Chapter 10
TEN
EMILIO
It’s the bartender.
Even under grime and the first ragged bloom of decay, even with bruises mapping her face like a bad roadmap, some things don’t lie.
The red top—ripped and stained—is the same one she wore the night Kline and I hit Zeke’s.
A week ago.
Fuck.
My jaw tightens until my molars ache as I look down at her.
She’s splayed in the drainage wash like a discarded ragdoll, limbs tangled in garbage and tumbleweed, hair matted to her forehead with grit and something darker.
The smell hits me in a low, metallic wash that pushes bile at the back of my throat.
She served me drinks.
She joked with Kline.
She was so full of life.
Now she’s just another body, waiting for a toe tag and a press release.
Behind me, I feel Raelynn watching. I turn, just for a second, and meet her eyes. There’s something there that is not only sympathy. It’s sharper: curiosity, intuition, suspicion.
She’s probably watched enough crime shows, or something, to know the cadence of recognition when it lands on someone. She knows I recognized this woman. If she doesn’t yet, she will once Detective Meyer arrives and the questions start to land.
I motion for her to follow and head up the embankment.
Gravel skitters under my boots; each step throws up a dry, dusty cloud.
Raelynn moves a few steps behind, breaths a little uneven, gaze fixed on the scrubby channel below like she’s memorizing the angles of the scene.
The wind plays through the barbed reeds, and the caution tape snaps like a small flag.
We barely make it to level ground when an unmarked black Dodge Charger rolls into the lot, its engine cutting as it pulls up beside my cruiser. The front door opens with that deliberate, practiced movement, and Detective Eliza Meyer steps out.
Auburn hair cascades in loose, polished waves down her back, catching the morning sunlight and glowing like embers.
Her deep purple silk blouse is sleek and fitted, tucked neatly into tailored black dress pants that hug her frame with precision.
The sharp click of her polished leather boots marks each step as she approaches, her badge catching the light from its place beside a matte black sidearm holstered on her hip.
Her smooth and naturally sun-kissed skin adds to the impression she always seems to give off—composed, focused, and completely in control.
“Perez,” she calls as she makes her way toward the scene. “Fill me in.”
Her eyes shift briefly to Raelynn. “Good morning, Miss Carson,” she says, her voice level and professional, lips curving into a soft, polite smile.
“Good morning, Detective,” Raelynn replies. Her voice is calm, measured—but I can still hear it. That subtle waver beneath the words. She’s not focused on Meyer.
She’s focused on me.
And I can’t blame her. She saw the shift in my expression the second I laid eyes on the body. She’s sharp—sharper than most interns I’ve met.
I take a breath, grounding myself as the low growl of an approaching vehicle cuts through the heavy quiet.
CSU rolls into view, its tires stirring up a small dust cloud as it eases beside the strip mall’s edge.
The doors swing open, and two techs step out, already pulling on gloves and hauling out camera equipment and evidence kits with familiar efficiency.
Detective Meyer stands a few feet from me, a calm silhouette against the chaos.
She pulls a notepad from her back pocket, flips it open, and clicks her pen.
Her eyes remain fixed on the drainage wash, the body barely visible through the tangled brush and caution tape.
That quiet stillness in her expression—the steady detachment—says she’s done this too many times. Seen too many people wind up this way.
“Victim is female. Mid-to-late fifties. Found partially submerged in a drainage channel. Signs of blunt force trauma to the head, multiple lacerations… possible defensive wounds.” The details roll out cleanly.
Years of saying the same things in a dozen different scenes smooth the edges into procedure, but my stomach still tightens with every word.
Meyer’s pen scratches the paper. “Any ID on her?”
“No.” I shake my head. “But—” I hesitate, jaw tightening with the memory. “She’s a bartender at Zeke’s. The dive bar off Grant and Campbell.”
That catches her. Her stroke slows. The pen pauses. Her eyes sharpen like a lens focusing. “You know her?”
I glance toward the wash. Even now, her features are barely visible, distorted by bruising and grime. But I remember her. That red top. That gum-smacking smirk. Her southern drawl…
“Sort of,” I say with a sigh, peeling off my gloves. “I went out for drinks there last week with another officer. She was tending the bar. I think her name was Vicky.”
Meyer scribbles again, slower this time, then casts a glance back toward the wash. “Who were you with that night?”
I glance toward Raelynn, who’s watching the crime scene unit set up, but I know she’s still listening, eyes flicking between me and the techs like she’s trying to absorb everything.
“Officer Jacoby Kline,” I reply. “We met there after our shift. But the place was packed—other officers, civilians, regulars. Could’ve been anyone.”
Meyer nods. “Anything stand out? Anyone giving her trouble?”
I shake my head. “Not that I saw. But I wasn’t there long—an hour and a half, tops. She seemed fine. Friendly.”
“Alright,” she murmurs, wrapping up a final note before snapping the pad closed. She slips it back into her pocket and turns slightly toward the CSUs, who are now setting up the perimeter markers and prepping their gear.
“I’ll follow up with Officer Kline for his statement. For now, that’s all I need from you.” She turns to Raelynn with a faint smile. “You and Miss Carson are cleared to return to patrol. I’ll handle the scene from here.”
“Understood,” I say with a curt nod, casting one last glance toward the wash where the techs are zipping the body bag closed around what’s left of Vicky.
I let out a sharp whistle to get Raelynn’s attention. “Let’s go,” I call over, voice low and even.
