He worked on yanking down his shorts, popping out his hard length. There was no hesitation in him as he pushed it inside of me. A bit harder to do, given our positions, but like he said, I was almost dripping with wetness. But the TV…
I couldn’t tear my eyes off it, even as Lincoln started thrusting, even when Edward yelled from the kitchen, “Be fast, will you? Breakfast is almost done.” It didn’t even register in my mind his words meant he was more than okay with Lincoln having me whenever he wanted. Clearly, my body wanted it too.
But the goddamn TV, the newscast. The breaking news—it was something I needed to watch, even while being fucked.
The man above me didn’t care I wasn’t paying attention to him. He just needed one part of me, and it was one part he could have—though I did speak up and say, “Turn up the volume.” I swatted his back, causing him to stop pumping me full of his dick and glance around. He grumbled and bitched under his breath, but he reached for the remote and did as I asked.
Huh. So maybe Lincoln wasn’t totally a jackass after all.
A newscaster woman, all dolled up and far too awake and alert, considering it wasn’t even eight yet, was busy describing what police discovered in the late hours of the night the day before, “Local authorities in the Eastland county discovered a body in an abandoned house that was condemned by the city and marked for demolition. Details are slim, but more are arriving as I speak.”
An image of a sheriff popped onto the screen, a pre-recorded segment. He was surrounded by reporters who were all clamoring, trying to ask him about it. “I can’t share any details with you at this time.”
I watched, rapt, nearly forgetting Lincoln was still grunting over me, his dick still hard inside of me. This wouldn’t be such news if it was just a body. There was more to this, there had to be.
“Was it an overdose? Another death of the opioid crisis here in America?” one reporter asked, shoving her microphone towards the sheriff.
“It was not an overdose. That’s all I can say.” And then the sheriff walked off, and the picture cut back to the newswoman.
“That was the sheriff last night,” the newswoman said. “But this morning, we learned new information about what is now being called a calculated murder. There are numerous unconfirmed reports of the body being displayed in an almost performative manner. The victim’s hands were bound, almost like they were praying.”
Lincoln tensed above me, letting out a low groan as he slowly pulled out, his dick wet with my juices and his cum. He put himself away, sitting back as if nothing had happened, like my pants and underwear were not still pulled down. He was not nearly as entranced in the newscast as I was.
I wasn’t sure what that said about him, or what it said about me.
I didn’t even glance to him as I pulled up my pants. I’d change when I got home, anyways. But this—the topic of the morning news—was so very interesting. A killer who’d displayed his victim was a killer who had thought about it, a crime that was premeditated. A crime of passion never resulted in a victim on display, even if the crime of passion was cleaned up.
No, most criminals, most killers, either left the bodies of their victims or tried to hide them. This was not done by just anyone.
The way it was a media frenzy, the way the newscaster spoke about it, I knew there was more to it she wasn’t sharing. Had the killer done something else to the body? How did he keep the body erect? Dead bodies didn’t just sit on their own accord. What I would give to be a fly on the wall of that house.
My mind was swimming, even as Edward gave me a plate of hefty breakfast, eggs and bacon and sausage. A glass of orange juice, too. All I could think about was the body, the way the sheriff had looked pale, almost like he’d seen something horrible. There had to be more to it. There was something they weren’t saying, something they weren’t allowed to say, otherwise it might cause a county-wide panic.
Did Easton county have its own serial killer in the making?
Chapter Nine - Stella
I had Edward drop me back off at the bar, knowing it probably wasn’t good to let a stranger—even though I’d slept with both him and his roommate more than once—know where I live. It was on my walk home that my phone rang, and I picked it up, seeing it was Callie.
“Where the hell are you?” Callie practically screamed on the other line. “Are you okay? I’ve been texting you left and right, girl. Have you seen the news? Of course you have. You probably knew about it the second it happened, with your sick sense for serial killers—”
Didn’t even get a hello, not that I expected one.
“I don’t have a sense about them, I just find them interesting. And yes, I did see the news. I’m heading home real fast to change, and then I’m going to work early. I know there’s probably enough coverage about it, but if anyone gets to write about it, it’s me,” I said.
“You’re one crazy bitch, but you know I love you. Now, I’m going to ask again, because you didn’t answer me: where are you? Did you not come home last night?” There was a pause on the other end as Callie inhaled a great, giant gasp. “Tell me you didn’t go home with Killian. Tell me you didn’t fuck your boss!” Based on her tone, she wanted me to admit I did.
“No, Killian had some other company last night,” I said, thinking about him and Sandy in the women’s restroom at the bar. “I, uh…I might’ve gone home with someone I met at the bar.”
Callie was silent for a while. “Holy shit. I need stories. I’m home now, but I got to run. Tonight. You better tell me some juicy details tonight.”
I laughed and said, “I will.” After hanging up, I walked through the streets of our town, heading through the commercial district. The bar wasn’t too far of a walk from my house, but with morning rush hour traffic, it took longer to cross the roads and wait for red lights.
