Chapter 2
Mateo pushed open the door to the tiny, one-bedroom apartment where he lived alone.
Removing his tie, he grimaced at the bleak scene confronting him.
The plain black furniture along with matching glass tables had come with the place, and every inch of the white walls remained bare.
He missed the yellow paint and mismatched picture frames from the home he’d shared with his family.
He missed his wife’s sewing displayed through the living room—pillows, throw blankets, and doilies.
Mateo missed his daughter’s toys left haphazardly in the corners of various rooms. He longed for the scents of laundry detergent, home-cooked meals, and fresh-mown grass.
The four-bedroom house still belonged to him, but sat empty and unused for the past year.
Grief had made it impossible for him to live there alone, so he’d rented an apartment in the city closer to work.
This case had become his life, and he now centered his every waking moment around this and his other assignments.
With a fresh kill, this case would be pushed to the top of his pile for the time being.
He was glad for it, even if it meant someone had to die to bring about some progress.
Mateo had stopped feeling guilty over such thoughts a long time ago.
Progress came with its share of unpleasantness.
Trailing into his bedroom, he pulled an empty duffel bag from the closet and tossed it onto the bed, which he’d neglected to make that morning. Glancing at one of the two framed photos he kept on his nightstand—the only concession to decorating he’d made—he smirked.
“I know, Mari,” he murmured to his wife’s smiling face. “Messy bed, messy day.”
Mari had insisted that one couldn’t start their day properly without making the bed.
To leave it undone was tantamount to blasphemy in their house, and he’d often rolled his eyes at her nagging.
What he wouldn’t give to have her here now, badgering him in that endearing mixture of English and Spanish that she fell into when she was annoyed.
Mateo made quick work of making the bed, smoothing and tucking the sheets before straightening the pillows and comforter.
Then, he packed for the trip. He threw a few days’ worth of clothes into the duffel.
It didn’t take him long to finish, putting a pre-packed bag of travel-size hygiene items on top along with his phone charger, before zipping it shut.
Closing his laptop, he slipped it into its bag and set it beside the duffel.
Checking his personal cell phone, he found that he still had a little over two hours before his flight was scheduled to depart. As he lived near the airport, he didn’t anticipate a long drive. A quick catnap before the trip might do him some good.
Stretching out, he reached for the second of the framed photographs—this one of him and his daughter.
A raw ache consumed him at the sight of it.
Mari had taken the picture during a day at the park.
The candid image always made him smile, this instance being no exception.
He stood beneath a massive tree with swings and playground equipment in the background.
Arms stretched up, he was reaching out to catch Angelica, who he’d thrown into the air a few seconds before the image was taken.
Her dark hair flew around her face, and her eyes—which were big and brown like his—were closed against the bright sun.
Her olive-brown skin seemed to glow from happiness.
But it was her smile that always got to him.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen a happier child.
That had been before, of course. Now, on the few occasions he spoke with his daughter over the phone, she sounded sullen and barely responded.
Angelica, being only six years old, didn’t comprehend the reasons she’d been sent away—only knowing that her father seemed not to want her around anymore after her mother’s death, which couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
But how could he make a six-year-old understand?
His throat burned, and the hand clutching the frame trembled with the force of everything he was holding back.
The more time that passed, the more he began to feel as if he had lost her, too.
One day, when he finally brought her home, she would resent him for leaving her behind while they were both still grieving Mari.
It’s for her safety. You couldn’t stand back and let him have her, too.
He told himself this over and over until he fell asleep, the framed photo held tight against his chest.
Mateo’s heart dropped as he approached the white, two-story Colonial-style house he lived in with his family.
The painted red door hung open, crooked on its hinges, as if someone had kicked it in.
Drawing his sidearm, he raised it, forcing himself to rely on years of training as opposed to rushing in half-cocked.
His blood raced, creating a roaring sound in his ears and a hum in his extremities.
The urge to go tearing through the house screaming Mari’s name was strong, but it could get him killed, so he tamped it down.
The phone call he had answered on his way home from the airport had sent him speeding to make it on time, running no less than a dozen red lights along the way.
“There is more at work than blood here, Agent,” the rasping voice of the UNSUB had whispered in his ear.
“More than the breaths of life and death. But you know that already, don’t you?
You think this will end with her? You haven’t even begun to see the shape of it yet, the sheer scope of it. But you will.”
The UNSUB ended the call before Mateo could respond, the click over the line like the battering of the final nail in a coffin.
Mateo could do nothing but drive and call up Smith to order a SWAT team sent to his address.
There wasn’t a second to be spared. If by some miracle Mari was still alive, Mateo needed to get to her.
The stillness that had settled over the place seized Mateo around the heart, gripping until he could feel every individual beat. He assessed what he could see of the downstairs before flicking his gaze back to the staircase.
Somehow, he just knew.
His wife wasn’t in any of the first-story rooms of the house, and the UNSUB had not allowed her to live.
He made his slow way up the staircase, craning his neck to ensure no one would surprise him from the landing.
Once upstairs, he bypassed his daughter’s room and the guest room, his gaze fixated on the French doors of the one he shared with Mariana.
One of the doors hung open, and he stepped toward it, gun trained on the opening.
He glanced down to find swirls of something black on the ground.
