Chapter 5 Abi
ABI
Ijerk awake, dragged out of some pleasant dream and into my dark, disorienting bedroom. My alarm chimes softly beside my bed.
No, it can’t be my alarm. It’s still dark outside.
I roll over, fumbling for my phone. Is someone calling me? Any coroner business goes to the funeral parlor line, not my cell. Something with Penelope or Chloe, maybe? I can’t imagine they’d have the kind of emergency that would warrant calling me in the middle of the night.
I finally grab hold of my phone and roll onto my back, squinting at it in the dark. The screen blurs without my glasses.
And then, with a drop in my heart, I realize what it is.
An alarm, but not my morning alarm. This is the alarm tied to the electronic lock on the back door.
I sit up, my heart pounding, and slide my glasses on.
But then I see the flashing Power Failure notice, and I breathe out, slumping against my headboard.
This is not the first time this shit has happened, and it won’t be the last. Any time the power flickers—and it does surprisingly often, given how old the house is and how much the Gulf wind sweeps across the property—the back door lock has to be reset.
I want to leave it for tomorrow morning. But it’s only midnight, and I can hear Uncle Vic’s voice chiding me: Those bodies are responsibility, Abi. You can’t just leave them vulnerable like that.
I sigh, defeated by my own memories. Then I whip off my blanket and roll out of bed and fumble around on my desk until I find my glasses. The house is quiet, save for the constant, murmuring hum of the AC. Guess the power outage didn’t last long.
“Let’s get this over with,” I mutter, shuffling out into the hallway. I make my way downstairs, where everything feels even more still and quiet, following the narrow hallway until I come to the entrance to the funeral work space in the back of the house. I push the door open.
And freeze.
Something’s wrong. It takes me a second to register what it is, because the work hallway is as still and undisturbed as the rest of the house.
Except that the light is on in the examination room.
The door is closed, so it’s not immediately obvious. But I can see the thin line of brightness reflecting off the hallway tiles. Fear prickles over my skin.
Something probably fell over, I think. And activated the light.
I force myself to ignore the examination room and instead walk over to reset the entrance lock, telling myself I’m being paranoid. We’ve never had a break-in at the Hatch Street Funeral Parlor, and I have no idea why we’d start now.
You were literally investigating a murder this afterno—
Something thumps from the examination room. I whip around, my heart pounding, and stare at the light trickling across the floor.
Silence.
Part of me thinks I should go upstairs and call the police.
Part of me also thinks that’s a stupid fucking idea, because Kaplan’s influence in the sheriff’s department extends to the police department, too.
Neither of them takes me seriously unless they absolutely have to, and a single thump isn’t enough to convince them to come out here, even if my outer lock needs to be reset.
I creep down the hall, my eye on the door to the examination room. If anything looks wrong, I’ll call the cops. But I need to give them something more than a sound.
I push the door open and peer inside. The light floods over everything, but nothing looks out of place. All the refrigeration drawers are shut. My supplies are laid out where I left them earlier, waiting for work to start tomorrow. My office door—
My office door is open.
I always close it. Always. I don’t want anyone seeing my crazy-person red-string map. I always close the examination room door, too, but I can be careless about it. Not so with my office door.
I jerk away and move to run back upstairs. Fuck Kaplan. There’s got to be one cop in this town who’ll do their fucking job.
But I don’t get far. I make it maybe two strides before a gloved hand wraps around my mouth.
I shriek into the soft, supple leather as fear ripples through my body.
My attacker drags me backward, into the examination room, and I flail against him, the familiar space suddenly overwhelming and terrifying.
For a moment, I’m sure he’s going to toss me onto the examination table, but he pulls me past it.
Then he throws me into my office.
I slam against my desk and whirl around as he kicks the door shut, enclosing us together.
For a moment, I just suck in deep breaths of air, staring at him.
He looks like he’s wrapped in shadow: Dressed in head-to-toe black, including the black leather gloves.
His head is wrapped in a hideous, black rubber mask that hides his face and his hair.
The only thing I can see of him, really, is the cruel glint of his eyes.
“I called the police,” I spit out. “They’ll be here any second.”
“No, you didn’t.” His voice is low and graveled, soft behind the latex of the mask. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, all that black rubber twisted into a sneer. If it’s a horror movie character, it’s not one I recognize.
I squeeze my hands around the rim of the desk, chest tight. I don’t think this is a burglar.
“Wh-who are you?” I stammer out, even though I’m pretty sure I know.
It’s him. The killer I’ve been looking for.
He tilts his head, studying me from behind that twisted, leering mask. He doesn’t have a weapon that I can see. No gun. No knife.
But none of his victims were killed with guns or knives, were they?
“What are you doing here?” My voice shakes, and I squeeze the desk tighter, flicking my eyes around, as if I might find some escape out of this coffin of an office.
“What have you been doing here?” he counters, his eyes sliding off me to the map of Rosado County on my wall. “It seems you’re hunting something, little detective.”
I bite back a whimper of terror. “It’s for my work,” I say shakily. “It’s—“
He moves on me, faster than I would have thought possible. His gloved hands wrap around my wrists, and his thigh slides up between my legs to pin me against the desk. My nightgown bunches around my hips. I cry out, too terrified to move, as his dark eyes drink me in from behind the mask.
