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  When I’d been in high school, I’d thought I wanted to become a doctor, but turns out, becoming a doctor takes a very long time to accomplish, and I’d decided to go with nursing instead.

  Unfortunately, that hadn’t worked, either.

  Instead of spending more money getting educated in something else that I may end up not wanting to do, my stand-in father, Janie’s father, James, had worked his magic and gotten me a two-week, hands-on internship with the Benton Police Department. The man that I was going to be shadowing, Loki Rector, had been a detective there for twenty plus years now.

  Hopefully, I was going to find my place in life while I was down there.

  There were other things that I thought I might find there besides my path in life. New friends. A house. Things to that effect.

  All sorts of things could be found.

  But what I didn’t expect to find was what landed right in my lap.

  Which happened to be just about the worst thing that could ever happen to me.

  A serial killer turned stalker.

  Only I could find that.

  Chapter 2

  I’m not saying that your perfume is too strong, but the goddamn dog was alive before you walked in the door.

  -Things you shouldn’t say to a person who’s wearing too much perfume.

  Kayla

  The first week wasn’t bad. Not at all.

  In fact, I kind of liked the forensics aspect of the investigation process.

  What I didn’t like was the whole hurry up to do nothing aspect.

  However, since those were the ups and downs of the job, I didn’t think that it much mattered that I didn’t like all the paperwork.

  The second week, however, was what convinced me that I wasn’t cut out for this job.

  It all started out as a fairly normal day.

  Until the second a shit storm started to rage, shitting lightning down on top of the shit parade that was shitting on the streets of Benton.

  I was dressed in my mandatory ‘citizen’ t-shirt. The bulletproof vest that I was also required to wear was on the seat in my car, and I’d slip that on once I got out of the car at the station.

  I walked into the station, shrugged on my vest, and headed straight for Loki’s office.

  He was waiting for me and stood up grabbing his field kit the moment I walked in the door.

  I frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked the moment I got a good look at his face.

  “Bad shit, KK,” he said, using the nickname he started calling me the first day of my apprenticeship.

  Apparently, I said ‘k’ a lot, and because of that and the fact that my name began with a K, he dubbed me ‘KK’ within a few hours after I’d started.

  Which led to now.

  “What kind of bad shit?” I questioned.

  “The kind of bad shit that involves multiple murders. Those murders connected to a vast array of other murders that started in Florida and are making their way, state-by-state, here. They got to us this morning. Well, last night, technically,” he answered.

  I bit my lip.

  “So, you’re thinking what…that it’s a serial killer here?” I clarified.

  He nodded once. “Don’t just think it, I know it. You’ll see why I say that when we get to the scenes.”

  “Scenes,” I said.

  He nodded. “Ready?”

  I swallowed, not sure that I was. But I wouldn’t give up. Not at the first sign of bad stuff.

  I had to know if I could handle this, and how would I know if I never exposed myself to it?

  “Ready,” I confirmed as I fell into step beside him.

  I honestly thought I was, too.

  At least, I thought I was until I arrived at the first murder scene.

  They say you’ll never forget seeing your first dead body.

  I knew for a fact I never would.

  Why?

  Because he was chopped into a billion, cagillion, tiny little pieces.

  Starting with the tips of his toes.

  Then he was lined up perfectly, as if someone was putting the pieces of a puzzle back together.

  At first, I wasn’t too sure what the hell it was I was looking at.

  Then, it all hit me, and my belly revolted.

  One second, I was standing in a bedroom staring at what was once a very alive human being, and the next I was on my knees in the grass puking my guts up.

  I’d had pancakes, too.

  At least they tasted semi-decent coming back up.

  The moment my stomach was empty, I stood up, then put my hands on the back of my head as I tried to breathe through my nose, and out through my mouth.

  I closed my eyes and then realized too late that that was the wrong thing to do. Especially when I only replayed that scene in my head over and over again.

  “You okay?”

  I looked up to see a crime scene tech staring at me.

  “Yeah,” I croaked. “Peachy.”

  He grinned. “I’ll have to take your word for it, I guess. Because honestly, you don’t look peachy.”

  I shrugged and wiped my mouth on my wrist, then turned on my heels to head back inside.

  I could do this. I could do this.

  I chanted that to myself as I made my way back inside, stopping in the living room, just beyond the large pool of blood laying underneath the desecrated body.

  The only thing that was bigger than about four inches was the man’s scalp, which sat on top of his fucked-up head.

  “God, this had to have taken at least a day,” I observed. “He’d have had to have used a bone saw to cut all of this up so precisely. And he has to have done this before, otherwise it wouldn’t have been done so neatly.”

  “I agree,” Loki said at the same time a man cleared his throat from behind us.

  I looked over my shoulder to see a man standing there.

  “Hello,” I found myself saying.

  The man smiled. “I’m Lynn, the FBI agent on this case. Tell me what’s going on?”

  I didn’t bother opening my mouth again.

