by Lily White
But after years of witnessing the worst of what humanity had to offer, his words had rung true. I couldn’t deny that there weren’t similarities between the psychopaths that roamed this world and the men who chased them.
Much like how a psychology student will go into the field because they have their own issues to solve, another will go into chasing monsters because they can’t become one to experience the same thrill.
My heart hammered in my chest as I approached the crime scene, that thrill as alive in me as it was in the person who staged the body. Only, when I laid my head on the pillow each night, I could lie to myself and claim I was different from the killer because my job was to put him in jail.
Still, the adrenaline was the same.
That and the morbid curiosity.
While psychopaths chased innocent victims, I was busy hunting more dangerous prey and experiencing a headier thrill because of it.
For that reason, being attracted to a girl like Olive was so far beyond the line of decent that I admonished myself for having felt it.
Yet, she was still on my mind, even as I stepped into a crime scene with body parts scattered around me. Still there when the conversations of the scene technicians and investigators filtered through the sparse forest.
The flash of a camera illuminated the scene as I rounded a stand of trees leading to a small clearing, hair strung over low lying branches like the silver tinsel one would toss on a Christmas tree.
It may have been caught and torn away when the victim was running, but I hadn’t examined the body and wasn’t yet sure what we were dealing with.
Evidence flags were placed across the ground, each number representing a piece of the puzzle we were left to put together. Several yards stood between where the trail began and ended, Simon and several other officers positioned near the body.
Stepping up to them, I glanced down at a young woman whose eyes were open and cloudy, an open orifice where her chest should have been, the cavity completely eviscerated.
Simon glanced my direction, a scowl stretching his lips while his forehead wrinkled with frustration. From the disheveled condition of his clothes and the red rimming his narrowed eyes, it was apparent he hadn’t slept much in a week or so.
“Maia Forbes,” he offered without my asking. “Another one of Soren’s pledges. Do you believe me now that every path leads to him?”
I didn’t answer him immediately, instead focusing on a face that, despite the condition of her body, was clean and cared for with new makeup skillfully applied.
A voice rumbled into my thoughts, as disgusted as I was at the scene that lay before us.
“Wonder why he gets his sick kicks off of washing the body and preparing it for a night out?”
I wouldn’t have been surprised for Simon to spit after voicing his observation.
Kneeling down, I noticed this woman’s hair had been chopped off as carelessly as Calvin described Teagan’s.
“Would you consider the disemboweling a form of mutilation this time? Or are you still discounting it as nothing abnormal?”
Above me, Simon grunted.
“So the asshole escalated. I’m not surprised. He had two years in prison to fine tune his fantasies.”
“With as closely as you’ve been watching him, I’m surprised he had time to abduct a woman, kill her, prepare the body and display it. This wasn’t a simple dump and run.”
No. Maia had been positioned to appear as if she were in the middle of a sexual encounter. Her legs spread, her hand tucked between them, her chest somehow pushed out as if she were in the throes of passion.
Bending lower, I observed the rocks used to position her in such a way. This had taken time.
“Rigor Mortis doesn’t end until forty eight to sixty hours after death. Whoever did this held on to the victim for some time in order to manipulate her into the position.”
Pushing back to my feet, I turned to meet Simon’s bleak stare.
“When has Soren had time to pull this off?”
His scowl deepened.
“I haven’t been following the prick, if that’s what you’re implying. After the party that night, it’s been quiet around town, so I’ve been going over Teagan’s case with a fine-toothed comb.”
Too fine, if you asked me.
Or not fine enough.
And, meanwhile, Nolan Reid was nowhere to be found for a little over three days...
I kept the thought to myself. Simon was determined to look in one direction while I was focusing on another.
“Who found the body?”
“A group of utility workers who were out here to work on power lines.”
“Why wasn’t I called?”
Simon smirked.
“Maybe if you weren’t too busy chasing dead ends, you would have heard the call for officers over the radio.”
There he was clutching his cards to his chest again, all while screwing up the effectiveness of our investigation in the process.
“If you’re wondering where her organs can be found, they’re scattered around the scene.”
Following Simon’s gaze, I noted the heart tossed haphazardly on the ground, liver and stomach on the opposite side of the body, and the intestines strewn through the bushes like rope.
“Possibly animals,” he guessed.
“Possibly. That or the killer was so enraged with this woman, they didn’t give her the dignity of being left intact.”
Another grunt.
“Not sure why. Soren didn’t look too upset when she was dancing on his lap at the party the other night. He even used her help to tie up Olive near the lake. It doesn’t make sense why he would do this to her.”
No. It didn’t make sense. Simon’s observation couldn’t have been more on the mark if he’d understood its significance.
Soren had no reason to be pissed off at the victim, but if she’d helped tie up Olive, Nolan Reid did.
“Have you informed the next of kin?” I asked.
My eyes scanned the scene looking for anything that might point us to a killer. Several shoe prints were marked to be measured and documented, but who knew if they would lead us in the right direction?
