Chapter 5 Lie in Wait
Lie in Wait
Never came poison from so sweet a place.
— SHAKESPEARE
COLLINS
There’s something haunting about the misty, windswept town of Shorehaven. Despite its quaint veneer, an underlying melancholy burrows in its bones. It feels solemn.
Tragic, even.
With its soaring Gothic buildings that stand in muted tones of gray and black—cold, chipped, faded—it’s like the town has been carved right from the surrounding stone by the relentless ocean winds.
I pass the high gate abutting a library as timeworn as the other towering, collegiate structures. Overhead, red- and yellow-capped trees form a broken canopy, their branches trembling.
Every morning, I walk the half-mile of the Professor’s Walk from the residence hall to the university—Orion’s umbrella looped around my wrist, just in case—until I reach the stone bench in the West Quad. The spot I’ve claimed as my own for the past three weeks.
Today, the briny scent of sea mingles with the smell of decaying leaves, the air charged with the anxious note of passing time. The hollow tick of the clocktower sounds right before the low rumble of an engine, announcing his arrival.
I set my blond leather briefcase on the ground and cross my ankles.
Flipping open to a page in my book, I keep him in my peripheral vision.
Past the quad and students migrating toward the colonnade, I watch him dismount his bike.
He removes his helmet, swipes a gloved hand through his messy dark hair, and my breath stalls.
As much as you have to fear your target, you have to admire them. Their intelligence. Their skills. Their calculated execution. You have to be a little in love, studying them the way a lover would, memorizing every defining detail. Those qualities that make them unique, even their flaws.
Especially their flaws.
From his hair to his laced-up motorcycle boots, Orion is dressed like the night, those teal eyes that reflect stars and sea the only trace of color.
When he unzips his leather jacket, I notice how the material of his charcoal suit stretches across the muscular definition.
His hair falls over one eye, obscuring the scar along his forehead.
There’s no denying Orion is beautiful. His body, his features. His mind.
Over the past few weeks, our brief encounters have amounted to a handful of lingering glances and fleeting smiles. I’ve expanded my groundwork, learning his habits, his routine, mannerisms. Mimicking him like our very own courting ritual. Small encouragements to bait him.
I don’t pose a threat.
Every exchanged look is a message, so much said in just his eyes, in the tension of his jaw, the subtle curve of his mouth. Every charged, almost brush of contact is a move on our board—like two opponents facing off, inching closer.
Casually, I comb my fingers through my freshly dyed hair. I check my roots daily, keeping two bottles of cool black demi dye stocked. The cyan undertones bring out the teal in my eyes, a small but important detail.
Orion finds meaning in the symmetry of things. Like the birds that flock above the spires, moving in a flowing wave, as if the sky mirrors the ocean.
I turn a page in the book, my thumb grazing the stars dotting my wrist. The tattoo was a part of me from before. I could’ve covered the ink, but it’s easier to maintain a cover story when you blend truth with the lies.
For now, let him believe I’m the fiery seductress who threatens to disrupt his routine. Just enough to unravel him a little.
There’s an art to psychological profiling, stringing connections on a murder board like the constellations connect patterns along the stars. Ironically, in this case, when a literal web of constellations happens to be the murder map.
That night on the beach when Darby said my discovery was a coincidence, that there are billions of star patterns…it felt impossible. Although technically, as I soon learned, there are officially eighty-eight constellations across the celestial sphere.
Difficult.
But not impossible.
Once I mapped the chain of kill sites along the ecliptic, I realized not only that the staged victims mirrored zodiacal constellations, but that the date of each kill coincided with a cosmic event, like a meteor shower or planetary alignment.
Location. Event. Victim. This was the pattern.
His pattern.
The design that helped pinpoint where he’d strike next. After losing myself in astrology and—god—astronomy, my only logical course was to focus on upcoming events.
My gaze lifts to the banner draped across the quad that reads:
SOLAR ECLIPSE OBSERVER SYMPOSIUM
The moment I spotted the projected eclipse on the star map, I felt the connection falling into place. Not astrological—astronomical. The path the sun takes through the sky, through each constellation.
His ritual coming to completion when the sun goes dark.
