Particles of Obsession (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Book 2)

by Charlotte Raine

  I hope all of you either have the love I’ve found or find the love that I’ve found because this love is the first thing I couldn’t even vaguely put into words.

  Good night.

  I read John’s blog post twice before leaning back into his computer chair.

  “It sounds genuine enough,” I say. “A bit hyperbolic at times, but you’re a writer and it sounds like you. You think the killer will take the bait?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know who the killer is. We’re making a huge assumption that this will lure him or her out. Maybe the killer has been trying to trick us into thinking I’m involved. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe they just enjoy killing.”

  “You said yourself that your blog suddenly began getting a dozen views a week a few years ago, when you used to get a few views a month and that fact is even more suspicious when you only update your blog two or three times a year,” I say. “Someone is obsessed with you. They’ll see this post and it will piss them off.”

  “Somebody could have just posted my blog on social media and there could be different people looking at it every day,” he says. “We never know.”

  “Well, we’re going to find out,” I say. “If nothing happens…then we’re just another day closer to the police finding me.”

  “So, how many days should we wait until the next blog post?”

  “We’ll do it in a couple days. The day after tomorrow,” I say. “We don’t have time to wait around. You’ll say that I’m going somewhere and I’ll be there alone. The killer will come after me.”

  “You hope,” he says. “While I hope that the killer isn’t even paying attention to my blog.”

  “It’s the only way,” I say. “And I already told you that you could come too—you just have to get there early and stay out of sight.”

  “What are you going to do when you find out who the killer is?” he asks. “Are you going to retaliate for Andre’s death?”

  “I can’t be sure that this killer is responsible for Andre’s death. It could have been Alex who killed him.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “What do you want me to say?” I ask. “Yes, I want revenge? Yes, I’m still angry that Andre was killed? Yes, it has crossed my mind to interrogate this killer myself since I can’t interrogate Alex anymore? Because you should know what the answer to those questions are. You loved your students and they’re gone. You should be just as angry. But once I’m in the situation…I don’t know. I planned on killing Alex, but I hesitated and now he’s dead anyway. Things always end up being different than how we planned them. It’s part of the human condition.”

  He nods. “I suppose you’re right. I just don’t want you to do anything rash.”

  “I’m planting myself out there as bait. I think we’re past rash.”

  “True.”

  He runs his fingers through his hair and settles onto his couch.

  “I honestly just don’t understand how someone could do this,” he says. “I also don’t want you to do anything rash because I want answers. I want to know why this killer murdered my students, but that shouldn’t hurt you as much as it already has.”

  “Is any answer going to be good enough?”

  “It’s going to be better than no answer at all.”

  He leans back until he’s lying down.

  “I don’t know how I can go back to teaching after this,” he says. “What if something I said influenced them to kill?”

  I walk over to the couch and sit down a couple inches away from his head.

  “You can’t feel guilty about what this killer has done,” I say. “I mean, if you were to blame, you’d have a lot more serial murdering students.”

  “Well, one of them was also a drug addict, which I didn’t know,” he says. “Who knows what the others are doing? How can I trust any of them again?”

  “You trust me now, don’t you?” I ask. “You don’t still think I murdered Alex?”

  “I never taught you,” he says. “I never had influence over you.”

  “Mmm. You have taught me things and had more influence over me than you’re giving yourself credit for,” I say. He looks up at me and smiles. I place my fingertips along his jawline and trace it up to his right ear. He encases his hand over my mine and pulls me down closer to him. When we kiss, it’s not romantic—it’s urgent, needy, and sad, but underneath all that, I feel that same kind of joy that he had faked in his blog post.

  That kind of happiness is frightening when it can be so easily taken away.

  I sit back up, pulling my hand out of his grasp.

  “We should sleep,” I say. “Our plan needs us to be vigilant and well-rested.”

  “Of course,” he murmurs. “I’m going to stay here for a while. See you in the morning.”

  I get onto my feet and walk away from him, but my movements aren’t as steady as usual. I’ve been pushed off-balance by everything going on in my life and I need to refocus. I can’t risk making another mistake.

  Chapter Four

  The Killer

  I pulled the trigger on my Glock 17. The bullet pierced through the magazine photo of some blond celebrity, but only her right shoulder. I needed to aim better.

  My father built a gun range in the woods behind our house. We’ve had the police called on us a few times for shooting too often, but, quite honestly, if people didn’t want to hear gunshots, they should live in an upper-class street in the city, not in the boondocks, where guns put meat in the freezer and they’re the pride and joy of several men and a fair amount of women here.

  Sic transit gloria mundi. All the glory in this world will fade away, so we should enjoy what we have.

  And take what we want.

  Bright orange caught my eye. I turned to see Alex approaching me in a sweater that was such a bright orange, it would make brand new hunting clothes look dull.

  “Are you trying to get the satellites up in space to notice you?” I asked, setting my gun down on a lawn chair. He looked down at his sweater as he stopped in front of me. He raised his head back up, shrugging.

  “Nah. My mom bought it for me and it seems pretty cool,” he said. “You seemed pretty upset on the phone and considering you’re killing magazine models, I’d say you’re a bit angry too.”