“Not yet. Maia’s family moved shortly after Teagan died. They stayed long enough for Maia to graduate, but were gone after that. I’m a little surprised to see that Maia came back, but I guess two years has been enough time for her fear to dissipate.”
“Fear?” I turned to stare at him, not amused with the slow trickle of information I was receiving.
“Maia and Teagan were best friends, practically attached at the hip. I assumed her family’s rush to get out of Winter Ridge was to pull Maia away from Soren’s group. If Maia wasn’t smart enough to know Soren was bad news, her parents were. It’s too bad they didn’t tie her down in whatever area they moved to in order to keep her from returning. She might be alive if they’d done so.”
Silently agreeing with him, I carefully stepped over an evidence flag and squinted my eyes against another flash from a camera.
“There’s no blood.”
Simon glanced around, his brows pulling together in concentration.
“Which means she was killed and taken apart elsewhere, then brought here to be found.”
“How many officers do we have available to check all the summer cabins in the area? Perhaps one of them has been broken into. We might find more evidence there.”
The stubborn ass rolled his eyes, but jotted the idea down in a small notebook he was carrying.
“Soren’s family has a place on the opposite side of Grey Lake. Quinton Conley and Grady Ayers’ families do as well. I’ll send somebody out there to take a look around.”
While we finished studying the scene, the county medical examiner arrived. He was a middle aged man with silver streaked hair, the lines marring his face telling the story of the horrors he’d seen in his career processing bodies.
“Are you all done here? Or should I wait to take the body away?
”
While Simon turned to deal with him, I studied the scene, scrutinizing every last detail there was that could possibly hint at who had dropped Maia here so callously.
There was nothing beyond what we had already noted. Nothing that told the tale of what had happened to Maia Forbes over the past handful of days.
Simon stepped beside me. “What’s your next plan of attack?”
Without looking at him, I answered, “I’m meeting with Olive Reid tonight at the diner. I’d like to see what I can find out about the current living situation in her house.”
“‘Bout time you see things my way. Soren is a time bomb waiting to explode, and considering how he treated her the other night, I wouldn’t be surprised to find her body next.”
Except it wasn’t Soren I was worried about. And while following that particular train of thought, I also surmised that if I was right about who our killer really was, Olive Reid wouldn’t become one of his victims.
“It’s not Soren I’m worried about.”
Simon shook his head in bemused disbelief.
“Keep kicking up mud with those spinning wheels, Jonah. Maybe once you’re done chasing shadows down the wrong path, you can listen to me for once and look in the right direction.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Olive
“Man, didn’t I tell you this shit would be better than porn on television? This is some real time live shit, brother. Like a private little party meant for our pants alone.”
Pot smoke lingered thick in the air as I weaved my way down the hallway and into the kitchen. From the back family room, music rattled the walls and three distinct male voices flowed toward me.
Based on the statement Grady just made, I should have known better than to keep putting one foot in front of the other to continue forward.
A smart girl would have turned around.
But I was too excited to see Nolan after his disappearing act, so I ventured ahead anyway.
Big mistake.
“Meh, I’ve seen better,” Quinton mused, his tone of voice oddly reminiscent of an art critic judging an up and comer’s first gallery show. “It’s kind of like when you hook up the wires to an entertainment system wrong. There’s really no volume with the picture. You know what I mean? We need more moaning.”
My foot paused at that comment, but after a split second my curiosity got the better of me and I turned the corner...
...and damn near fucking hurled.
“What the fuck is going on?”
It was a stupid question. Anybody standing in the same place as me with their eyes open could easily surmise exactly what was happening.
Seated on the large leather couch that formed a semicircle around the room were Grady, Quinton and Nolan, their hands occupied with joints and tumblers of whiskey, bowls of popcorn tucked away in their laps.
Only Quinton and Grady turned at my outburst, while Nolan continued watching the show.
In front of the couch, and blocking the large stereo system and television on the opposite wall, was a bar stool from the kitchen island with a naked Kendall bent over the seat of it, a ball gag in her mouth, while an equally naked Shea stood behind her, hips pumping a strap on.
Grabbing the wall to keep from toppling over, I stood slack jawed and pissed off, bile creeping up my throat when I noticed that Kendall was crying, her face red with embarrassment.
“Little sis,” Grady called out, so drunk and high that he didn’t seem to notice or care that I was about two seconds away from ripping his fucking eyes out. “Stay for the show. We’re rating their performance after this. We even have little cards to hold up to let them know where they fall between one and ten.”
Nolan still hadn’t turned to acknowledge my presence, his hand reaching down before coming back up to toss several kernels of popcorn at my friends.
“More vocals, bitches, this shit is getting boring.”
Eyes narrowed on the back of my brother’s head, my hands curled into fists with every intention of beating in his face.
Quinton chuckled.
“Oh, shit. Olly’s pissed. Better fucking apologize, Nolan.”
“I’m not apologizing for jack shit. If Little Olly thinks she’s old enough to play with Soren and the rest of us, she can suck it up and deal with the toys we keep on our playground.”