So I followed the projected path of totality through each major city and town, eventually landing on Shorehaven.
I slip my hand into my coat pocket, fingers brushing the cool brass artifact I recovered from the Bethany Beach crime scene. This small piece of evidence is what ultimately led me to one of the world’s foremost astrophysicists.
Engraved into the brass are three worn letters: SUO—the initials a perfect match for Stonehurst University Observatory.
Once I had a lead to explore, all I had to do was track my hunter on his own turf.
To ensure my place here, I removed every competing résumé from consideration.
While the evidence could’ve belonged to virtually anyone in the astronomy department, the closer I looked at him, the more the man started to align with the psychological profile.
The law of continuity is used to explore the progression of a person’s mental functioning. As our thoughts and actions are connected, over time, our feelings and behaviors follow consistent patterns.
Like how our childhood influences our adult behaviors, or the way we react to certain situations that reflect underlying personality traits and past traumas.
Before the Reaper killings began, there was an inciting incident in a brilliant man’s life that altered him, setting off a lethal chain of events that all emerged into a larger pattern.
One of a serial killer.
A shiver whispers up the column of my spine, and I sense the moment his eyes settle on me. I can always feel when Orion is watching, sensing the unflinching intensity of his eyes roving over my body.
It’s the primal pull of predator and prey, that instinctual awareness of lurking danger.
Tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear, I glance through the stone arches toward the parking lot, and my gaze collides with his.
Orion leans against his motorcycle, arms folded across his chest. Even from this distance, I can see the lift of his mouth, one corner pulled slightly higher, betraying his guarded expression like a splinter of light breaking the night.
My pulse quickens as a flush of heat ignites beneath my skin. Even as I succumb to his undeniable charm, I never forget the threat hidden behind that deceptive beauty.
His cunning, meticulous nature. The dark compulsions of his personality. These characteristics are evident in the fitted gloves he never removes, the obsessive drive for perfection, the fixation on his research.
And yet, I’ve glimpsed tiny cracks in his controlled exterior.
Hints of instability, of vulnerability, flashes of reckless impulse.
There’s an undercurrent of pain that flares behind his high, stony walls, revealing something fractured at his core, something damaged.
At times, it can hurt to simply look at Orion, as if no matter how desperately he tries, he can never be whole, unbroken.
It’s because of this contradiction that he’s unlike other predators of his kind.
He has an expiration date.
The clocktower chimes, and as my hunter is drawn away, I close my book and rise from the bench. I slip beneath the arches of the colonnade, sensing a ripple of tension even before Dr. Banner steps into view.
He strides toward me, movements as brisk as his tone. “Dr. Holbrook, a word.”
Despite the unease threading my nerves, I fix a smile into place. Unfortunately, I know what he wants to discuss.
Since I arrived, I’ve mediated squabbles over stolen lunches. Counseled faculty through depression and burnout. Tending to just about every faculty member here except Orion.
“I’m sure you’ve already heard about last night’s unveiling,” Banner says. At my hesitation, he adds, “The particle accelerator…the initial test run for the donors.”
“Right.” I nod, brightening my smile. “I trust everything went well.”
He exhales, shoulders sagging. “No. In fact”—his gaze narrows—“it appears someone tampered with the control software. There was an override, causing the system to fail the moment Dr. Prescott powered it on.”
Dammit, Orion.
My climbing heart rate pulses in my ears. “That’s unfortunate—”
“Unfortunate doesn’t cover it.” He gives a short, humorless laugh. “This stunt not only cost the university financially, it puts our research at risk. We just… We can’t sustain any more setbacks.”
Like always, I feel the instant his eyes find me.
My gaze flicks to the far end of the walkway where Orion lurks, shoulder braced against an angelic statue, helmet gripped in his hand, fingers tapping.
He observes our exchange intently, making no attempt to conceal his interest as his mouth slants into a smoldering smile.
My hold tightens around the steel handle of the umbrella, the one he gave me to shelter from the storm. I recall him standing before me in the rain. Imposing. Striking. Protective in a way that felt possessive.
When the female firefly lies in wait, she’s not merely waiting to be impressed; she’s studying her suitor. Learning his flash patterns. Deciphering his intent in his signals.