Chapter Two Grayson
Chapter Two
Grayson
Sweetwater Lake smelled like rot disguised as a vacation spot.
The coffee shop reeked of cinnamon and fruit filling, but beneath it, I could sense the truth—something was being hidden here.
It clung to the town’s bones like a forgotten god clawing its way back to the surface.
I sat in the corner, sipping bitter coffee, watching the waitress avoid my gaze with precise effort. Her name tag read Violet—an ironic name, delicate and floral, for someone who looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks.
She moved like she was trying to disappear, eyes never meeting mine for more than a second.
But something about her stuck.
Not her face, exactly—though it was beautiful in a haunted kind of way. It was the way she held tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers trembled, like it was taking all her strength to keep up the facade.
She was small, maybe five four, and wearing a pair of beat-up sneakers, and she carried herself like someone used to making herself invisible. Dark hair tumbled from the messy knot on top of her head, a few wispy strands coming undone. Faint shadows lined watchful gray-blue eyes.
A scatter of barely there freckles fell across the bridge of her nose . . . ones she probably hated. The apron did nothing to hide her narrow waist or the way her jeans hugged her hips when she reached for a coffeepot. Delicate bones, sharp edges, and a stillness that felt like a held breath.
Beautiful in the way a loaded gun was: something you didn’t touch unless you were ready for the consequences.
She reminded me of victims I’d studied—those who walked away but never truly left the scene.
She carried herself tentatively, so that people might overlook her inner strength . . . but I saw beyond the dark hair and wary eyes to the quiet fire that drew me in, a spark I hadn’t felt in years.
I set up my laptop and logged in, the screen glowing, opening the tabs that I’d scoured all morning: crime scene reports, scrubbed news clippings, surveillance stills buried deep on the dark web.
I debated sending the images to Schafer, the PI I kept on retainer, but he always insisted on handwritten notes. “Ink is harder to erase,” he’d once said. I’d stopped questioning why he was the way he was long ago.
Another body had been found near the lake. Third one this year. Female, barely in her twenties, staged on the shoreline like she was worshipping something with her final breath.
Kneeling and naked. Hands bound with coarse twine in a rigid prayer position, palms pressed together, fingers pointed toward heaven.
A single symbol was carved deep between her shoulder blades.
Within a circle was an inverted triangle, and within that was an eye.
Three bold, sharp lines came down from the bottom of the triangle, and two smaller, thinner ones extended from the middle.
And in the center of her chest, directly over her sternum, a gaping, perfectly circular wound, as though her heart had been cored out like an apple.
My thumb hovered over the latest image. It was grainy but clear enough to make my pulse spike. That same carved symbol, the one that had appeared in every single Sweetwater murder.
Same as the others.
My research had led me to an obscure cult that worshipped a mythical being known as the Blood God who claimed this exact symbol.
A gasp—quiet, sharp, sucked between teeth.
My gaze lifted.
Her.
Violet stood at the table next to mine, a cloth in one hand, her movements frozen. Her eyes were fixed on my open laptop and the image on my screen.
The most recent victim.
The naked body.
The symbol.
She stared like it had reached through the glass and grabbed her by the throat.
Her shock wasn’t because it was gruesome and obscene. This reaction wasn’t detached in the way someone might stumble upon something grotesque online. No—this was bone-deep recognition. She looked at that image like it haunted her dreams. Like she’d seen it carved into living flesh firsthand.
I closed the laptop slowly, deliberately, and leaned back in the chair. It groaned beneath me, loud in the quiet tension stretching between us. Her gaze snapped to mine, wide and wild, the color draining from her face.
“My name is Grayson Iverson. I’m working with law enforcement as a criminal psychologist and investigator.” Formal introductions seemed necessary for the path we’d just gone down. “You’ve seen that before,” I said, keeping my voice low. Calm. But knowing.
Her mouth parted. “W-what?”
“The symbol. On the body.”
She shook her head far too hard to be convincing otherwise. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, instinctively stepping back toward the kitchen.
Liar.
“Don’t,” I said, my tone sharpening. “That photo isn’t public, so I know you haven’t seen it online. It’s scrubbed from every database except the ones you’re not supposed to find. And yet . . . there you were. Staring at it like it was a ghost from your past.”
She stopped moving, her shoulders tightening.
Something flickered behind her eyes—memory, panic, or shame. Or maybe all three.
It was gone just as fast, buried under a mask of indifference. But I’d seen it.
“You work for the police?” she asked. Her voice was firmer now, laced with suspicion instead of fear.
“Yes,” I said flatly.
“I can’t help you with . . . with whatever you want.”
I studied her face. The slight tremble in her hand. The way her breath faltered even as she tried to hold herself steady. She wore a mask well, but I was trained to see through it.
“I just want the truth,” I said.
Her lips parted again, but she said nothing.
I stood slowly, keeping my movements nonthreatening, and pulled a business card from my wallet. It was plain white, with my name and cell number printed in simple black font. I slid it across the table toward her.
“If anything comes to you, if you remember something, you can call me. Day or night.” I held her gaze.
She stared at the card like it might bite her, then glanced up at me, wary but not entirely dismissive. After a long beat, she reached out and took it, fingers brushing the edge of the table rather than my hand.
“Okay,” she muttered.
I nodded once. “Fair enough.” Then I pulled out my phone, thumb hovering over the screen. “Give me your number. If anything comes up in the investigation, or something that connects to what you saw on that screen, I’ll need to reach you fast. Questions come up quick in cases like this.”
She hesitated, jaw tight, eyes flicking to the card still in her hand and then back to me, weighing whether I was worth the risk. Finally she recited it. Her voice was quiet and clipped, like each digit cost her.
I typed it in, saved it under “V – Coffee Shop,” and pocketed the phone without comment. The air between us felt charged for another second before she turned and disappeared into the kitchen without another word.
There was something here—beneath the cinnamon-sweet air surrounding her and buried in this haunted little town.
I pored over my notes at the motel, my thoughts drifting back to Violet. I couldn’t shake her—how her eyes had lit with that haunted recognition.
I pulled up her public records on my laptop, digging for any trace of her past. A few scattered jobs, no family listed, as if she’d appeared in Sweetwater Lake out of thin air. My mind wandered to intimate details like the way her hair fell across her face, the subtle strength in her movements.
She was the first person in forever to stir something in me beyond professional curiosity, a pull I couldn’t ignore.
I didn’t know who Violet really was, or what was hidden deep in Sweetwater Lake. Not yet.
But I would.