Devotion (The Widowmaker Duet Book 1)

Chapter 1

The puddle of blood my mother danced in that night belonged to my father.

While the stab wounds she delivered didn’t quite kill him, I sometimes think it may as well have, given the emptiness I’ve seen in his eyes fifteen years later.

They can’t keep me from you, Layla!

This promise—the one Mom shouted as they carried her away—always echoes through these nightmares on repeat like a bad song, tormenting me in sleep, haunting me when I’m wide awake.

I couldn’t blink, my young mind trying to reconcile how the woman who’d just given me warm milk and tucked me into bed less than an hour ago became… this. Blood slathered across her forehead, smudged on both cheeks, streaked in her hair. Her hands were coated in a thin, sticky layer of red, and they made a strange squelching noise as she gripped the doorframe, refusing to leave our home on anyone’s terms but her own.

I recall her being a notably stubborn beast when she wanted to be, and from what I’m told, we’re alike in that way.

I prefer to think our similarities end there.

They can’t keep me from you, Layla!

Paramedics rushed in and headed straight for Dad. An officer blocked my line of sight from Mom, and then swept me into his arms as he tossed a blanket over my head. As I’ve reflected on this night years later, I realize this was that officer’s attempt at shielding me from the ghastly scene unfolding inside my home, but he was too late. Possibly years too late, but I can’t say for sure. Childhood is mostly a blur for me, a collection of dizzying highs and lows, punctuated by gaps in my memory that I can’t seem to recover.

Gaps I often wonder if I even want to recover.

With me tucked underneath that gray blanket, the officer carried me out into the chilled, November air, out into the open where I could’ve sworn my mother’s screams became the night itself, surrounding us all. Consuming us all. I’d never heard anything like that before, and I haven’t since. Thank God.

But hers wasn’t the only voice. There was a man calling out to my father as the wheels of a rapidly moving gurney rolled across our paved driveway. I couldn’t place that voice, but I remember there was a moment that followed shortly after that I stopped thinking about it at all. Simply because a hand slipped into mine, warm and soft, comforting.

Another kid.

I remember them squeezing my hand so tightly that, for a moment, I wasn’t so focused on how my world was being violently ripped to shreds, or how I might not ever see my parents again. That touch, as briefly as it lasted, whoever it belonged to… centered me.

Six words were whispered in a small, adolescent voice, spoken by the one who clung to my hand. “I won’t let her hurt you.”

At first, I didn’t understand why anyone would think my own mother meant to do me harm, but it was in that moment that my perspective of her vow shifted. What I’d first perceived to be the declaration of her unwavering love now felt more like a threat.

They can’t keep me from you, Layla!

“She’s still got the knife! Protect the kid!” someone shouted, and I couldn’t seem to get air into my lungs quickly enough.

Heavy footsteps thundered closer, and the officer’s arms tightened around me as he reached toward his hip. The blanket made it impossible to see what was coming.

Impossible to see who was coming.

But then, just as the first few syllables of that same, persistent promise passed between my mother’s lips again… a gun fired.

The rushing footsteps ceased.

A body fell to the ground.

* * *

“Mom?”

Her name’s a whisper on my lips as I’m startled awake, accidentally knocking a glass of water from the nightstand to the floor when I reach for her.

A ghost from a half-forgotten past.

“Shit.”

My arm shields my eyes from the faint, orange light seeping between the blinds, and I’m guessing I’ve done it again, woken up with at least half an hour before my alarm is set to ring. Usually, the sound of the garage door opening and closing beneath my apartment when Dad leaves for work is to blame. But this time, another nightmare.

Or should I say the same nightmare.

A thin layer of sweat has my t-shirt sticking to my breasts and torso. I kick the blanket off to the side, trying to convince myself that just because the morning’s off to a bad start, that doesn’t have to mean the whole day will suck. I’ve made it to the edge of the mattress and have just about talked myself into believing it when my work phone rings.

Which is never a good sign.

A sigh puffs from my lips as I answer. “Bennett speaking.”

“Morning, Sunshine.”

I roll my eyes at the sound of Detective Martinez’s voice.

“We’re gonna need you in early. We got a call. I’m shooting you the address.”

