CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Kol
IGROUND MY BACK TEETH TOGETHER, STRUGGLING FOR composure. I knew the only tell was a slight fluttering in my cheek or the divot formed by the strain in my jaw. We all had our coping mechanisms. I was pretty sure mine would end in me needing half a dozen root canals before I retired.
But I needed to bite down or I’d lose it completely.
Because the woman who lay sprawled in the middle of the campsite she’d disappeared from had so much life left to live.
Instead, she was here. Far too pale for any chance at that life, her body riddled with too many stab wounds to count and bruises ringing her neck.
Heidi Ingram.
There was no question it was her. You could barely make out the color of her eyes now that they had clouded over, but there was no denying the dark-brown hair. The slope of her nose.
“Identity confirmation,” Livie said, looking up from the tablet, where she’d just scanned in a print from the dead woman’s finger.
“Fucking hell,” Roger swore, dragging a hand through his disheveled hair. “How long?”
That second question was directed at the medical examiner, a man in his late forties, who had been with the county for years. Dr. Dominguez looked up from where the temperature gauge was still getting a reading from Heidi’s body. “I won’t know for sure until I’ve done my complete exam.”
He was always thorough. The best we had.
“Ballpark it if you can, Doc,” Roger pressed.
Dominguez frowned.
“Jesus,” Pete muttered next to me. “We’re just looking for something so we get on this asshole’s trail. We’re not asking you to testify.”
Pete just had to be a prick about it.
Dominguez ignored the asshole next to me and looked at Roger. “I think a safe window would be sometime between midnight and four this morning. She hasn’t been dead that long.”
Somehow, that made it worse, when you knew you were close yet way too fucking late.
Quiet reigned over us. Because we all felt that weight of the near miss.
Roger laced his hands behind his head, straining. “Okay, we’ve got a window. Livie, anything?”
The forensic tech had obviously been called in while off-duty.
She wore civilian clothes instead of her usual uniform, and her mouth was pressed into a hard line.
“We need to print the body. I’ll work the scene, but so far—wait.
” She moved, crouching low. “Dr. Dominguez, can you roll her, just a bit?”
“Crime scene photos are done?” the ME asked.
“Yes,” she assured him.
Dr. Dominguez lifted Heidi’s body ever so slightly. There was something beneath her, and Livie’s sharp eyes had spotted it. A piece of paper.
Livie quickly took a couple of photos before picking up the paper with gloved hands. We all moved in around her, trying to see. The page was smudged with dirt and smeared with blood in places, but none of that meant we couldn’t read the message.
IT’S NOT OVER. IT’LL NEVER BE OVER.
Every part of me ran cold. The letters were less controlled now. More chaotic. Angry slashes of black against the dirty white paper. Another sign of escalation, like all the rest.
Livie moved, taking another photo and then placing the sheet into an evidence bag.
Pete’s eye lit up, almost like a kid at Christmas. “This is it. We’ve got another serial.”
“We’ve got one fuckin’ case,” Roger snarled. “And stop acting like you just won the lotto. A woman’s dead.”
Pete’s mouth snapped shut, but anger swept across his expression. He glared at Roger before stomping off to talk to a deputy.
Roger watched him go, shaking his head. “What the hell is wrong with him?”
I didn’t look at Pete. He was the last person I wanted to see at the moment. “He’s never experienced real loss or even the threat of it.”
A look of confusion overtook Roger’s face.
“When you don’t know what loss truly feels like or how it invades every part of your life, it’s not real. It’s like a TV show or a movie. For him, it’s exciting.”
“Well, he’s a world-class prick.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t disagree there. And at some point, karma’s gonna kick his ass. It has to.”
“I’ll just be holding my breath until then,” Roger muttered.
We both watched as Dr. Dominguez and his assistant prepped Heidi Ingram for transport. The weight of that hung heavy in the air for both of us. Especially the fact that Roger would have to go to the family after this and tell them that their only daughter would never be coming home.
“Fuck,” he swore.
I clapped a hand on his shoulder, squeezing before I released. “Want to run it through?”
“Yes.”
The single word was clipped and angry, but I knew the anger wasn’t directed at me.
“Most likely scenario is we’ve got a copycat, someone obsessed with the original case. I think we need to talk to Reese Gatlin again.” That reporter had always seemed like a supreme asshole. Only time would tell if he was an asshole with darker tendencies.
“Or it could be someone who had those dormant urges and seeing what Travis did woke them up. Inspired them,” Roger suggested.
He had a point. If someone had the desire to kill but hadn’t acted on it yet, seeing someone else do it could’ve kicked them off.
“There’s one other possibility we’re not talking about.” My voice was low because I didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to even think it. And neither did Roger.
Roger scrubbed a hand over his face. “We never found his body.”
The last thing I wanted to think was that Travis was alive, that he had somehow survived the shooting and the fall and was still out there … hunting.
Tension wove its way through my body, knitting my ribs so tight it was hard to breathe. I reached for my phone on instinct, typing out a text.
Me:
Keep an eye on Nova. She goes nowhere alone.
My brother’s response was almost instant.
Wylder:
What happened?
I shouldn’t tell him. It was against protocol. But apparently, I was breaking all the rules these days.
Me:
We found Heidi Ingram.
Wylder:
fuck
That pretty much summed it up.
Wylder:
I’ll keep eyes on her. You coming in?
Me:
After I finish up at the scene.
Wylder:
Be careful.
Me:
Always am.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket.
“Nova?” Roger asked knowingly.
Fucking hell. I needed to work on my poker face.
“I wanted Wylder to keep a close eye on her. Gonna have to figure out a system so she’s not alone.”
Roger studied me for a long moment as if peeling back the layers of my mask. He was usually lighthearted and carefree, on the Mav side of the aisle in terms of living life. But it disguised deep waters. Roger knew how to analyze people when he wanted to. And he was damn smart.
“It serious?”
I exhaled, the air hissing through my teeth. “I love her.”
He whistled. “That complicates things.”
“Gonna talk to Sherri today. I have to pass the case off.”
Roger’s brows pulled together in a supremely pissed-off look. “Do not leave me with that prick.”
“She won’t reassign it just to Pete. There has to be a more senior agent involved.”
“If I wasn’t so goddamned happy for you, I’d be seriously ticked.”
I let out a low chuckle. “Happy to know you care.”
One corner of Roger’s mouth kicked up. “Been wondering about those bracelets you’ve been wearing. Thought maybe you just had a thing for pink and purple glitter.”
I scowled at my friend as my fingers went instinctively to my wrist, to the bracelets that Sky had made in that time when Nova had been keeping her distance.
They’d started to feel like a touchstone, something that made me feel close to her even when we were apart.
And not just that. They felt like a way to honor our bond.
“If you’re not down to rock pink and purple glitter, you’re missing out. ”
He let out a low chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind.” The humor on his face dropped away. “Take care of her. She’s been through a lot.”
“Nova’s stronger than anyone knows. But I’m also going to have her back, no matter what.” Just saying the words made me twitchy. I wanted to get to Nova. To feel her against me. To be sure she was okay.
But I also had to tell her that another woman was dead. And that the monster of her nightmares might still be here in the waking world.