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He sees the table first, heavy and laden with the burden of secrets: the black package of knives, unrolled to reveal sharp, stinging truth; the prosthetic arm from one of his brother’s victims, fingernails still painted in their mother’s trademark rainbow (the arm, he recognizes immediately. It shouldn’t be there, but there is no time to dwell on that); and most precious of all, his slides, his trophies, fully exposed to the light and strewn about the table.
And then there’s her. Debra Morgan, beloved sister, homicide Lieutenant: fierce, big hearted, foul-mouthed Deb, the only person in the world who loves him, sits silent and still on the grey recliner, eyes downcast, all her usual passion and ferocity gone. She doesn’t look at him when he enters, doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t rage, or curse, or cry. Cursing Deb he understands, screaming Deb he can handle. But not this--this shell of his sister, this empty statue, hallowed out by centuries of hard, crushing, corroding water. He watched her suffer through the loss of her mother, struggle with Lundy’s death and being shot; he took Harry from her, drew the Ice Truck Killer’s attentions to her. And now, finally, he’s destroyed the perfect image she had of her older brother, taken away her last ounce of hope, torn her heart to shreds. All that remained of Debra Morgan lies barren across the table that separates them.
He steps forward with a gulp, letting his get-away pack fall from his shoulder with a soft thud. The mask joins it, peeling off his face, clattering to the floor, revealing the monster beneath. She looks up, then, and he knows she is seeing him—really seeing him—for the first time since they were children, before sanctimonious Harry began preaching the sacred Code.
These are the pieces of the puzzle he’s always kept hidden from her to protect her. But she’s found the pieces now, all on her own, and she’s put them together, and there’s nothing he can do to save her.
“Did you kill all these people?” she whispers, but she already knows the answer.
He could lie, say it’s just a coincidence that he has blood sides like the Bay Harbour Butcher, that he didn’t know what to do with Travis’ knives after the church incident so he took them home and hid them in the false bottom of a trunk he just so happened to have. But there’s no point. It’s too late, she’s already connected the dots, discovered what he is.
“I did.”
And now she’s going to ask the ultimate question. They both know it’s inevitable now, they’ve both known since the church that something life altering was coming, that their lives would never be the same. They both dread the question and the response, and they both know the answer, but it needs to be asked all the same. She needs to hear him say it, admit who and what he really is. The truth hangs raw and palpable around them in the confines of his apartment.
“Are you… Are you a serial killer?”
“Yes.”
He shuts his eyes, deflated and flooded with relief, and the end is here at last. All that’s left is to hope she can survive this.
I’m sorry, Deb.