2. Dove
Two Months Earlier
“Do do do do do do do.”
I snap my head toward Fang, my sweet baby puppers, and point a freshly manicured, watermelon-themed nail at him, doing my best Terry Crews impression.
“And I need you,” I belt, harmonizing—badly—with Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles .
Fang lets out a long, suffering groan and buries his furry face beneath a paw, wiggling deeper into my tufted blush duvet.
“Aww, baby boy, is my singing that bad?” I croon, abandoning my morning routine at my makeup vanity. Crossing the room, I scoop him up and nuzzle our noses together. “Pep up, buttercup! You’re giving Monday moods, and it’s Thirsty Thursday!”
His tufted tail wags as he licks the tip of my nose.
“That’s more like it, baby boy!” I beam, tucking him against my side as I stride over to my calendar. “We have no work tomorrow, tequila and tacos tonight, and on Saturday…”
I shift Fang slightly, freeing up a hand to tap the neon pink circle marking this weekend.
“…it’s meat processing day.”
A shimmery sticker of a pink fluffy cat wearing a blue bowtie sits squarely on the eighteenth.
The last day Jefferey Nills will see the beautiful, buttery sun.
Who is Jefferey Nills, you ask?
Only the worst type of man alive—the kind who preys on little girls.
The kind who will writhe in agony as I slowly remove his penis and make him watch while I slice it into strips to dehydrate for my sweet puppy.
“So much fresh meat this week,” I sing, grinning as I return Fang to my bed to finish getting ready for work.
Outside, New York is already alive and bustling this brilliant summer morning. Even my early-2000s playlist can’t drown out the city’s sunrise theme song: impatient taxi horns, people shouting into their mobile phones, footsteps pounding against the pavement in a mad rush to get to work.
Life here is chaotic, and I love it.
After all, chaos is my middle name.
No, seriously. My parents hated me.
Allow me to introduce myself.
I’m Dove Chaos Carroway, Senior Investigative Journalist—S.I.J., for short—at Metro Media . I’m five feet even, obsessed with the color pink, and spend my weekends luring men into hotel rooms under the guise of being an underage girl so I can brutally mutilate them and turn their privates into jerky for Fang.
Also known as the Baby Doll Killer.
Shh. Don’t tell anyone.
Anyway. Back to the fresh meat.
Metro Media is bringing in a new S.I.J.—someone with impressive references, apparently. Am I happy about some newbie stomping all over my turf? Hard no.
Even harder no because it’s a dude.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not one of those women who hate men. But Metro Media always gets the hottest scoops on the Baby Doll Killer. For good reason, obviously—I write the stories. Everyone at the agency knows those are mine.
If this guy starts poking around?
That might get… tricky for moi .
And it would be such a shame if I had to remove an innocent bystander because he couldn’t keep his nose out of my business.
I’m not above deleting someone from existence if they become a problem.
Swiping on some glittery lip gloss, I add one more coat of black mascara to my already-fluffy lashes before pulling the rollers from my hair. Once it’s fluffed and sprayed to perfection, I dress, make sure Fang has food, and gather my things.
Pausing at the mirror by the front door, I check my reflection.
Every part of me is a carefully constructed facade. A mask. A porcelain veneer painted in pink and blonde and bubblegum sweetness.
A living doll… from your worst nightmares.
Slowly, I press my painted lips into a smile, mentally preparing for another outstanding performance given by yours truly.
“Showtime,” I whisper.
“Book Club this weekend?” Bunny Jones, my best friend and fellow serial killer, asks over the phone as I make my way through the crowded streets .
We’ve been friends since the night we crossed paths going after the same man—to kill, not to fuck.
I specialize in eliminating men who prey on children. Bunny prefers those who abuse women. This particular target happened to do both.
After enduring a brutal marriage to a man who used her as a punching bag, Bunny snapped. One night, all that pent-up feminine rage erupted in a series of lethal blows—delivered with a frozen rump roast straight to her husband’s face until he was nothing but a pile of unrecognizable meat.
And because she’s all of five-two and cute as a button, the authorities chalked it up to a burglary gone wrong. An intruder, they claimed, must have been after whatever her husband had stashed in the safe upstairs.
Conveniently, it turned out to be a fuck ton of money. Plus, he had insane life insurance. Bunny is set for life and doesn’t have to work at all—though she chose to return to what she did before she met him, working as an investigative assistant for the Metro Police Department.
Lucky us.
