Chapter Thirty
The house smelled like Pine-Sol and grief.
Rick stood at the edge of the living room, his back to the foyer, shoes leaving wet marks on the beige carpet.
He forgot to wipe them. Rain dripped from his coat, down his fingers, into the creases of his knuckles.
He watched it bead and fall, a slow, hypnotic rhythm that felt more real than anything else around him.
Mrs Burns was sobbing. Not the wailing kind of grief, not yet; this was the softer, spreading shock that was only beginning to sink. The kind that cracked through silence like glass crushed in a bare hand. Her voice came in wet gasps between the broken sobs, the syllables barely human anymore.
Mr Burns hadn’t spoken. Just sat beside his wife on the couch, his fingers clenched white around her shoulders, jaw flexing with the restraint of a man who wanted to scream or punch through drywall but wouldn’t—not with strangers in the house. Not with his wife falling apart like wet paper.
Frank was crouched in the armchair across from them, murmuring something Rick didn’t catch. Maybe he was saying “I’m sorry” again, or repeating the official facts without giving them the darker details, like it might soften the edges.
Rick didn’t look at them. His gaze was on the framed photo above the fireplace, taken maybe five years ago, a high school graduation portrait.
Sean, in cap and gown, that wide, all-American smile frozen forever.
Brown eyes, a sharp jaw, a mole above the right eyebrow.
Handsome. That’s how he looked when he still had a face to smile with.
That’s what Rick will try to remember, instead of another carved-up corpse discarded like garbage.
Sixth one.
Rick’s jaw ached, but he didn’t remember clenching it.
His tongue felt thick in his mouth, heavy with copper and fury.
He tasted the ghost of last night—Ash’s sweat, Ash’s breath, the low groan he made when Rick had pressed him into the sheets and held him there, skin flushed, trembling beneath him.
But it was distant now. A fever dream slipping through the fingers of the night.
This was reality. This was blood on cold pavement. A mother breaking in real time. A killer who kept getting away. And Rick had been too busy chasing ghosts in another pretty boy’s eyes.
No parent should survive their child.
Frank’s voice cut through the fog. “Do you have someone who can stay with you? A friend, or family nearby?”
“Yes,” the father said, hoarse. “Her sister’s on her way.”
Rick tuned out again. The words were always the same. Shock. Denial. The inevitable turn to why? What kind of monster would do this?
He wished he had an answer. Hell, he wished it was some garden-variety psycho with mommy issues or a head injury and a knife fetish.
But it wasn’t. This one was… methodical.
Deliberate. There was a design to the carnage, a kind of logic Rick could feel pressing at the edges of his brain but couldn’t quite articulate.
He’d seen wolves do less to their prey.
He swallowed hard and felt the heat rise behind his lids, sudden and unwelcome.
No. Not here.
He shoved the feeling down, locked it in that rusted basement in his chest where all the other sorrows lived. There’d be time for guilt later. For now, there was only the hunt.
He turned toward the door, the rustle of his coat whispering faintly. Frank met his eyes across the room and gave a tiny nod. Time to go. Rick nodded back, jaw set, and stepped out into the rain. Let the storm wash him clean.
(9:08 p.m.)
Rain skittered against the windows, smearing the city outside in streaks of black and bleeding neon.
Inside the cramped office, only the desk lamp burned, its amber glow pooling over the scattered files, the empty cups, the beat-up couch in the corner.
Somewhere in the bullpen, a radiator hissed like a serpent preparing to strike.
Rick stood before the murder board, arms folded tight, sleeves rolled to the elbow, jaw clenched so hard it felt fused.
A cigarette smoldered forgotten in the ashtray, sending up a thin ghost of smoke.
His eyes were locked on the gallery of young faces staring back at him in perpetuity.
Beautiful once, now butchered and ruined, their images anchored above crime-scene snapshots and photographs of an arcane mark rendered in blood.
No connections. No goddamn breaks. Only carnage.
Frank paced behind him, scratching absently at his graying temple. The sour tang of cold coffee and drive-thru grease lingered on his suit. “You’ve been staring at that wall for an hour,” he muttered. “You think the bastard’s gonna rearrange himself if you glare hard enough?”
Rick didn’t move. His gaze tracked the taut red threads webbing across the board, linking streets, clubs, witnesses, all leading nowhere. The Sculptor was meticulous. Clever. Always two steps ahead. “At least I’m doing something,” he grumbled.
Frank stopped mid-step. “And what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Rick turned, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “Means it’s better than pacing and bitching.”
Frank’s eyes hardened. “Don’t start with me, Slade.”
