Chapter 14
The bedroom was drenched in blood.
Not just a little. Not contained to one side. It was everywhere. The walls were spattered in dark, uneven arcs, and the floor was slick with it, smeared into footprints and dragged streaks. Even the curtain by the window was dotted and streaked.
Reid was on the bed.
Or at least… parts of him were.
His naked body had been hacked up with a force that spoke of either furious frenzy or complete, terrifying detachment.
Maybe both. One arm hung off the mattress, fingers curled like they’d locked there, and his torso was split open in places.
The bed beneath him had gone almost entirely red, saturated in a way that made the sheets look almost black in patches.
And his head…
My gaze snagged on it before I could stop it. It had rolled off the side of the bed and come to rest on the floor, face turned toward the door. Eyes still open. Mouth slack.
Sloane’s body was closer to the door, just a few feet from where I stood.
She was on her back, one leg bent awkwardly under her, the other stretched out. She was wearing the cream-colored sweater I'd seen her in earlier and nothing below the waist but blue panties. Her black leggings were in a bunched heap near her left foot, along with a crumpled pile of men’s clothing.
Her head was tilted slightly to the side, in a way that would've looked almost peaceful if not for the deep, savage slice that went all the way across her throat.
There were dark arterial sprays across the floorboards, and across the lower wall, a fine mist was mixed with thicker streaks where it had hit and run down.
The front of her sweater was drenched, most of the cream knit turned a heavy, rusted red that spread down her chest and pooled beneath her shoulders. There was even more blood on the floor beneath her legs. My eyes dragged lower and caught a second wound; a deep gash high on her thigh.
The floor suddenly lurched, or at least it felt like it did. I shot one hand out against the doorframe and bent forward, my whole body seizing with a single violent retch that brought nothing up. I gasped and retched again, stomach clenching hard.
“Hey.” Rhys’s hand landed between my shoulder blades, firm and steady. “Just breathe.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on the pressure of his hand and the air going in and out of my lungs. The nausea rolled in waves, cresting and slowly pulling back.
After a long moment, I straightened up. My legs still felt weak, so I kept one hand on the doorframe. “We… we have to get the others,” I managed to choke out, voice raw.
“Wait.” Rhys’s hand shifted to my shoulder, grip tightening slightly. “We should take photos for the cops like we did with Delia. Before everyone else comes and tramples all over everything.”
I swallowed hard. He was right.
“It’s okay,” he went on. “I can do it. You can just wait out in the sitting room.”
For a second, I almost said yes. Almost turned away. Then I shook my head and forced myself to turn back to the horror. “It’ll go faster if we both do it,” I said.
“Are you sure?” he asked, eyes flashing with concern.
I swallowed again. Then I nodded. “I’ll take this side,” I said, weakly gesturing to the left. “You take the other.”
“Okay.” He set his ax down to lean against the wall behind him and pulled his phone out. “Quick as we can.”
I dragged my own phone out with trembling fingers. Then I forced myself to move.
I edged along the wall, picking each step carefully. Dark patches were spread across the floor, thick and uneven where Sloane’s blood had pooled and started to tack. My shoe almost caught once, peeling free with a soft, sticky sound that made my stomach lurch again.
Don’t think about it. Just do it, I told myself, sucking in another deep breath.
I raised my phone and took the first photo.
Click.
Another.
Click.
And another.
Across from me, Rhys moved with a steady focus. He circled the bed slowly, angling his phone, crouching slightly to get different shots.
“I don’t know if this will make you feel any better,” he said, looking over at me a moment later. “But I don’t think Sloane suffered for long. That cut on her leg… if it hit the femoral, she would’ve been gone in under a minute.”
It didn’t make me feel any better.
Rhys grimaced faintly and turned back to Reid’s body. “I just don’t understand how none of us heard anything,” he said. “This building isn’t exactly close to the rest, but we still should’ve heard something, right?”
“Maybe not,” I said softly, forcing myself to look at the room again. Really look at it, like it could tell me something.
Rhys glanced up again, head tilting slightly. “What are you thinking?”
I hesitated, then let my gaze track over the details again, trying to line them up into something that made sense.
“I think they came in here to hook up,” I said slowly. “Just like we all thought. Their clothes are right near the door, so they didn’t even make it to the bed before they started taking them off.”