“Yes, but you’ll have to help me dehydrate. It’s a culling weekend,” I singsong into the speaker, waiting for the little man to light up the crosswalk sign.
“Sounds good. You know me, I love jerky.” Her voice carries a telltale lilt, hinting at a smile. Bunny lives for talking shop in front of her clueless coworkers. “Excited to meet the new guy?”
“Absolutely not,” I reply, grinning as I step into my building and make a beeline for the coffee shop on the ground floor.
Ted, the handsome barista who’s worked here longer than I have, already has my morning mocha ready. Without breaking my call, I scan my employee card. He hands me the cup, and I slip him a five-dollar bill with a wink before heading upstairs.
Like all Tailor Industries buildings, this one boasts top-tier amenities—gourmet food court, a high-end gym, and fully stocked locker rooms. It’s part of why I chose Metro Media as my home base. Employees just scan their card, and any charges get deducted from their paycheck at a super reduced rate.
Happy employees make for lucrative business ventures. And no one is happier than those working under the Tailor Industries umbrella.
“Gotta go—getting in the elevator now.” I press in with the early-arriving masses. “Love you.” I make a kissing noise, waiting for Bunny’s return farewell before hanging up and slipping my phone into my pink Dolce & Gabbana Devotion knockoff.
I sip my iced mocha, savoring the unexpected cinnamon syrup Ted added. The spicy sweetness bursts on my tongue as my thoughts drift to the new guy.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe he’s not here to cover the Baby Doll Killer. Maybe he’s just a nice, standup guy looking to cover other crime avenues. I haven’t written about Bunny’s alias in a while. Perhaps Joe—my boss—wants someone to cover both killers separately to keep site traffic up.
“Morning, Dove,” the man himself greets me as I step off the elevator. His bald head gleams under the office lights, and his bushy gray mustache twitches with the strain of his smile.
“Morning, Joe!” I flash him a wide, toothy grin. “Are you excited about the new guy? I heard he comes highly recommended.” My voice drips with honey as we weave through the maze of cubicles toward my small office.
Multiple people smile and greet me as we pass. To an outsider, it probably looks like I’m the boss and Joe’s my assistant. Metro Media was failing, and the big bosses were threatening to close it down when I swooped in and revived it like a phoenix from the ashes.
My stories on the Baby Doll Killer captivated a new, obsessed audience. True crime junkies live for my exclusives. Since I have the inside scoop, I put us on the map as far as online media goes .
“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Joe starts hesitantly. “See, he was originally hired to cover the Shadow Siren, but?—”
“Joe.” My tone stays impossibly cheerful. “If you say the Baby Doll Killer, I’m going to have to pretend I didn’t hear you.”
Dove Carroway is always a bright, pink bundle of joy. No matter her mood.
Sweat glistens on Joe’s pasty forehead. He dabs at it with a blue handkerchief dotted with red hearts as we reach my office. “I know, I know. I told him that’s your area of expertise, but… well, he’s very insistent.”
Leaning in just enough to invade his personal space, I turn the knob and push open my office door. “You’re the boss, Joe. Just tell him no.”
“Here’s the thing, Miss Carroway?—”
A smooth baritone rolls through my office. “I really hate the word ‘no.’”
Startled—and irritated because nothing startles me—I swing my gaze to the man sitting behind my desk.
I blink.
Uh, excuse me? The audacity!
He smiles, and it’s completely devilish. The kind of grin that probably knocks most women flat on their backs.
It does nothing for me.
Rising from my chair, he moves toward us with a slow, calculated gait, extending a hand. He’s tall. Like, really tall. Then again, everyone is tall to me—even with four-inch heels.
“Wrenley Campbell.” His dark brown eyes rake over me, assessing. Judging. I know what he sees—a joke of a woman whose job he’ll have no problem stealing. “Looking forward to working together.”
Oh, Songbird, we won’t be working together at all.
He’s got that lethal combination of sun-kissed skin, dirty blond hair cropped on the sides while the top is styled to perfection, and rich brown eyes with high chiseled cheekbones that would usually make my panties wet. He looks like he belongs on the cover of a high-end magazine. And he knows it.
Confidence drips off him in waves as he sizes me up like he’s the Big Bad Wolf and I’m Little Pink Riding Hood.
I flash him my best smile—the one I use to lure victims to their gruesome deaths.
I shake his hand weakly. Let him underestimate me. Let him believe he can take my job.
It’ll make my victory so much sweeter when he realizes I’m not a woman to be messed with. “Dove Carroway.”
Soon to be your worst nightmare.