“Can’t you call Reese? I was about to shower and—”

“Reese is shit before noon. You know that,” he cuts in. “Without coffee and a few hours to get his head in the game, we may as well have a kindergartner behind the camera. Besides… Seargent Mack thinks it’s another one.”

My fingers stop in the middle of a damn good head scratch at Martinez’s words. By “another one”, he means another of the strange cases we’ve seen popping up lately. A case he knows I’m interested in, based purely on the killer’s unique modus operandi.

I puff a heavy sigh into the receiver, hoping Martinez feels my frustration and the unspoken fuck you I’m trying to telepathically transmit to his brain.

“Fine. Be there in a few.”

“Sounds good. Be safe.”

I drop my phone to the bed and hold my face in both hands. It won’t do me any good to pout, so I head to the bathroom, settle for a quick washup in the sink until there’s time for an actual shower. Then, I brush my teeth, throw my hair in a ponytail, grab my lunch, and head out the door looking and feeling like complete shit.

There isn’t even time to stop for coffee, so whatever state of mind I’m in when I get to the scene, it isn’t on me. As I pull up to the address Martinez sent, a visual of Reese in his own bed, smiling at me from behind a warm, steaming mug vanishes in the array of red and blue lights parked out front. I trudge toward the door, glancing at the caution tape that creates a barrier from the sidewalk to the porch. Officers stand by, securing the area, chatting up the neighbors for intel as I slip into a pair of shoe covers before stepping inside the house.

Martinez peers up when I enter the foyer, and it’s hard to miss how he scans me with that loaded stare. It’s a little less subtle than we agreed to be about our after-work interactions, so I look away quickly. With any luck, my dismissiveness will dispel any suspicion he might’ve just planted in anyone’s head about us. I snap a pair of latex gloves into place as I lock in on the victim. Caucasian male, roughly aged fifty to fifty-five, laid out in the middle of the room.

Throat laceration resulting in a severed trachea.

Eyes and mouth open.

Hands and feet unbound.

Furniture and objects near the body appear to be undisturbed, suggesting there wasn’t much of a struggle.

The elaborate, post-mortem calling card draws me in—a spiderweb carved into the victim’s torso, stretching from nipple to nipple, extending down to the navel. Martinez was right. This does appear to be another of those cases. The fourth in less than six weeks, actually.

My lens whirs into focus, beeping a millisecond before I snap the first shot, effectively immortalizing the death of today’s unknown. But it’s impossible to capture the victim’s likeness without inadvertently capturing a glimpse of the one responsible for their death.

I call it undeservedmemorialization. Giving the assailant a chance to be forever recorded in history, although typically only local or regional history, but history nonetheless. And people like this—the dark, the depraved—they’re better off forgotten.

“Alright, Bennett,” Mack says, hovering in my personal space. “How quickly do you think you’ll be able to wrap this up? The medical examiner’s enroute, kiddo.”

I check my watch, noting that, yes, I’ve now been at this for a couple hours, but it takes as long as it takes. My camera shutter clicks again, and I feel zero urgency as I line up another shot.

“I’ll… wrap it up… when I’ve thoroughly done my job. Thanks for the update, though.”

Without turning, I feel Seargent Mack’s glare burning a hole through the back of my head. His incessant need to call the shots at a scene has been a bone of contention between us during my entire two-year stint working for the department. One of many hazards of being employed by a bona fide boys’ club, I suppose.

“Whatever, smartass. Just remember you’re not the only one who has a job to do here. Others might not be as sweet as I am when they show up, only to find your ass is still in the way.”

A long breath leaves me as I lower my camera. “I’m mostly done. I just need a few more shots of the artwork on the torso.”

“Artwork,” he scoffs. “Thought I told you to stop referring to this sick fuck’s mutilations that way.”

I don’t respond, choosing to ignore his goading in favor of achieving what we both want—for me to be finished, so we can escape one another’s presence ASAP. Being a woman among seasoned vets who think they know every-fucking-thing is bad enough. But being twenty-five and frequently referred to as kiddo?

That’s even less fun.

Someone approaches Mack to speak, and I don’t bother turning to see who.

“The bodies are starting to stack up,” they say, and I recognize the voice. It’s Detective Stevens—another dick, but not nearly as intolerable as Mack. “Commissioner Phillips will have a field day with this. As if he hasn’t already been far enough up our asses lately.”

