Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
DEVYN
A knock on my office doors pulls my attention off of the newspaper clippings I’ve been reading. All of them about the royal family.
Treasonous? Maybe. But I need to piece this puzzle together before it’s too late. Right now, I’m reading about the king’s death. Apparently, he was killed on a mission with V—which may explain how the prince came to be the way he is. Then again, I heard that he’s always been a bit unhinged.
I remember the queen was devastated by her husband’s death, though my memories of that particular time are fuzzy. I was…what? Twelve? Younger? I knew that Queen Marianna hosted a huge funeral and then barricaded herself away for months on end, no doubt mourning her love.
Through the glass above my office door, I can just barely make out the top of dark hair.
“Come in,” I call, waving a hand in the air.
My brother, Gage, and Avril remained with the prince, but I knew my attention was needed elsewhere. I’m not the type of man to sit back and twiddle my thumbs when people are in danger. Since there’s nothing I can do back at the apartment, I came here, determined to sift through all of the information and uncover a connection.
I arch my brows together when a frail figure steps into my office, wringing his hands together.
What the hell is Foster’s father doing here at the FIB?
Is he wondering where his son has disappeared to?
“Anderson. It’s nice to see you,” I greet, already preparing an excuse for Foster’s extended absence.
He should be arriving home at any moment now.
God, I miss my family.
I miss Sera.
I curl my hand into a fist on my desk at just the thought of my missing mate. She’s quite literally an entire world apart from me, and I’ve never felt the distance so keenly before.
I force myself to focus on the man shifting from foot to foot in front of me. Sera’s fine. My brother’s fine. Kian and Foster are fine.
Taking a deep breath, inflating my lungs with air, I steeple my hands on the top of my desk. “What can I do for you?”
Anderson’s once thick hair has thinned to little more than wisps, the color more gray than black in most places. He’s thinner than I remember him to be, his white skin so pale I can see each individual vein. His collarbone protrudes in a way that can’t be healthy.
“He’s gone, right? The killer’s gone?” Anderson begins to tug at the bottom of his stained shirt, his wild eyes flicking around my office as if he half expects someone to jump out of the shadows and stab him.
I’ve been told by Foster that Anderson is prone to hysteric fits, but I’ve never seen one for myself before. The poor man’s mind broke with the death of his wife and fated mate. He’s merely a shell of the vibrant man he once was.
I furrow my brows. “Yes. He’s gone. He won’t hurt anyone anymore.”
Anderson’s thin body begins to shake. “What about the other one? The one he killed for?”
I freeze. “What do you mean?”
“Is she still out there? You can’t let her hurt the queen. You can’t let her steal her power.” Abruptly, Anderson lunges forward and slams his hand down on my desk, rattling papers and my framed photograph of Sera.
“Queen Marianna? She’s fine.” For now.
I have a feeling that she may be the attacker’s next target. It would make sense, after all. Already, the council is out of commission, the princess is in a coma, and the crowned prince is on his deathbed. It’s why the FIB assigned a dozen guards to both Avril and Queen Marianna.
And if the attacker is someone close to the royal family…
“No. No. No.” Anderson slaps his fist against his forehead and begins to shake his head adamantly. “You don’t understand. Nobody understands me.”
“Why don’t you sit down? I’ll grab you a cup of water?—”
Anderson drops his arm back to his side and whirls on me, his features flushed with anger. “You’re not listening to me! She’s going to attack again?—”
“Who?” I stand from the chair and move around my desk.
I’m significantly taller than Anderson this way, but he doesn’t shrink away from me. He juts his chin in the air with stubborn determination, his green eyes flaring.
“Do you know who’s behind all of this?”
“She has power. Lots of power. Her latest kill assured that?—”
“Her latest kill?”
Anderson grabs the front of my shirt with a surprising amount of strength for such a tiny man. “You saw the symbol in the pit. You know what it can do.”
I could break both of his wrists in less than a second, but I don’t want to do that. While a part of me rebels against being manhandled, a greater part hangs on every word he says.
“I don’t understand?—”
Abruptly, Anderson releases me and takes a shaky step backwards. His desperate eyes flick in both directions.
“It’s not safe,” he whispers hoarsely, reaching behind him for the doorknob.
“Anderson, wait!” I boom, but he doesn’t answer as he flings the door open and races away.
A few officers cast him strange looks, and one even tries to stop him, but I yell at the woman to let him go.
Most of what Anderson said sounded like the inane ramblings of a madman, but one thing pops up.
The pit.
I need to go back to the pit.
I’ve never been the type of man to enjoy hiking through the woods. That was more of Tristan’s thing than my own. Before Serafina, I often spent the nights I wasn’t at work in a bar, kicking ass at pool or throwing back a beer.
I scowl at nothing in particular as I stomp through the forest behind my parents’ cabin. It’s eerily quiet, despite the fact that the sun is still high in the sky, painting the forest in splashes of orange and yellow. It’s almost as if the world itself is holding its breath, waiting.
I haven’t been back to the crime scene since the bodies were removed. Yes, I did a preliminary sweep of the site, searching for any clues that would lead me towards the murderer, but when I found nothing, I focused my attention elsewhere. I assumed I would find answers by looking into the victims.
I was wrong.
The only things I discovered was that they were all different and that they died from a virus. There was nothing to tie the murders to a specific person, let alone the previous serial killer.
But now…
I step around one of the largest trees and stare down into the pit that once housed dozens of bodies. It’s empty now, though a few splashes of dried blood remain. The FIB was supposed to clean everything up, but with how crazy the last few days have been, they never got the chance.
Which works for me, because if they had, they would’ve removed crucial evidence.
I don’t know what I’m looking for at first. An innate voice in the back of my head tells me I’m closer to a discovery than ever before.
Frowning, I slide down into the hole and begin to check the ground with fervor. I gently turn over every rock, move every leaf, turn over every acorn.
What are you looking for, Devyn? a snide voice in my head asks, his tone scathing.
I don’t know, I confess, moving towards a pile of leaves.
I brush them away gently to see that there are sticks embedded into the dirt directly beneath them.
My frown deepens.
Quickly, I finish removing all of the leaves and then step back, wanting to see the entire picture.
I inhale a sharp breath.
Holy fuck.
The sticks have been arranged in a way that is so familiar to me, I feel physically sick. I’ve seen this symbol on more than one dead body, carved into the flesh of innocent girls.
It almost looks like a star, though it’s missing the bottom right prong and has two dark circles wrapped around it.
“Holy fuck,” I say out loud, gaping.
This is it.
This is the piece we’ve been missing.
My thoughts turn over themselves, desperately trying to fill in the gaps.
We believed that the initial murders were some sort of ritual, though we didn’t know what for. Then, when the killer was removed from the equation, we struggled to find a connection between the new murders and the old.
But this is it.
This is the connection.
What was the symbol doing on the ground? Obviously, it has something to do with all of the bodies we found, but what?
Another nagging thought occurs to me, causing me to straighten, my stomach flipping over itself.
Just how did Anderson know about the symbol in the pit?
And if he’s involved…what will this mean for Foster?