Raelynn watches the techs lower the body onto the stretcher.
The last glimpse of the victim—Vicky’s face slack with demise, the red of that top a faded punctuation—seems to line itself in Raelynn’s memory.
When she finally turns away and walks toward the cruiser, there’s a measurement in her face I haven’t seen before—a quiet, fierce focus, like she’s memorizing the way death settles into the edges of a scene.
When she finally turns and joins me beside the cruiser, I catch the edge of that look still lingering in her expression.
“You okay?” I ask, unlocking the doors.
She pauses, scanning my face with more intensity than I expect. “I’m fine,” she says, voice steady. “Are you?”
“Not the first time I’ve recognized a body, Carson,” I reply as casually as I can manage, though the words land hollow in my throat.
She studies me for another second—something unreadable flickering in her eyes—then opens the passenger door and climbs in. I follow and settle into the driver’s seat, the door slamming shut behind me.
The crime scene burned through a solid hour and a half of the shift. As I turn the ignition, it’s quiet for a beat, the low rumble of the engine filling the silence.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a dead body, either,” she says softly, like she’s not quite sure if she wants to open that door but knows she’s going to anyway.
I glance at her, fingers resting loosely on the wheel. She’s staring out the passenger window, her profile lit in the soft morning light. Lips pressed into a thin line. Still. Quiet. But the tension in her jaw—tight, unrelenting—says everything she’s not yet ready to.
“How do you mean?” I ask, shifting the cruiser into drive and easing us away from the crime scene. Gravel crunches under the tires as we head back toward the road, the strobing lights from the CSU fading slowly in the rearview mirror.
She’s quiet until we’re a few blocks out, until the only sound left is the low hum of the engine and the occasional chirp of the radio.
“Last week,” she says, breaking the silence, “you asked me why I wanted to go into homicide.”
I glance her way. She’s still staring out her window.
“I didn’t tell you,” she continues, voice tight. “Because you were an ass.”
A low breath escapes me, equal parts guilt and regret. “Yeah,” I admit. “I was. You didn’t deserve that, Carson. I’m sorry.”
She looks over at me, blinking like she wasn’t expecting the apology. But she recovers quickly.
“No, I didn’t,” she says bluntly. “But that’s not the point.”
Her fingers knot together in her lap, white at the knuckles. When she speaks again, her voice is softer. Strained.
“I’m on this path because of something that happened when I was a kid. Something that shaped everything that came after. Something I never really escaped from.” She hesitates. “Have you ever heard of The Butcher?”
My fingers go still on the wheel, tightening instinctively. That name slices through the air like a blade to the gut.
I was eleven when that sadistic son of a bitch carved his way through this city—seventeen years ago now, but it still feels fresh every time I think about it.
My father kept the news on from morning until night, the volume turned up just loud enough that you couldn’t escape it, even from the back of the house.
And back then, every damn station was obsessed with The Butcher case, tracking every scrap of the investigation like it was the only thing worth talking about.
I heard things an eleven-year-old should never hear. Saw images that seared into my brain long before I was old enough to understand them.
It was always women. A string of them, one after another, each one found torn apart in ways that made even seasoned cops lose sleep. Slashed open like meat on a butcher’s block—precise, deliberate, and horrifyingly clean. It wasn’t rage, not in the messy, sloppy way most killers show it.
This was cold. Calculated. Like he was savoring every fucking second of it.
And the worst part? He never slipped. No prints. No DNA. Not a hair out of place. Just bodies and nightmares, left behind like some kind of calling card only he understood.
Then one day—nothing. No more bodies. No more clues. No more news. He was gone.
But the last one… the final victim…
My stomach drops.
My gaze snaps to Raelynn, and she’s already watching me. She sees the shift in my face—the recognition. The connection. She knows I’ve figured it out.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says softly, voice brittle but steady. “And you’re right.”
A pause. Just long enough to sting.
“My mom was Elena Carson,” she says. “The last victim of The Butcher.”
I feel the breath leave my lungs from her confirmation. “Jesus,” I mutter. “Raelynn… I’m so sorry.”
She nods, but there’s no emotion in it—just grim acceptance.
“I was six when she died,” she says, voice distant now. “Nine, when I lost my dad. Car accident. At least, that’s what the report said. But the truth is—he gave up. Couldn’t live with me anymore. I was a walking reminder of everything he’d lost.”
I stay silent, letting her speak, letting her bleed this out.
“The night she died… The Butcher didn’t finish the job.
The officers patrolling that night stumbled on the scene.
They fired shots at him, but he got away, but not before he’d done enough damage to my mom.
She bled out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
” She swallows hard. “My dad dragged me into the room that night, not realizing the damage. I saw her. In the OR. What was left of her, I should say.”
I don’t breathe.
“I overheard the officers talking,” she continues. “About The Butcher. About what he did to her. I didn’t understand it all then. But it stuck. Every word. Every detail. And when I was old enough to put the pieces together… I couldn’t let it go.”
She turns her head and meets my eyes. There’s no hesitation, no flinch—just raw, steady honesty.
“That’s why I’m here,” she says, her voice soft but unwavering. “That’s why I chose this path. It’s not just about justice. I’m chasing closure—even if I never find it. I just… I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did.”
There’s nothing I can say that wouldn’t feel small compared to that. So I don’t try. I just keep driving, my hands tightening around the wheel as her words settle in my chest like lead.
And all I can do is wonder how the hell someone with that much pain still manages to walk around like the weight of it hasn’t crushed her.