  Stupidly I berated myself for talking when I should’ve kept silent. I was nothing here, an observer

  Plus, this agent didn’t look too happy to see me.

  I knew when to shut up—and this was one of those times.

  “What’s going on is this is the first of three victims we’ve found. Also, the freshest.” Loki paused. “The other two are in more advanced stages of decomposition as compared to this one.”

  My stomach roiled again.

  I guess I was glad that he’d taken me to this scene first.

  This one didn’t even smell yet.

  Although that was likely due to the fact that it was colder than a witch’s tit outside, and it hadn’t gone above forty degrees in the last three days—which was unprecedented for Louisiana, apparently.

  It just so happened that not only was the home’s heat not on, but also the back door had been left open. It was almost like a freezer inside, which no doubt helped to preserve the body.

  “Who was the first on scene?” Agent Lynn asked.

  Loki pointed at a young rookie cop, who looked so baby-faced that I thought he might be even younger than me.

  “Stol,” Loki said to the rookie. “Tell the agent what he needs to know.”

  Stol looked terrified to be left alone with the Agent, and I would, too.

  Especially with the way he looked so angry.

  Loki looked unaffected, however.

  “Do you know him?” I asked when Loki made his way up to my side.

  “Lynn? He’s the uncle of a man in the Alabama chapter of the Dixie Wardens MC,” he answered. “I’ve seen him a few times. He does work this area, however. When I see him—which isn’t all that often—it’s business related.”

  “Is he always so scary looking?” I questioned, looking at the agent over my should
er.

  Loki’s lips twitched. “He’s not that bad. Just stressed this time, I would think. You’ve heard about this,” he gestured to the scene behind him, and I couldn’t help it. I looked. Then immediately felt bile start to rise again. “He’s the head of all this. They assigned this case to him about three months ago when the murders first started.”

  I swallowed convulsively. “I’m going to have to leave again.”

  He gestured to the door with his head, and I went without having to be told twice.

  The moment I felt the cool, fresh air on my face, the bile started to lower.

  “Yo, Ayers,” Loki said, startling me. “Would you grab her a bottle of water from the trunk?”

  Ayers, who happened to be the crime scene tech that asked about my well-being earlier, turned and rounded Loki’s SUV. Coming back, he handed me the bottle of water. “Just to say, you don’t have a trunk, sir.”

  Loki snorted. “Whatever.”

  The crime scene tech walked away, but he kept his eyes on me as he moved to a more remote part of the yard where he and another tech were going over some information.

  “You normally ask the techs to do your bidding?” I asked sweetly.

  Loki pulled out his phone and started to tap out a text message. “One who isn’t a newbie? No. That guy is new, though. Been here about a week and a half at most. He’s still earning his place with me.”

  I rolled my eyes, then opened the bottle and started to drain it.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to ever unsee what I saw today,” I told him. “Is this normal?”

  “People being cut up into little bite-sized pieces?” He rose a brow in question.

  I nodded, even though the thought of a body being ‘bite-size’ was laughable. Especially when it came to a human body.

  I choked on my last swallow of water, then pulled it away from my face and tried to breathe past the burn.

  “Please,” I said carefully through half-filled lungs. “Don’t ever mention anything pertaining to a body as being ‘bite-sized’ within my earshot again.”

  Loki grinned. “You’re going to have to grow a thicker skin to do this job. There are things that you’ll see that will be worse than this. Not much. Your first dead kid? It’ll break your fucking heart. Seeing an adult cut up into pieces doesn’t begin to register on the horror scale when you’ve seen a baby who’s been killed…”

  “Okay.” I held up my hand. “I get it.”

  “So have you found your life’s work?” he questioned.

  I shook my head. “I’m finishing the two weeks, man. But I gotta admit…I don’t think I’m digging this for my everyday life.”

  Loki snorted and moved a little farther away to answer his phone, which started to ring in his hand, and I studied the house that we’d just come out of.

  It was one of those trendy farmhouses. One that looked like it was straight out of a magazine. The house was white, and a wraparound white front porch dominated the entire front of it. There were beautifully maintained flower beds and a cute little walkway with flower beds lining the entire length of it.

  There was an apple tree in front and even a white picket fence.

  I frowned.

  “Where’s the woman who lives here?” I asked.

  Loki looked at me.

  “Woman?”

  I nodded. “The woman. A man—the one that was, you know, chopped up?”

  He nodded.

  “He wouldn’t have a house like this. Not with that truck. It’s a work truck. A woman has to live here. Her car’s probably inside the garage.” I gestured to the garage on the side of the house.

  Frowning, Loki walked around the back side of the house where the detached garage was located.

  “Our records show that only a man lives here,” he said as he walked. “Only mail that comes here is addressed to the man.”

  I shrugged. “A man like that doesn’t have this kind of house, with those kind of flowerbeds, without either being gay or having a woman around. They just don’t care.”

  Loki opened his mouth to say something but stopped when we came to the garage door and looked inside. There was, indeed, a car in the garage. A cute one with a metal angel hanging from the rearview mirror. There was also a red sticker on the rear window of the car declaring her a ‘whino.’