By the time I got to our house, Callie was already gone. I came in through the front door, locking it behind me. I hurriedly changed and grabbed my bag, my trusted laptop and a few notebooks inside. My phone was nearly dead, so I grabbed the charger. Hopefully I could get a seat at the coffee shop near an outlet, so I could charge it while I wrote.
Because there was a lot to write about, even without seeing the scene.
Within the hour, I was at the Tribune’s office, pushing through its front door with gusto. I was almost smiling, almost. My presence stunned my coworkers—the ones who were there, anyway. Some of them weren’t at work, presumably because of their hangovers. The booze had been flowing last night like a waterfall.
I kept my bag around my shoulders, fiddling with the strap as I walked through the cluttered space. In the far back, I saw Killian sitting in his office, nursing a coffee and rubbing his forehead. Oh, I bet he had a killer migraine. A dark part of me hoped it hurt.
I knocked once on the glass encasing his office before walking in and sitting in the chair facing him.
He practically leapt up, nearly spilling his coffee mug all over his desk. Luckily he only jerked it a little, but his full attention was on me, weirdly enough. “Stella,” he said, “I was worried about you. Last night, you just left. You didn’t tell anyone goodbye, so I thought…”
He thought what? Something bad had happened to me? Something bad did happen—though it wasn’t strictly bad as it was rather naughty. Either way, he didn’t need to know all the details.
I let the silence linger for a while. “You thought what?”
“Well,” Killian said, rubbing the back of his neck in a nervous gesture, “I saw you talking to a guy at the bar, and I thought…” Still, he couldn’t say it.
“You thought what?” I prodded again, this time putting emphasis on the final word.
“I thought I saw you leaving with him.” He squeezed his eyes shut as he drank some of his coffee. “Everything’s a little fuzzy. I had a bit too much to drink—”
“I’m sure not everything is fuzzy.” I wasn’t sure why I said it. I didn’t have any reason to be jealous of what Killian
and Sandy did—the latter who wasn’t here yet, I’d noticed. It was something I shouldn’t have said, because he would undoubtedly think I was jealous.
Maybe I had been, last night as I listened to the starting sounds of a blowjob. But after everything that happened last night, and technically this morning, I wasn’t.
Or I shouldn’t be.
“What…” Killian trailed off the moment his green eyes met mine. Recognition flashed in their depths, and he was quick to turn a certain shade of pink I bet he turned last night, when Sandy’s mouth was around his dick. He knew I knew, and it’s why he said, “Stella, I—”
Again, I cut him off, “It doesn’t matter.” His excuses were unnecessary. “I didn’t come here to talk about who you’re with.” It was a good sidetrack to take so he wouldn’t bring up Edward again.
It was a while before Killian glanced at his computer. “You don’t start work for another few hours. Why are you here so early?” He was just now realizing it. My boss was not the sharpest tool in the shed.
“I want to write about the body they found.”
He blinked, letting my words sink in. “You—they found a body? Where?”
“Did you not hear the news?” My heart thumped in my chest, so loud and hard it threatened to break out. How in the world could he not have heard the news?
Killian held up a finger, leaned to his keyboard, and started typing something in. His eyes scanned the screen, and I watched as sweat pooled on his brow. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked tired. Did Sandy keep him up all night?
“That’s…fifteen minutes from here,” he slowly said, glancing to me after he was done, watching as I took in the news. Fifteen minutes from here? So we had an address… “What more could you write about? The news is all over it.”
“My articles are mostly speculation. Plus, readers will expect me to write about it. If my articles were already the most visited on our website, imagine the traffic once I start writing about this.”
“You’re assuming this incident isn’t going to be isolated. You’re expecting more.”
I nodded. “I am, and not just because I’m obsessed with killers.”
Killian flinched at my words. “Look, if this is about what I said last night, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. It was rude and uncalled for, and I didn’t mean it.” He seemed genuine with his words today, but he was stupid if he thought this was about last night.
“This has nothing to do with last night,” I swore. “Nothing at all. I’m going to write about this, Killian, whether or not you give me your go ahead. I think it would be good for the Tribune.”
He sighed. “What are you going to do? How many articles are you going to write about this?”
“Depends on how things go from here,” I answered honestly. “And I want to go to the house.”
“It’s still probably a crime scene.”
“Then they’ll let me walk around the yellow tape.”
Killian let out a groan, and he rubbed his neck again. More than a nervous tick—it was something he did when he was anxious. It was kind of cute. “Fine, but anytime you’re investigating for these articles, I’m coming with you, do you understand? This isn’t something you can mess around with.”
Did he not know me at all? I was not the type of person to mess around no matter what I was doing, especially when it came to my articles.
I realized he was waiting for me to agree, so I begrudgingly said, “Fine.” And then, it was the weirdest thing—I noted the concern in his gaze and couldn’t help but wonder if he was worried about me. My safety. My life.
Seemed a silly thing to worry about when life was so fleeting.
Before I let him completely relax, I added, “I want to go now.”
Killian let out another long sigh, not surprised by my sudden need to go to the crime scene. “Fine. Let me put this in a travel mug, first.”