“Tell me about it. And the papers are only making shit worse. They’ve given this piece of shit a nickname. The Widowmaker’s what they’re calling him. A play on words, like the black widow spider on account of his web carvings, you know?” Mack scoffs. “That’s all we need is the media giving this fiasco legs. Give it legs, and that’s when the public teaches it to run.”

Stevens breathes a deep sigh. “Not to burst your bubble or anything, but the fact that we’re even standing here talking about it means it’s already too late.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

The two disperse, and I’m grateful to be working in peace again. A few more pictures, then I pack up, feeling eyes on me as I return my camera to its case. I’m not entirely surprised that I’ve got Martinez’s full attention when I peer up. He’s stuck talking to two other detectives, but I’m not even sure he’s listening to them as he arches a brow at me.

Stop staring, you idiot! Get your mind out of the gutter and just… do your fucking job!

Again, I avert my eyes before anyone can notice and put two and two together, but I’m guessing Martinez isn’t being even remotely discrete as he watches me leave. Before he can get the bright idea to follow me, I hop in my car and take off, headed for my secret spot a few blocks away. A place where I can eat lunch in peace.

My tires slow as I pull through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Devereux Memorial Cemetery. Following the familiar, winding path all the way to the back, I pull up beside a row of cross-shaped headstones and turn off my car.

This deep on the property, where the older gravesites are located, there are never any visitors, which is why I’m drawn here. My canteen hits the stone bench with a metallic twang, and I cross my legs, biting into my sandwich just as my phone buzzes.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

I eat with the dead for a reason. They’re quiet, and they don’t complain that I sometimes chew with my mouth open. Yet, despite going to great lengths to achieve this level of privacy, the living still manage to fuck it up.

Frustrated, I pull the phone from my pocket, only to be even more annoyed when I see it’s Martinez.

Det. Diego M.: Green light? Your ass looked amazing today.

I sigh while tapping out a response.

Layla: Red light. Working my second job tonight.

Det. Diego M.: How many times do I have to tell you that pretending to be a psychic while conning people out of their hard-earned money isn’t a job?

Despite the words being received via text, I still hear his voice in my head, the laughter that alwaysfollows when this subject comes up. Am I psychic? No, but I’m willing to bet that a majority of those who call into the hotline know that, too. But there’s no denying that I am, in fact, providing these people a service. They come to me for insight, to be a sounding board, for closure. Not to mention, the lighthearted nature of that “job” offsets the darkness of this one. So, in a way, I need them, too.

But like with most things in my life, Martinez doesn’t get it. Hence the reason we’ve been screwing regularly for the past six months, and he’s still chilling comfortably at coworker-with-benefits status.

Where he’ll stay.

Indefinitely.

My phone buzzes again, but I ignore it as I pop a pill into my mouth. I glance at the name of the prescribing doctor on the bottle as I swallow. A doctor who also happens to be my father—Dr. Cyrus Bennett. He’d raise all kinds of hell if he knew I forgot to take them yesterday, but I definitely paid for it with that nightmare.

Lesson learned.

Martinez gives up texting to beg for sex, and resorts to calling to beg for it, but I let it ring. I finish my last bite of food, then reach for my camera, pulling it free from the bag to scroll through the images from today. Or, more specifically, to examine the web cut into the victim’s flesh more closely.

My head tilts as I take in the pattern from a different angle, eventually scrolling through older images to compare this carving to the last. They’re almost identical in shape, size, and depth, which requires a certain level of precision most could only dream of achieving. Especially on a medium as unpredictable and unforgiving as human skin can sometimes be.

The next sound I hear is Mack’s gruff voice in my head, scolding my word choice—artwork. But whether splattered onto a canvas, sprayed onto the side of a building, or, in this case, carved into a man’s skin… art is art.

I place the camera back inside my bag before gathering the rest of my things, but the image of the victim stays with me. Why a web? Why cut the victims at all after the kill? Ego? Needing the world to know you left your mark?

Or… is there something else entirely?

Something detectives have missed?

A troubling thought hits once I’m seated behind the wheel of my car again. It’s that these murders don’t appear to be slowing down. And if I’m right about that, this city’s latest threat will see to it that there’s no shortage of bodies.