Chapter Twenty
Declan
That same night in Diamond Creek,
Walking out of my office, I was fucking bone tired.
With King’s club shit, my wife due any fucking minute, and the unsolved murders—three now, not just two—I was running on fumes.
Each unsolved case felt like a personal failure, a chink in the armor I was desperately trying to maintain around this town, around my family.
Turning off the light, I didn’t bother locking the door.
What was the point? The whole damn station felt like a sieve tonight.
Deputy Christopher Wyatt, bless his na?ve heart, was on duty.
All I wanted was to head home, to feel the solid, comforting weight of my pregnant wife against me, to pretend for a few hours that the world wasn’t unraveling outside our door.
“Heading out, Sheriff?” Wyatt’s voice, still bright with the optimism of a rookie, grated on my nerves.
“Station’s all yours,” I grunted, gathering a few files I’d been wrestling with. The hope of simply leaving, of escaping the stench of burned coffee and desperation that permeated the building, flickered and died as the phone rang. A groan escaped me, a low rumble of pure, unadulterated exhaustion.
Wyatt snatched it up. “Diamond Creek sheriff station, Deputy Wyatt speaking.”
I was already at the front door, my hand reaching for the cool metal of freedom, when Wyatt’s voice, now strained and a little shrill, pierced the quiet. “Hang on, Dec!”
Fuck. My gut twisted. I was two steps away from sanctuary, from a few precious hours of normalcy before the next tidal wave of shit crashed down. Turning back around, I felt an icy dread seep into my bones, competing with the gnawing guilt about leaving my wife alone for so long.
“Someone better be fucking dead,” I growled, my words tasting like bile, “’cause I’m tired and I want to see my wife. And right now, seeing her feels more important than anything you’ve got to say.”
The hypocrisy of it burned. I was the law, the protector, and here I was, wishing for death to keep me from my family. Wyatt’s face, already pale, seemed to drain of all color.
“Simon found a body behind his shop. Well, part of a body.”
“What do you mean, part of a body?” My words felt thick and unreal in my mouth.
My mind, already stretched thin, refused to process the implication.
Part of a body. Not just a whole one, neatly contained.
This was escalating, becoming something far more monstrous, and the weight of it settled on my chest, a crushing pressure that made it hard to breathe.
Just then, the station’s second phone rang, a jarring, insistent bleat.
For a split second, I considered letting it go.
Let Wyatt handle it. Let someone else deal with this escalating horror.
But the thought was instantly, violently, squashed.
My responsibility. My failures. Walking over to the nearest desk, my hand felt heavy as I picked up the receiver.
“Sheriff O’Rourke. What do you want?” The anger in my voice was a desperate shield against the rising tide of panic.
“Dec,” I clearly heard Ryder’s voice, tight and grim. “You’d better get the fuck over to the bookstore now. Found a severed head by the back door.”
“Could you repeat that?”
“Just get the fuck over here before my wife or kids see this shit. I’ll meet you in the alley.” With that, Ryder disconnected the call.
Looking at Deputy Wyatt, I was about to have him call everybody back in when he carefully placed the phone receiver back on its stand and muttered, “That was Trudy. She was taking out the garbage when she found an arm by the trash cans. What the fuck is going on, Sheriff?”
My gut clenched, a cold dread seeping through the exhaustion.
A severed head. An arm. A foot. This wasn’t just a bad night; it was a descent into the abyss.
Something sunk to the pit of my stomach, telling me it was different from the bodies of the women on the Powell Ranch.
A new murderer, one more gruesome and sinister.
“Wyatt, get everyone back to the station. And get them here fast. Then head over to Trudy’s place. Tape off the area and don’t fucking touch anything.” My voice, raw and tight, held a forced authority, a thin veneer over the rising panic.
The files I clutched in my hand, a pathetic attempt to cling to order, felt suddenly useless. My night had just begun, and already, the darkness had clawed its way into the heart of Diamond Creek, promising a reckoning I was dreading with every fiber of my being.
The alley behind Ryder’s bookstore was a crime scene painted in shadows and dread.
The single flickering streetlight cast long, distorted figures that seemed to writhe with a life of their own.
Ryder, usually a man of gruff composure, looked ashen, his eyes wide with a horror that mirrored my own.
A mangled head, barely recognizable, lay sprawled on the grimy concrete, a grotesque testament to the savagery that had unfolded.
The stench of death was thick, cloying, and beneath it, the faint, unmistakable reek of something chemical, something familiar from a nightmare I’d tried to bury deep.
“Ryder,” I greeted the man with a firm handshake.
“Fucker left a note,” Ryder said without preamble. “Taped it to my back fucking door.”
Nodding, I walked over to see the note.
GIVE ME KARLYN INGALLS
Frowning, I looked at Ryder. “Who the fuck is Karlyn Ingalls?”
“She’s the old lady of a Golden Skull.”
“Thought they all left when Massacre left.”
“They did, but he showed up the other day. Well, that’s what Blade told me. Haven’t been around the club lately, with the new baby and all.”
“This Golden Skull have a name?”
Ryder shrugged. “It’s Ravage. King’s little brother.”
“FUCK!” I roared, reaching for my phone and dialing King.