Once the manly diva was ready, we got in his car and left. He put the address into his GPS and, like he said, it was less than a fifteen-minute drive from the Tribune’s offices, on the other side of town from my house. The police were still in the area, combing the house and the yard for clues. Killian parked his car along the curb down the street, and as he got out and spoke to the police about who we were and why we were here, I slowly got out of the car and studied the houses around us.
This was perhaps the oldest part of town. The houses here had been built decades ago, before this town had its own department and grocery stores. Seventy years old or more, most of them were run down. Siding chipped and front porches rotted. None of them were as bad as the house that was the crime scene though—the house where the body was found was beyond decrepit, zoning papers taped to the front door, useless as they were.
And I meant decrepit in the worst sense: windows broken, front door hanging off its hinges. Looked like its foundation was cracked and falling apart. A gravel driveway covered in weeds and dead grass. The house’s roof was in shambles, some of the shingles hanging off the side of the two-story house.
It looked like shit. No wonder the city condemned this address. No bank could ever sell a house like this, even to flippers. This was beyond repair. Best tear it down and start anew.
With my messenger bag around my shoulders, I met Killian on the sidewalk. Killian was busy putting away his wallet, holding his coffee in his other hand. “They said we could look around, but not to touch anything,” he said. “And obviously don’t cross the yellow tape.”
I took the lead, moving closer to the house, creeping around its side, hugging the yellow caution tape as I went. Killian was glued to my back, and I pretended not to feel his eyes watching me. The man never knew when to take a chill pill.
“The body was found in the basement,” he said.
“The basement?” I echoed, glancing at him. That didn’t sound right.
“He said forensics is going to be here a while, because it was…messy.”
My feet stopped as I stared at a broken square window on the house’s lower wall, the window to the basement. If it was messy, it meant there had to be blood, right? I wanted to see it.
“The basement leaks like a bitch, so they have to get all the evidence they can before the next storm.”
“Which is…”
Killian answered, “In the next few days, I think.”
I filed this away in my head. I’d never before thought about trespassing on a crime scene, but I might have to do it, once the cops were out of here.
This neighborhood…it wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where everyone sat outside and had cookouts and talked to each other. This street was the kind of street where you only paid attention to yourself.
When Killian gagged behind me, I stopped, breathing in deeply through my nose. The air was rank in the space between the condemned house and its neighbor, nearest where the basement window was. It was the worst stench I’d ever smelled in my life. Rotten and putrid. I wanted to throw up.
Holding a hand over my nose and my mouth, I knew all I needed to to write my first article about it. I moved past Killian, and he all too willingly followed me back to the sidewalk, where the air was clear.
“That’s it?” he asked, surprised. “We came here for a drive-by?”
“We got out,” I said, heading back to the car. I was the first one inside.
What did Killian expect? For me to whip out a magnifying glass and play the detective? No, I didn’t need to spend any more time here. I knew enough. I knew more than enough. The only thing I did not know was the victim’s identifying information.
“Do we know who the victim was? Male, female? Old, young?” I asked him as he got in the car.
“The cop referenced the victim as a she, so…female, but as for an age, I didn’t think to ask, since this is your story and not mine,” Killian remarked dryly as he set his coffee in the cup holder and drove off. His green eyes flicked to me. “You didn’t even take any notes.”
“I didn’t need to.”
“I know just the place,” I said, nodding along, knowing he wanted Starbucks, like the majority of other people did. Why have that when you could go to a cozy, homey, small town coffee shop whose prices were less than half?
With any luck, Killian wouldn’t stay. He’d get his coffee and go, leave me to draft my next article in peace. After seeing the house, I had a lot of thoughts, and all of them revolved around the possibility there was a killer out there just starting to learn his craft.
Chapter Ten - Edward
I worked as a chef at a high scale restaurant that was a good forty-minute drive from our house. Most of my workday was spent alone, though the other chefs always tried to talk to me. I laughed and smiled when necessary, but I didn’t really want to talk to them. Sometimes talking to people was nothing but a chore.
Lincoln always said I was the most normal out of the two of us, but I had my days. Yes, some days I wanted to strangle every single person I met, regardless of whether or not they spoke to me or even looked at me. The world was too full as it was; I’d be doing it a favor.
And then there were days like today, when my mind was so wrapped up in someone else that I couldn’t seem to get any of my dishes right. Too salty, too much cayenne. Overcooked, undercooked. Raw. My mind was so lost in thinking about last night my work suffered, and food—food was one good thing about life. I couldn’t mess up anyone’s meals. My pride wouldn’t let me. Meaning I had to re-cook over a dozen meals before twelve rolled around, but it was what it was.
No matter how much I tried to not let Stella dominate my mind, I failed, so eventually I just gave in. I thought about her a lot as the day wore on and the hours passed me by. Work never dragged for me, because I sincerely enjoyed what I did, but today—today I wanted nothing more than to leave and go to Stella, wherever she was. I knew where she worked, because I did my fair share of stalking, but I didn’t know where she lived.
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