  “Dr. Zimmer chose Everett for the Mulvihill Award. I just thought…after everything he’s said about my work, that he would choose one of my poems. I should have known. He’s been showing Everett favoritism for the last few weeks.”

  He frowned. “That’s not fair. He should be able to separate his personal feelings and his professional critique. I’ve read your work and Everett’s work in the school newspaper. Yours is much better.”

  “Well, apparently he can’t separate his personal feelings from his professional critiques, because I’ve seen him favor Victoria Glassman too.” I grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled him closer to me, and kissed him.

  I’d heard all of the stories about how kissing could send off fireworks or, at the very least, arouse women, but it felt like two pieces of flesh brushing against each other. It was just the pressure and texture of lips.

  I stepped back. “What did you tell your fraternity brothers about where you were going today?”

  “I said I was meeting a beautiful woman,” he said. “And here she is.”

  He kissed me again. He was full of passion and craving, but I didn’t feel the romance that movies, shows, and books raved about.

  “But don’t change the subject,” he said, stepping back from me. “Did you talk to Dr. Zimmer? Ask him why he didn’t choose you?”

  “I don’t want to sound like a snotty brat,” I said. “I know awards don’t matter and I shouldn’t be seeking approval about my work but…I just feel like…”

  “You deserve it,” he said.

  “Yes. Exactly,” I said. “When is it my turn to be noticed? When do I get recognition for anything I do? I know I’m not as interesting as
Everett or as pretty as Victoria, but still, I’m confident that my work is better.”

  “You’re more interesting and beautiful than both of them. You will get recognized soon,” he promised. With a grin, he added, “You know, Everett buys drugs from me sometimes. Maybe I could slip in something special. He could have diarrhea for a few days or hallucinate for a couple hours.”

  “Yeah, then Dr. Zimmer would dote on him even more, or think it’s some sign of his genius,” I said. “I don’t need to give him a reason to think Everett is more worthy of attention.”

  “I could get him caught for doing drugs on campus,” he said. “That could get him kicked out.”

  “It’s not a guarantee though,” I said. “You know how desperate the school is to keep students and make it look like nothing illegal happens on campus.”

  “I just want to make it better, love,” he said. “Tell me what you want me to do to make you feel better, and I’ll do it, whatever it is. Sex? Fancy dinner out? Pranking your enemies?”

  I picked up my gun again. I shot the model three more times until her head and neck were obliterated.

  “I want them gone,” I said. “I don’t want them to ever be able to communicate with Dr. Zimmer again. I want him to finally be able to see me instead of focusing on those other students. I want them dead.”

  I set the gun back down and faced him. His face was stoic.

  “You’re talking about murder,” he stated, but he didn’t look horrified by the idea.

  “I’m talking about the fact that I deserve glory. I deserve to not always be in second, third, or fourth place,” I said. “You asked me what would make me happy and I told you. You don’t know what it’s like to not be recognized. You come from a family of known chemists and you’re well on your way to following in their footsteps. You do amazing things in the lab…but in the writing field we all use the same tools, and the amount of praise depends on personal opinion. Dr. Zimmer’s opinion is swayed my tragic backstories and fake personalities. I’m tired, Alex. I just wanted him to like me. I just wanted this one professor who everybody thinks is the coolest person in town to look at me and think I’m worthy of something. I don’t know how much longer I can continue to live in this godforsaken place while nobody cares about me.”

  “Don’t say that,” he said, grabbing me by the shoulders. “You know how much I care about you. You’re worthy of so much. The fact that he doesn’t recognize that means he’s blind.”

  “He’s not blind.” I brushed his hands off my arms. “He’s just distracted by these other people who pretend to be deep intellectuals. I hate them all.”

  Alex offered me his hand. “Come on.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I said. “I want to keep shooting until I know why the fuck I stay around on this planet when I’ll never leave an impact on anything.”

  There was a flicker of pain on his face before he forced a smile. “I’m going to make you happy. Come to our apartment. We’ll concoct something vicious that will stop these other students dead in their tracks. I’ll show you why you should stick around on this planet.”

  I slipped my hand into his and he led me to his car. A seed had been planted in my chest and I could feel something blooming between my lungs, but it wasn’t a flower. It was something toxic, spreading like a weed, the roots too ingrained to ever be pulled out.

  Chapter Five

  Mira

  The next morning I find John with a coffee mug in his hand, sitting in front of his laptop at the kitchen table.

  “The coffee is still warm in the pot if you want some,” he remarks as I stumble into the room.

  “Good,” I say. “I mean, thanks.”

  “The mugs are in the cabinet above the pot.”

  “Thanks,” I repeat. I grab a mug and fill it with coffee.

  “The sugar is right beside the pot and the half-and-half is on the door,” he states.

  “I’m good,” I say, sitting down across from him. Steam curls up from the mug. I rest my hand above it, feeling the condensation cling to my skin. I look over at the time on his microwave. “Do you always get up so early?”

  “I couldn’t really sleep,” he says.