Rhys followed my line of sight, then nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Then I guess they finally made it to the bed,” I went on, my voice a little steadier now. “They were both drinking beer tonight, but I think Reid drank a lot more. So he could’ve passed out right after they finished.”
“So he’s out. Completely gone.”
“Yeah.” My eyes shifted back to Sloane’s body.
“I think she got up after that. Maybe she wanted to leave? Or maybe she just wanted to go to the bathroom. Either way, it looks like she was over here getting dressed.” I paused, gesturing to the leggings near her left foot.
“That could be when the killer came in.”
“So you think he went for her first?”
“Yeah. And he must’ve done it fast to avoid making too much noise,” I said. “He probably cut her throat first, so she couldn’t scream. Just… choke. Or gasp.”
“And that wasn’t loud enough to wake Reid,” Rhys said, rubbing his jaw. “So that would explain why he didn’t jump up and try to defend her.”
My gaze dropped to Sloane’s leg again. “While she was struggling with the throat wound… that could be when the killer stabbed her in the thigh. Then I guess he left her to bleed out while he went over to the bed,” I said, pointing to the large, bloodied shoeprints crossing the room.
Rhys moved again, angling his phone toward Reid’s head. “He could’ve woken Reid up right before he attacked him,” he said. “That could be why his eyes are open.”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. All the pieces seemed to be fitting together now. “Reid probably woke up, saw the killer looming over him, and opened his mouth to yell, but he never got a chance to do it because the ax came down then.”
Rhys rose to his feet and looked around the room again. Then his gaze snapped back to me. “I think you’re onto something,” he said. “It all seems to fit. And it would explain why neither of them made a sound. Or at least not enough for any of us to realize something was happening.”
“Exactly.” I pressed my lips into a thin line and forced myself to keep moving, lifting my phone for a few more shots.
A moment later, I looked back over at Rhys again. “I think I’m done with the photos.”
“Same. I got a bunch of the shoeprints. That should help the cops later.” His gaze tracked slowly around the room again, jaw tight. “Before we go, we should take a closer look. See if there’s anything the killer left behind. Hair, fingerprints on the wall… anything.”
I nodded, swallowing hard as I shifted my focus from the bigger horrors to the smaller details. A moment later, something on Sloane’s head snagged my attention.
“I think there’s something in her hair,” I said, squinting. It was hard to make out through the blood, but there was a thin, dark shape tangled in the strands. “Maybe a thread? It could’ve dropped off the killer’s clothes.”
Rhys stepped closer, brows furrowing. “I can’t tell from here.” He hesitated for half a second, then crouched. “Hold on.”
He reached out and carefully plucked it free. Then he exhaled through his nose. “Just a pine needle.”
“Oh.” My stomach sank a little. “Damn.”
“Actually, it’s probably a good thing that it was nothing,” he said, lifting his hand to show me the smear of blood on his index finger. “I’m not wearing gloves. So if that had been evidence, I would’ve contaminated it.”
“Good point.”
“If we spot anything else, we can look for plastic bags in the bathroom,” he added. “That way we can store it before everyone tramples all over everything.”
I made a faint sound of acknowledgement as I dragged my gaze away and scanned the room again, forcing myself to keep searching. There had to be something. Anything.
A faint glint suddenly caught my eye from beneath the bed.
“Hey, look,” I said, stepping carefully around the darker patches on the floor to avoid the killer’s bloody shoeprints. “There’s something under there.”
Rhys moved beside me and crouched, leaning down to get a better look. He was so close now that his shoulder was brushing mine.
“See?” I said, pointing. “It looks like some sort of glass vial. Or plastic. Maybe it’s something drug-related?”
“That could explain why the killer was so frenzied,” he muttered, nodding.
He leaned in even closer, almost sticking his head right under the bed. Then he let out a quiet, disappointed breath. “It’s just one of those perfume sample things you get from department stores,” he said. “Mabry must’ve dropped it when she was packing her stuff, and it rolled under here.”
I suddenly couldn’t speak. Not because I was so disappointed at the lack of evidence, but because I couldn’t stop staring at the nape of his neck. There was a small fleck there. Dark brownish-red.
Dried blood.
My mind whirled. I knew he’d gotten some blood on his hand when he pulled that pine needle from Sloane’s hair, and I’d seen him absentmindedly rub the back of his neck earlier, like he always did.
But…
He did that before he touched her hair. Didn’t he? Or was I misremembering?