More popcorn flew in Shea’s direction, her teary eyes averting with shame when Grady reminded them to moan louder.
It enraged me when they both opened their mouths to obey.
“That’s right, ladies. Show us how much you like it.” Turning to Quinton, Grady nudged his shoulder. “I always had a feeling these two were turned on more by snatch than sausage.”
Oh, hell no…
I wouldn’t have cared what girls they were doing this to. No woman deserved to be treated like a toy for some asshole’s amusement. But adding to the fact that it was my best friends only made me angrier, so much so, I lost my shit and marched toward my brother.
“You fucking asshole.”
Screaming, I began slamming my hands against the sides of his head, refusing to stop hitting him even as he warned me away.
Rounding the couch, I got in his face, slamming a fist into his abdomen before kicking out as hard as I could at his shins.
Grady happily cheered us on.
“Holy shit. Looks like we’re getting live action porn as well as MMA. This day just got a hell of a lot more exciting.”
While Grady and Quinton were laughing their asses off and making bets as to which Reid kid would win the match, my brother’s eyes narrowed on my face, his body lunging from the couch when he’d finally had enough.
Quinton’s voice rang out as Nolan was staring me down.
“Oh no, ladies. Don’t think that just because there’s a fight, you get to stop. Keep pumping them hips, bitches, or else you’ve failed your pledge.”
My lips parted on a scream filled with primal rage, but I wasn’t fast enough to duck when my brother struck out, his hand striking against my head while his fingers curled into my hair.
He tugged me so hard that I lost my footing and fell to the ground, the area rug burning the exposed skin of my legs as he dragged me toward the kitchen door.
“What the fuck is your problem, Olly? You asked for this shit remember?”
Another scream tore from my throat, pain shooting down my scalp and over my body. Thrashing to get away from him, I couldn’t break his grip on my hair, or stop him from dragging me along.
From behind us, I heard Quinton comment, “Well, damn. Guess I owe you fifty bucks, man. Nolan ended that shit quick.”
Nolan didn’t stop dragging me until we’d crossed through the kitchen and living room to reach the base of the stairs. Tossing me against them, he pointed his finger down at my face, not giving much of a crap that tears were streaming down my cheeks.
“I told you to stay the fuck away from Soren. But what do you fucking do? Show up at his damn party like you thought you belonged there. So, here’s how this shit is going to go down from now on: I won’t protect you any longer. You wanted to be grown, so deal with it. Now get up the fucking stairs and go to your room before I drag your ass up there.”
Heart splitting apart in my chest, I pushed myself up to my feet, limping on the leg that has some serious carpet burn, while holding a hand to my head to assess if he ripped my scalp loose.
With my free hand clinging to the banister of the stairs, I climbed as quickly as I could, barely making it down the long hallway and to my bed before my eyes burst like a damn, tears streaming from them so fast, my pillow was soaked within seconds.
In all my life, Nolan had never raised a hand to me. He’d never yelled at me or called me names. He’d always stuck up for me and threatened anybody and everybody who had so much as looked at me in the wrong way.
That wasn’t my brother downstairs. Wasn’t the boy who’d taught me how to ride a bike when my dad had been too impatient and yelled at me until I c
ried. Wasn’t the boy who helped me rebuild all my sandcastles on the beach when the waves knocked them down during our vacations in Florida.
It wasn’t the boy who walked with me to school on my very first day, even though it made him late to his class. And it definitely wasn’t the boy who had given up everything to take care of me after our parents had suddenly died.
I didn’t know who that was wearing Nolan’s face and pretending to be him, but it wasn’t the person I remembered him to be up until Soren Callahan returned.
What the fuck happened that would turn him so suddenly, and what could I do to make the brother I knew come back?
I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore, my body shaking with heavy sobs while my eyes burned with heavy tears.
From downstairs, the music kept playing, three male voices shouting out instructions about new positions they wanted Kendall and Shea to take.
“Take it up the ass!”
“Holy shit, she likes it.”
“Fuck, we should do this with all the pledges.”
Laughter would burst forth to mix with the music, and after who knows how long, a loud bang occurred when somebody walked through the front door.
For a moment, I begged the universe to make all of this go away, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. A few minutes passed, the music continuing as loud footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs and down the hall, a light shining into my room as soon as the door burst open.
Opening my eyes, I lifted my head just enough to see that Soren had returned to the house, and wasn’t that just fucking fantastic?
“The show is downstairs,” I said, my voice somewhere between a growl and a whimper.
He shut the door behind him and marched toward the bed.
“Get the fuck out!”
Soren didn’t care that I didn’t want him anywhere near me. He simply grabbed my arm and flipped me onto my back, his eyes scanning my body slowly, starting at my head and working down to my legs.
Eyes widening when he saw the rug burn that was a bright, mottled red, his jaw ticked with whatever he was thinking.
Without saying a word, he left my room again, the pounding of his footsteps dying away after he’d gone down the stairs.