“I’m not starting,” Rick snapped. “I’m saying we’re stuck. Spinning our wheels in the same damn mud while some freak’s out there flaying boys for fun.”
Frank closed the distance between them, hands on his hips. “You think I don’t know that? You think I’m sleeping easy?” His voice rose, raw from exhaustion. “The captain’s on my ass, the press are circling, and some of them are starting to suspect these cases are connected.”
Rick exhaled hard, rubbed a hand through his hair. “Fucking Declan Frost.”
Frank gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah. And on top of all that, now I’ve got to keep an eye on you.”
Rick’s head snapped toward him. “Me? What the hell for?”
“You know why.”
Rick’s shoulders tensed. “Ash has nothing to do with this.”
Frank took a slow step forward, the sound muted on the granite. “You sure about that?”
The air between them tightened, stretched to the point of breaking. Rain hammered harder against the glass. Neither man moved. For a long beat, it wasn’t partners in that room anymore—just two cops caught in the crossfire of loyalty and doubt, each too scared to pull the trigger.
The knock at the door came like a gunshot, shattering the moment.
Kitty peeked inside, face apologetic. “Sorry to interrupt, guys. But I think you’ll want to hear this.”
Rick turned to face her. “What’ve you got?”
She stepped in, hesitant. “So, um… I kind of kept digging into Ash Hunter’s background and got hold of his child welfare records. After his adoptive parents died, he was placed with the Swansons—a foster family in Varosha.”
Frank gave a dismissive grunt. “We know this already.”
“Right,” Kitty said, flicking him a glance, “but here’s what you don’t.
About a year after he moved in, their son died.
Nineteen years old, perfectly healthy, no medical history.
The cause of death was listed as organ failure—total systemic collapse.
The autopsy report described his insides as if they belonged to an eighty-year-old man. ”
Rick frowned. “What does that have to do with Ash?”
“He was questioned. They couldn’t prove anything, so it was ruled natural causes.
But after he was released, Ash ran away from the Swansons.
Took off in the middle of the night and never returned.
No school record, no contact. He was still a minor, but he vanished from the system completely.
” She let that hang in the air. Then: “Figured you’d want to know. ”
Rick gave a small nod. “Thanks, dollface.”
Kitty’s mouth tugged at one corner, a brief smile, before she slipped out and closed the door behind her. The rain’s steady percussion filled the gap she left. The silence felt thick enough to choke on.
Frank’s voice came low. “You still gonna tell me he’s clean?”
Rick’s gaze slid to the corner of the board, to Ash’s mug shot—blurry, out of focus, the photo from the first night they brought him in and Rick’s life turned upside down.
“First, his parents,” Frank said, voice cooling further with each word. “Then his foster brother. Death’s got a habit of keeping him close. Now he’s in the middle of a goddamn serial case, and you’re sleeping with him?”
Rick’s mouth tightened. “It’s not—”
“Don’t.” Frank’s gaze held steady. “You’re smarter than this, Slade. Jesus. What the hell’s gotten into you?”
Rick turned toward him slowly, his face grave. “Are you forgetting I’m his fucking alibi? He’s not the killer.”
Frank glared at him. “Then why does everyone near him wind up dead?”
The question hit like a fist to the sternum. Rick felt something give inside, but said nothing.
“You don’t even sound sure,” Frank added, softer now. “Look—I get it. He’s a knockout, and he’s got his hooks in you. You’re not thinking straight. But I’m your partner, Rick. I’ve got your back. Always have. Just… don’t let this blow up in your face.”
Rick’s nod was slow, almost reluctant. “I won’t.”
They stayed there in silence, saying nothing more. Just two tired men watching the rain smear the city beyond the glass, wondering how long before the next body turned up. And they were no closer to stopping it.
Rick stared at the window when his phone chimed, a single note that cut through the silence like a scalpel. He slid it from his pocket, thumb swiping across the screen. It was Schreck.
About goddamn time.
The vampire’s message was short, perfunctory:
‘Tomorrow, 10 p.m. Hyde Cemetery.’
Rick’s gaze flicked to Frank, who was moving toward the desk to grab his coffee, muttering something to himself. He said nothing, slipping the phone into his pocket as if it had never rung at all.
If Schreck was true to his word, which was a gamble in itself, Rick would get some info on the symbol at last—hell, maybe even the killings.
But there was no such thing as a favor from a vampire without a price, and meeting in a cemetery at night felt like an invitation to dig his own grave.
Rick wasn’t naive enough to believe in easy trades.
Not in Calgrave. Yet right now, he’d take whatever light leaked through the seams and hope it would make a difference.
And this one… this one he’d follow alone.