Chapter 1
ONE
Kansas City, Missouri
Ten years later
The homicide department was dead silent, but it wasn’t every day they lost one of their own.
Detective Seth Winslow thumbed the pages of a manila folder as he paced the empty office. He’d left the funeral early; out of everyone, he knew Robert Haylock the least, and he’d volunteered to pick up some slack for his colleagues so they could enjoy the celebration of life.
He closed the file. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was write up a warrant.
From the seventh floor of the police headquarters, the streets of Kansas City spread beyond the windows, blurred by the raindrops.
Gauzy street lights shone through the storm, and a blotted-out moon peeked between the clouds.
In the reflection of the window, he saw himself—his own tired blue eyes and short brown hair, a suit and a tie.
The fact that he couldn’t stand the way facial hair felt on his jaw didn’t help him look any older than twenty-eight.
Still too young and a long way from his hometown of New York.
Maybe it was just the afterglow of Haylock’s funeral, but that knowledge felt particularly heavy tonight.
At the end of the day, when all the paperwork was done, his apartment was full of half-empty boxes he didn’t feel like dealing with.
Six months here and he hadn’t hit it off with anyone on the force, not even a group of guys to grab a beer with after a rough shift.
Not that he’d put in much of an effort. He had no right to complain; moving had been his choice.
And he was solving murders. That was what mattered.
He dropped the warrant on Sanchez’s desk and moved through the dark office, toward the exit. He’d busied himself with as much paperwork as he could—it was time to go.
The conference room door had been left ajar. As he passed, something on the table hooked his eye. A file with crime scene photos spilling out. Lieutenant Delaney must have forgotten to lock up.
Seth glanced over his shoulder—no one was here. He pushed into the room, lit only by the street lights coming through the window. At the table, he inched a picture out of the file.
Night, a young woman’s body spread on asphalt.
Her head was lulled to the side, tucked into her shoulder, hiding her face.
Long, dark blonde hair mingled with the gore—a hack-job of a cut to her throat.
She was fully clothed, wearing a tank top and loose-fitting jeans.
But there was something written—no, carved—on her forearm.
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME
“Jesus,” Seth muttered.
The letters were jagged with strips of flesh peeling away.
He supposed that would happen if you tried to cleave a sentence into someone’s skin.
Without seeing the coroner’s report, he guessed this was done with a very thin blade.
A scalpel, a boxcutter. Surgically thin lines without a surgeon’s touch.
Curiously, there was an X-ray image from the coroner too. The victim’s neck had been fractured.
The light flicked on, at the same time Seth heard a voice. “We’re calling it the Fairview murder, pending something catchier.”
“Lieutenant, sorry, I just—”
“That’s all right.” Lieutenant Sheila Delaney held up a hand, setting him at ease.
She was still in her dress from the funeral, her pale face lined with exhaustion as she joined him, silver hair pin-straight.
“Robert wouldn’t want me to drag my heels on finding his replacement.
Fairview is a fairly small town and their chief is a personal friend of mine, so they need the backup.
” She slid some of the papers aside, revealing more photos.
“Her name is Eliza Johnson. She was only twenty-six.”
“I was just looking at this X-ray here,” Seth said. “The killer fractured her neck and slit her throat?”
“The fracture was non-fatal. The cut is what killed her.”
Huh.
One of the autopsy photos caught his attention. A close-up of a stick and poke tattoo on the victim’s ankle, the initials DB with a heart drawn next to them. “Haylock ever figure out who DB is?”
“He did not,” Delaney said. “He believed a drifter killed her. Someone from out of town saw a woman passed out behind a dumpster and abducted her. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Seems a bit personal for that.”
“Well, she was a known addict, had some solicitation charges under her belt. No DNA was found on the body, though. No signs of sexual assault. Her purse was recovered behind the dumpster. The only solace, if you can call it that, is she had a lot of heroin in her system when she died. She might not have felt much.”
Heroin. It was like hearing the name of a toxic old friend, someone he’d rather not run into and be tempted to shake hands with.
“So she was killed somewhere else and left here, in public, with the writing on display,” Seth said. “Why would a drifter do that? Why would he write something this possessive if he didn’t know her?”
Lieutenant Delaney’s eyes scrutinized him, made him hesitate. The space between them filled with the splatter of rain on the windows.