  “Fuck,” Loki said, turning around and walking back toward the front of the house.

  Again, I followed him.

  “There’s a woman here somewhere,” Loki called as he rounded the corner. “Find her.”

  “No woman, boss,” came the rookie’s reply. “We’ve canvassed the house. The garage only has a car in it. Assumed it was the man’s.”

  “Not the man’s.” Loki shook his head. “It was a woman’s.”

  Then he went on to explain what he’d found. “So either she’s missing and was taken from here, or she’s here. Either way, we need to know who she was. Ayers, after you and your team canvas that garage, let me know so I can get the VIN number.”

  Ayers looked like he’d rather go home, something he was in the process of doing when Loki discovered the car in the garage. But at Loki’s request, he came back and started to pick through his bag.

  “You’ve got a good eye.”

  I looked over at Loki.

  “What?”

  “An eye for detail. You’ve got one. I saw the landscaped yard but assumed it was the man that liked it nice. You’re right, though. I like my yard to look nice, but I damn sure wouldn’t be planting pink and purple flowers or putting all those gnomes and shit on my front porch,” he expounded.

  I grinned. “Janie tells me that I have an ‘intellectual mind for detail.’”

  He nodded. “Let’s go see what we can find.”

  ***

  What we ended up finding wasn’t the woman. We found a lot of blood, and a whole trash bag full of her shit shoved into not one, not two, but three of the neighbors’ trashcans. It was almost as if the killer had tried to erase the fact that she was ever there. He couldn’t take it all with him, so instead he discarded it off the premises in an attempt to hide her presence.

  The only question was…why?

  It was everyone’s hope that since this was the freshest crime scene, the murder only happening a few hours prior, that this new clue would shine some light on what else we’d been missing.

  Unfortunately, there was no way to compare it with the other murders since their trash had already been picked up and there were no other signs that women had been living with those victims. But, all of the houses were a lot like this victim’s house. Almost as if they had a woman’s touch but without a woman actually living there.

  Meaning that the killer was clearly adept at hiding this shit, but something must have spooked him or caused him to slip up at his last victim’s house.

  Chapter 3

  Some people become doctors and lawyers. I just spent six minutes trying to figure out how to open a box of macaroni.

  -Kayla to Janie

  Kayla

  I was deep in my head, replaying the images of the man who’d been chopped to bits and then reassembled like a freakin’ jigsaw puzzle when Janie’s angry voice filled my head.

  “I’ve literally done everything I can think of,” Janie dropped down into the recliner like a stone hitting water.

  The chair rocked back and hit the wall, and Rafe walked into the room to see what had just happened.

  “Don’t worry,” I said teasingly. “She didn’t just deliver your child and let it drop to the floor.”

  Rafe flipped me off and left, leaving Janie and I alone again. The two dogs at Janie’s side got up and decided to follow him. My guess was in an attempt to get away from Janie’s incessant whining.

  “You’re like a day and a half past your due date. You’ve literally got like twelve more days before you’ll be induced? Seriously, get the fuck over it.”

 
Janie threw the remote at me, and it hit my book.

  I flipped her off, then went back to my book.

  “Will you go walk around the block with me?” she requested.

  I sighed. “Can I listen to my book?”

  Janie shrugged. “I guess. Which one are you listening to?”

  So, that was how Janie and I ended up walking around the block listening to my latest BDSM book by one of my favorite authors.

  “Do you think it’s possible to have your nipples pulled off?” Janie asked questioningly.

  “Well,” I said, slightly distracted. “Yes, and no. The clamps he has on her nipples probably would just rip the tip off if it came down to that, but not her entire nipple. No book I’m ever going to read will have that. This girl has her shit together. She knows real BDSM.”

  “I’m not even going to ask how you know what real BDSM is.” She snickered.

  I sighed and paused my phone, knowing without a doubt that she wasn’t going to let me listen to it anymore. Not when she got to this point.

  I was lucky to get fifteen minutes out of her.

  I should be thankful I even got that.

  “I was curious,” I explained. “I read a book that really got my wheels turning, and you know how I get.”

  I could never let anything go until I knew everything there was to know about it.

  It’s why I couldn’t find something that I truly wanted to do.

  I hadn’t had that incessant need to know everything about it yet.

  One day, I’d find my thing, and then I’d have to know everything about it.

  “I still think you should borrow that money from the trust fund your father started for you,” she said. “And open that bakery and bookstore.”

  I kind of agreed with her.

  But the money that my dad left me had to be used for something special. Something that I could put my all into. And I wasn’t a baker.

  “I suck at baking cookies,” I told her. “The only thing I can make are breads. Anything other than that—such as cupcakes—take too much time. I’d never have time to read then.”

  And reading was important to me. Whatever else I did in life, I had to have time to read.

  Reading was an escape that I could do from the comfort of my own home. Or Janie’s home. Or the damn doctor’s office.