn’t let on. She calmly reached into her folder and pulled out several autopsy photos. She placed them in front of him.

“Is this Leslie?” Wishard asked.

“Yeah, that’s her,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you know that Leslie had a family back in Ohio who reported her missing eleven months ago? Two parents and a ten-year-old brother who loved her very much and never stopped looking for her.”

Vic shrugged like it was no big deal. Becca wanted to tell Wishard she was wasting time playing the empathy card. It wouldn’t work. Vic believed in something much greater than himself. Whatever Mo wanted, Vic was willing to do.

“Why did you kill Leslie? Were you in a relationship? Did she do something to provoke the attack?” Wishard asked, gesturing to the photos.

“She got on my nerves.”

“And Eli Naylor?”

Wishard laid out more photos. Becca looked away, the disturbing images of the young boy’s naked body, every inch covered in bruises, his face bashed in, rendering him unrecognizable. She had seen her share of dead bodies, but she could tell this boy had suffered.

“Eli Naylor was so badly beaten the coroner initially believed his fatal wound was caused by a gunshot. Did he get on your nerves too?”

“Yeah. He was a troublemaker. So I sent him a message.”

“And you did all of this by yourself, without anyone knowing or asking where Leslie and Eli went?”