“I could find out,” Seth said. “I know I’m new here, but I’d be good for this case.”
She let out a light laugh and began gathering the photos into a pile. “Haylock had worked a handful of cases in Fairview over the years. He had good rapport with the locals. Sending my newest and youngest detective to replace him would not seem very responsible.”
All right, that one stung, but he didn’t let it show.
Delaney breezed past him toward the board and pinned some photos up.
Don’t push your luck. But Seth had never been afraid to go after what he wanted in his career; there was a reason he’d been the youngest person in his precinct to make detective.
He’d done well for himself in the two years since.
But this wasn’t New York, and Lieutenant Delaney didn’t have any extra patience for him.
Still, he wasn’t about to give up that easily. “I understand your point, ma’am, but I’ve worked cases like this before. I’m good for more than just street shootings.”
She lifted a brow, as if to call out his audacity. “You know, I’ve never understood why the detective who caught the ‘Brooklyn Butcher’ would take a position all the way down here. If Kansas City’s homicides are boring to you, Winslow, then NYPD would love to have their rising star back.”
He sighed in exasperation. He hated being misunderstood. “That’s not what I meant, Lieutenant. I like working here.”
“Good. I like having you here.” She offered a quick, but cutting smile and went back to the pile, deciding which one to pick next.
With the crime scene photos gone, another was left behind—Eliza Johnson when she was younger, alive, smiling at the camera for a school photo with a blue background.
Green eyes and shiny hair, a healthy flush to her cheeks.
A snapshot of her life before it all went downhill.
“Can I at least state my case?” he asked.
Delaney pressed her palms on the table. “Look, I already know you’re good, Winslow, but you’re a city cop.
Fairview is deep in the countryside. You could say goodbye to the camera angles and the potential witnesses and the backup.
Not to mention the townsfolk see and hear things they’d never tell an outsider.
These folks protect their own. I’d know, I grew up in a place like that. ”
“True, but I did a lot of solo work in New York. Undercover, especially when I was in narcotics. I always made it out and got my job done.”
Delaney studied him for a moment too long. “Why do you want it so badly? What’s so personal about this one?”
Seth hesitated. He didn’t want to make it personal, but part of it always was, at least for him.
“I’ve closed every case you’ve given me.
The stabbings, shootings, break-ins, accidents.
But cases like this”—he pointed at the photo of Eliza’s body—“are exactly why I do what I do. It’s more than a homicide—it’s a statement. And he could do it again.”
“Hm. I know your file.”
“Then you know I’ve dealt with killers like this before. Maybe someone unexpected is exactly what we need here.”
“You’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Good. Let’s make him nervous.”
She perched on the edge of the table, considering it. Despite his attempts to maintain confidence, Seth’s heart pounded.
Delaney sighed as she hopped to her feet. “You’re lucky—I happen to agree with you. A drifter likely didn’t do this.” She shot him one last wolfish, all-knowing smile. He couldn’t help but feel like this was a test, and somehow, he’d passed. “I’ll let them know you’re coming.”
Fairview, Missouri
Seth knocked on the door of a bungalow with sun-bleached paneling. A pick-up truck was parked in the driveway, its bed covered by a tarp, and the Missouri sun had sucked the life out of the lawn. Other houses were lush green with sprinklers on, but this one stood out. The bad seed on the street.
Beside him, Officer Amy Pereira shifted from heel-to-heel, stealing a glance his way.
He understood why she’d be wary of him. He’d only arrived in Fairview a couple of hours ago, and he was a good thirty years younger than Haylock.
After a restless night of reviewing case files, a four-hour drive down the backroads had brought him here, past a corncob-shaped population sign that read: Welcome to Fairview, Missouri’s Corn Capital!
Less than eight thousand people lived here, so it was small, but not one-hundred-people small.
Pereira had been the only cop remotely eager to ride with him today. She’d also been the first to offer something like a lead.
He let her do her thing and knock on the door herself.
“Brad? It’s Amy Pereira, you in there?”
Still no response.
Seth knocked harder, rattling the screen, then projected his voice through the house. “Mr. Bailey? This is the police, we just wanna talk.” Nothing. He turned to Pereira. “Think he went for a walk?”