  “I’m sorry. Did you end up sleeping on the couch last night?” I ask.

  “No,” he says, smiling at me. “It’s nothing to do with the couch. I just…I want to find this killer and stop them from killing again. Whether it’s Kiona or not…we need to find this person.”

  I can see the guilt weighing on his shoulders and pulling down the shadows under his eyes. I wish there was something I could say to help alleviate his pain, but I know it will all come out in cliché phrases.

  “What are you working on now?”

  “Just answering some emails. I also began typing up the blog post,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about the best place for us to set this up and take down this killer. There’s a greenhouse behind the college. Nobody goes around there, but it’s close enough to civilization that if we really need help, a good scream could catch somebody’s attention, even at night.”

  “You know the area better than I do,” I say. “If you think that’s best, it works for me.”

  He sets down his coffee mug, rubbing his face. “I can barely remember what it was like before there was this serial killer running around, and it’s only been a few weeks.”

  “I imagine it was pretty boring before this.”

  “It’s not funny,” he snaps.

  I raise my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I don’t know how to handle this either. I mean, I’ve worked on a lot of murder cases, but I spent most of my time in a lab.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, too. I know you’re in all of this trouble because of me and now you’re wanted by the police because you were helping me.”

  “Well, when you put it that way…” I tease.

  He gives me a small smile, but it’s not genuine.

  “Listen, John. I decided to pursue this case. Let me tell you something that I’ve only told Andre. When I was seven, I had a sister named Sonia, who was five. She was kidnapped by a man right in front of me. He told me to trust him, and then he took her. I didn’t realize anything was even wrong until I told my mother what happened and she started freaking out. My sister was found dead later. And, honestly, what pushed me to be in law enforcement is the fact that she had been killed a few days after the police gave up looking for her. They could have found her before she was killed. I kept working on your case because I wanted to pursue the truth and find a killer.”

  “Was your sister’s killer ever found?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “Thank you,” he says. “For being so honest with me. I know you probably don’t want to be open with me because you’re afraid I’ll turn it into a story or something, but…for something this private, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I actually hadn’t thought of that,” I say. “I actually wrote it down myself. The police probably have it. If there’s ever a trial against me, they’ll probably use it as proof that I carry a vendetta against killers.”

  “If there’s ever a trial, I’ll stand up to defend you,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  “So, I suppose it’s only fair if you told me something so private about yourself that I should share something as well,” he says, leaning back into his chair.

  “I thought you already did that by talking about bouncing around in the foster care system.”

  “That certainly isn’t the happiest time in my life, but it’s not that intimate. You could have found that out by looking at some legal documents,” he says. “No, I have a moment in my life that I think drives me toward seeking justice, too, but I’m certainly not innocent in it.”

  I run my finger over the top of my coffee mug. I’m not sure if I want to hear this, but if someone wants to confess their sins, it would be wrong to stop them.

  “I was fourteen with this new foster family. They had th
eir own biological son, another foster son, and a foster daughter,” he begins. “I got along great with the biological son and the foster son—probably some of my happiest months were spent with those two. I got along fine with the foster daughter. She was eleven, so she wasn’t really the kind of person a fourteen-year-old boy hangs out with and she was really shy, so…we were polite to each other, but we didn’t really have a sibling-like relationship. Anyway, after I had been there a few months, my foster parents had a family emergency and needed to go to Canada for a couple of days. Their biological son was nearly seventeen at the time, which I think is why I liked him so much. When you’re fourteen, an older teenager with a car and confidence seems pretty cool. The other foster son was older than me too, but I think we were less than a year apart. But since the older son was nearly seventeen, they didn’t have a problem with leaving us under his supervision.”

  He takes a deep breath, avoiding my gaze now. It wouldn’t matter, since I’m concentrating on my coffee. I should have added sugar. I need something sweet now.

  “A couple hours after they left, the biological son was bored. He began bothering the foster daughter in the way that siblings do—poking her, teasing her, generally being a jerk. The foster son and I went along with it—laughing and occasionally making snide remarks. I didn’t enjoy it, but I wanted to fit in. The biological son’s actions became more…violent, like grabbing her and throwing her onto the couch. Every time she tried to get up, he’d throw her back onto it. It still wasn’t past anything I’d seen at any other foster house, but he began making some crude remarks about how foster kids were parasites. My foster brother and I should have been offended by it, but I think we were both just happy to not be the focus of his anger.”

  “Can you just cut to the bad part?” I say, my voice slightly shaking. “I’m sorry, but…I think I know how this story ends, and I don’t…I don’t want all this build-up. Just spit it out.”

  He nods. “The biological son bruised her up pretty bad. There wasn’t any outright punching or anything, but he wasn’t gentle and he even wrapped his hands around her throat a few times. At one point, he dragged her to his room. My foster brother followed him, but I went outdoors. I was scared. I can’t say for certain what happened, but…I think we both know. Shortly after that, the biological son got into some legal trouble. My foster parents wouldn’t talk about it, but I think he hit another car while he was driving drunk, so all of us foster kids were sent to different homes. I never knew what happened to her.”