Without taking his gaze, or the gun, off the door, he knelt and reached down.
His stomach roiled as he came back up with a fistful of hair.
There were locks of it everywhere, littering the carpet and leading straight to the bedroom door—along with even more blood. The buzzing ceased, as well as the humming in his veins. Now, he felt nothing, heard nothing, as he lumbered into the room.
Mateo supposed he might have gasped or sobbed … something. But he couldn’t be certain when the only sense he seemed capable of was sight—standing there and staring, wide-eyed, at the corpse splayed out on the bed.
Stripped of all her clothes, she lay with her limbs spread to each corner of the mattress, rough ropes binding her wrists and ankles.
Like the previous victims, a knife had been scraped over her scalp, taking bits of skin and leaving behind wounds that trickled blood to the pillows.
More of her blood soaked the sheets, spilling from the pentagram carved into her lower abdomen and the deep wounds along her limbs, the two on her inner thighs the deepest.
Death by exsanguination. Mateo could smell her blood, its metallic tang mixing with something else in the air that made his stomach roil and his throat clench.
The stench of death. It didn’t matter how many battlefields he had fought on overseas, or how many crime scenes he had investigated.
Nothing could singe a man’s nostril hairs like the smell of death.
The pools of her blood hypnotized him, and he found himself unable to look away.
It trickled down her arms and legs in rivers of crimson.
Her hands were a mess, reddened and displaying several gashes.
One of her fingernails had torn clear off its bed.
If someone could examine the UNSUB, they’d likely find scratch marks marring his neck and face.
Mateo’s limbs gave out, and he fell across her torso, arms curling around her to pull her against his body.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he shouldn’t be touching her.
He’d likely obliterated any forensic evidence, but he was beyond thinking about protocol.
All he knew was that she’d died painfully, afraid, and fighting. And he hadn’t been here.
“Mari …”
His voice broke off on a sob, and suddenly, he could feel. The agony tore through him, visceral and deep, as he cradled her head in one hand and her back in the other and began to weep.
Coming awake with a jolt, Mateo clenched the object held against his chest. He registered splintering glass and winced, setting it aside. He lifted his throbbing hand and cringed at the sight of blood running down the side of it. He’d cracked the frame in his sleep and cut himself.
He had slept for only half an hour, leaving him with plenty of time to finish getting ready for his flight.
In the bathroom, he grabbed the nearest towel and used it to apply pressure to the shallow cut, which stopped the bleeding quickly.
Thankfully, it wasn’t deep enough to need stitches.
It would be no more than an annoyance he would forget once he set his mind on something else.
Unfortunately, the thing foremost in his mind was the one thing he didn’t want to dwell on. Dreams of finding Mari murdered in their house—in the bed where he’d made love to her and slept beside her night after night—always hit him hardest.
His fault, all of it.
His arrogance had cost him dearly. He had thought himself untouchable, bolstered by his perfect record.
No UNSUB had ever felt like a real threat to him or anyone he loved.
They were simply bad guys who needed to be hunted down and removed from society.
He’d had so much faith in his own skill that he had failed to see his own weak points, how he could be targeted and destroyed by an UNSUB with an obsessive personality and a grudge.
Mateo still couldn’t puzzle out why the UNSUB would target Mariana instead of coming after him directly.
If the killer thought Mateo was getting too close, getting rid of him would be an expedient solution to the problem.
But then, Mateo had spent months developing the profile and understood the UNSUB’s sadistic nature.
He wanted Mateo to know that death wasn’t the worst form of retaliation in his arsenal.
He didn’t want Mateo dead, he wanted him scared, cowering, and off-balance. He wanted a game of cat and mouse.
Glancing at himself in the mirror, Mateo scowled. He was sporting days’ worth of stubble, and his sweat-glistened skin gleamed pale in the bathroom light. His black hair lay plastered against his forehead and neck, and his pupils had dilated until he could barely make out the brown irises.
He looked like hell.
Pulling his shirt off over his head, he switched on the shower.
While waiting for the water to heat, he made quick work of running his clippers over his jaw—he didn’t mind the stubble, so he simply trimmed it down, making him look more rugged and less bedraggled.
While shaving, he tried to avoid the stare of his wife, whose image had been tattooed onto his left pec almost eight months ago.
He’d sat for the portrait in one sitting, numb to the pain as the artist traced out her features with impressive skill.
He had gotten the tattoo to remember her as she once was, but looking at it proved a poor substitute for having her with him in person.
The artist was one of the best in LA—he’d gone home to have the artwork done, not trusting anyone in D.C.
to do it right. But no one could capture the sweetness of her true smile or that sparkle in her eye.
They were gone, wiped off the face of the earth along with her soul.
Looking at the portrait was both soothing and tortuous.
The piping hot water of the shower stung his skin as he stepped under the shower, but he welcomed the sensation, closing his eyes and allowing it to loosen his tense muscles.
He thought back to the case and this latest victim in Arkansas while he washed.
There had to be something at this crime scene—something for them to go on to finally nail this bastard.
He quickly dressed and combed his hair, then did a quick sweep of the room to ensure he wasn’t forgetting anything.
Faltering, he doubled back and scooped up his photos of Mariana and Angelica.
Removing them both from the frames, he tucked them into the front pocket of the bag before making a quick exit.