Chapter 1 #2
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Nikolai Nesterova stared at the living room with the blood-soaked rug, and the woman sprawled on top of it. There was blood splatter on the walls.
"Wow, we need to ask Dexter to come look at this."
Nikolai gave Isaac Elmore, the fellow homicide detective he'd been paired with, an unimpressed look.
"What?" Isaac widened his eyes. "There is a lot of splatter. I'm sure he could've given us some insight."
Nikolai held in a sigh. "We have a forensic team, a real one." He stared at Isaac, something most found intimidating, but it had no effect whatsoever on Isaac. "And you do realize Dexter is a fictional character, right? He doesn't analyze blood splatter for real."
"You're such a killjoy, Nesterova."
Nikolai gave him the kind of smirk his ex-fiancé had called cruel and gestured around. "You're not having fun? There is so much happiness in this room." Fuck, he needed a drink.
"I'll go talk to the neighbors." Isaac stalked out of the apartment.
Nikolai had moved back to Berg three months ago.
He'd promised himself he would never come back here.
Ever. His family had been here for three generations, him being the third.
His grandfather had immigrated from the Soviet Union when he'd been in his twenties.
He'd met a lovely Soviet woman, married her, and had five children.
One of them had been his father, who in his turn had found a lovely Soviet woman, and together they'd had three children--Dimitri, Natalya, and lastly Nikolai.
Only Nikolai came out queer, so he was no longer welcome in the family. They'd never said he needed to leave town, but it had been heavily implied.
He hadn't spoken with anyone from the Nesterova clan for over fifteen years, and he'd fully intended to change his last name when he and Julian got married.
Only Julian didn't want to get married anymore.
He swallowed a sigh and looked around as the forensic team put out number tags and took photos before bagging everything.
One of the crime scene investigators walked over to Nikolai and gave him a nod. "You're new."
"No. Transferred here three months ago."
A slight frown stole over the man's face. "Huh, I feel like I should've known. We'll wrap up here." He stepped out of the way as the body bag containing the woman was moved out of the room. "I'll send you what we find, and I think the body will go to Zachary Mallon."
"Who?" Nikolai hadn't heard the name before; he didn't think, at least.
"The ME. He examined the other two. If he's not available, I guess Audry Hinds will take it, but I don't think Mallon will let it go."
Cold seeped into Nikolai. "What do you mean, the other two?"
The man's eyes swept over his face. "About six months ago, you'll have to check the date, there was a woman placed on a rug in her living room, her throat cut--" He gestured back into the room.
"Then there was another one about four months ago.
A woman with a sliced throat, on a rug in the middle of her living room.
" He shrugged. "Third time's a charm, right? You'll get him this time."
The man took a step away as if to leave, but Nikolai snagged the sleeve of his white disposable coveralls. "Wait. Are you telling me there is a serial killer?"
The man gave him a confused look. "Eh...It's your case, isn't it? Detective Bedell retired and handed it to you?"
Nikolai was going to kill someone--strangle them because he'd seen enough blood for one day. "Yeah, he retired." But Lieutenant Medlin hadn't said anything about a serial killer.
The man shrugged, and Nikolai realized he still held onto his sleeve. "What's your name?"
"Oh, sorry." The man offered his gloved hand. "Jaxon Saylor." He motioned at a woman walking out of the room. "Maeve Dubose, and eh..." He looked around, but the room had emptied. They weren't done, but for some reason, everyone had found things to do elsewhere at the moment.
"I'll let you know when we've found everything we can, Detective..." He tilted his head as if there was a question in the statement. It took a couple of seconds, then he wanted to smack himself.
"Sorry. Nikolai Nesterova."
Saylor narrowed his eyes. "Nesterova? Have we met?"
Nikolai shook his head. It was hard to see what a person looked like underneath the marshmallow suit, but he didn't think they'd met, and he didn't want to mention his family, so he settled for the head shake.
"I'll ping you, all right."
Isaac appeared by his side. "Ready for some lunch?"
With the scent of death clinging to his nostrils, food wasn't what he was thinking of. "I think we need to have a talk with Medlin."
Isaac sighed. "I don't wanna."
For fuck's sake. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-seven."
Nikolai looked him up and down. Thirty-seven? He'd have guessed thirty, though he was a detective, and Nikolai had the feeling he'd been one for some time.
"How come?"
"You act like you're seventeen."
Isaac snorted. "And how old are you, Papi?"
Isaac was as white as they came, blond, blue-eyed, with a boy-next-door appearance. "I didn't know you spoke Spanish."
"I don't."
"Right. Medlin, now." He turned and walked out of the blood-drenched apartment.
Shouldn't someone have noticed a woman being murdered in an apartment building?
He guessed they'd have to wait for the autopsy report, but if she was alive when the murderer had sliced her throat, there would've been sounds.
She would've fought, would have screamed.
"You never answered." Isaac tumbled after him like an excited puppy.
"What did you ask?"
"How old you are. I think I read your birth date somewhere, but I can't remember."
Nikolai glared at him. "Forty-one."
"Looking good." Isaac wiggled his eyebrows.
Nikolai sighed.
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