“It’s not for your work,” he murmurs, his thumb stroking along my wrist, making me shudder a little.
With fear, I tell myself. He’s making me shudder with fear.
Even if there’s a soft coil of heat forming in the place where his leg meets my pussy.
“It’s nothing,” I whisper, staring at his masked face.
He tightens his grip on my wrists. Liar, the gesture says, and I cry out again.
“Tell me what it is,” he growls, leaning closer. The movement makes his thigh shift against me, the rough fabric of his jeans evident through the flimsy cotton of my panties.
“A m-map,” I whisper, his leering mask centimeters from my mouth. “A m-map of Rosado.”
“And what do you have pinned on that map of Rosado?”
I flutter my eyes shut, as if he’ll disappear if I can’t see him. But he’s still there. Still squeezing my wrists. Still pressing his leg, ever so gently, between my legs.
“M-murders,” I whisper.
He sucks in a sharp breath. “I knew you would see me,” he murmurs. “I knew you would get my message.”
My eyes fly open, and he’s still there, dark eyes boring into me.
“You’re him,” I say before I can stop myself.
He nods slowly. One hand slides down my arm.
“I watch the places where I kill,” he says in that soft, almost seductive way. “You went to the hotel. You talked to that pathetic owner.”
I think of Rowan, floppy-haired and sweet, and feel a sudden surge of panic for him.
“Who are you?” I ask, trying to get the conversation away from Rowan. “How did you see me? Do you work there?”
He chuckles. His hand glazes over my shoulder and then wraps softly around my neck.
Terror slams through me, and I scream and try to thrash away from him. But he presses his imposing body up against mine, his strength undeniable. The rim of the desk digs sharply into my lower back, and there’s more force in that than there is in his fingers around my throat.
“I told you,” he says, “I watch the places where I kill. I wait for you to come and investigate, little detective.”
Horror flutters around in my chest. He knows who I am. He knows what I’ve been doing. He’s been watching me—
But the thought evaporates when he presses the twisted mouth of his mask to my lips.
I freeze, too frightened—and too confused, really—to move. He’s kissing me, I think distantly, even if he’s doing it with his mask.
He grunts and pulls away. I swear I see disappointment flash in his eyes.
“What—“ I whisper, and my fear takes on a new angle. “What was that?”
He keeps his hand around my throat as he lets go of my wrist, reaches up, and peels the mask just enough to reveal his mouth.
My mind whirs. Memorize it, I think, staring at his full, soft lips. The surrounding skin is slightly tan, with glints of reddish-black stubble. White male, I think in a blur. At least a foot taller than me. Husky build. There’s nothing else for me to latch onto.
And then he presses his real lips to mine, and I forget everything I was thinking.
It’s not the sloppy, angry kiss I would have expected.
He’s soft. Hesitant. He doesn’t pry my mouth open, only presses his lips to mine, and makes a soft sound in the back of his throat.
It only lasts a few seconds before he pulls away and slides the mask back down, covering that mouth.
He even draws his knee away from between my thighs, and a darkness inside me whimpers at the loss of pressure.
I gape at him. It’s been a long time since I was kissed. A long time since I bothered even trying to find someone to kiss.
But if I did go looking, I’d want someone who would kiss me like that.
“I just wanted to taste you,” he says. “You’ve done so good, finding me.”
I stare at him. Baffled. Terrified.
Turned on.
No. I shove that part of me away, lock it in the darkest part of my brain. No, I am not turned on by this. Not by his rough, soft voice. Not by his gentle kiss. Not even by his validation that I was right this whole fucking time, that those accidental deaths weren’t accidents at all.
“Can I make you come?” he asks softly.
“What?” I wrench away from him, but he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me up so my back presses against his chest. His mask brushes against my ear.
“I want to make you come,” he murmurs. “A reward for finding me.”
“I didn’t find you,” I say, staring at the far wall, feeling hopeless. And not because I’m trapped, either, although that’s what I want to tell myself.
But because there’s a heat between my legs, traitorous and evil, and I almost want to take him up on his offer. Because he asked. He didn’t just take.
“But you did,” he growls in my ear. “You found my messages. You tracked them on your map there. You went looking for me.”
“You found me,” I tell him, shifting like I might get away. I don’t, of course, but I do feel an unfamiliar stiffness press against my ass.
Heat throbs into my clit.
“Yes,” he says, sliding his hand over my belly. “Because I wanted to tell you what a good job you’re doing.”
He stops just before his fingers meet the seam of my legs. I don’t know why he doesn’t just take what he wants. That’s what evil men do. I know that firsthand, don’t I?
“May I touch you?” he asks roughly, his fingers tightening against my belly.
A new heat surges through me. A terrible desire to say yes. When was the last time a man asked to touch me?
“You’re already touching me,” I say. “You kissed me.”
He goes quiet, his hand a searing heat on my belly. “That was a taste,” he says, almost defensively. “I want to touch you.”
“Why?” I twist against him, like I might look at him. What little of him I can see.
“Because you’re beautiful,” he answers.
I rip away from him, my heart pounding. He lets me go, even when I whirl around on him, my hands balled into fists. I can feel him staring at me from behind his mask, his eyes as hot as fire.
“Who are you?” I hiss.
“I am exactly what you think I am,” he responds.
And then he ducks out of the doorway, leaving me alone with my map of his crimes.