Chapter 2
The dead woman’s eyes were open.
Silas Kane had seen a lot of death in his thirty-six years—first in Afghanistan, then in homicide—but something about open eyes always got to him. Like the victim was watching, waiting for him to figure out who’d done this to her.
I’m working on it, he thought, crouching beside the body. Just give me time.
Three-seventeen a.m. The call had come in at two-forty from a night security guard who’d been doing his rounds at the old paper mill.
Poor bastard was currently sitting in a patrol car, throwing up everything he’d eaten in the past week.
Silas couldn’t blame him. This wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot.
The victim was young—early twenties, he’d guess.
Petite, maybe five-three, with dark hair that spilled across the concrete like an oil slick.
She wore jeans and a light sweater, both intact except where the killer had cut through them to access skin.
The cuts were precise. Deliberate. Someone who knew what they were doing with a blade.
But it was the positioning that made Silas’s gut twist.
Her arms were arranged above her head at a specific angle, hands placed just so. Her head tilted left, chin elevated, exposing the long line of her throat. And carved into her torso—carefully, almost lovingly—were symbols that Silas had never seen before.
Circles within triangles. Intersecting lines. A pattern that meant something to the killer, even if Silas couldn’t read it yet.
“Detective?” One of the crime scene techs—Stratton—approached with a camera. “We’re ready to start documentation.”
“Give me another minute.”
Silas pulled out his phone and snapped his own photos, making sure to capture the angles, the positioning, the symbols.
His mind was already working, building a profile the way his Army psych-ops training had taught him.
Male, most likely. Organized—this kind of scene staging took time and control.
Patient. Intelligent. Someone who planned.
Someone who’d done this before.
The thought made his jaw clench. Blackridge was a small city, maybe forty thousand people. They got domestics, the occasional gang shooting, drunk drivers. Not this. Not ritualistic murders with symbolic carvings.
Which meant either the killer was new to the area, or he’d been very, very careful until now.
Silas stood, his knees protesting. Thirty-six wasn’t old, but twelve years in the Army—four of them in intelligence, eight in the Rangers—had left him with souvenirs.
A bad knee from a firefight in Kandahar.
Scars across his back from shrapnel. And the kind of memories that made sleep a luxury he couldn’t afford.
He understood darkness. Had seen what humans were capable of when they stopped pretending to be civilized. That’s why he was good at this job. He could think like the monsters because he’d spent so much time hunting them overseas.
Sometimes, he worried he’d spent too long staring into the abyss.
“Detective Kane.”
He turned to find Captain Holloway approaching, picking his way carefully around the crime scene markers.
The captain was in his fifties, gray-haired, with the weathered look of a man who’d spent over thirty years in law enforcement.
Good cop. Fair. But he was also a political animal, which meant Silas had to watch his words.
“Captain. Didn’t expect you at three a.m.”
“Ritualistic murder tends to wake people up.” Holloway stopped a few feet from the body, his expression grim. “What are we looking at?”
“Female victim, early twenties. No ID on her yet. Cause of death is likely exsanguination from the cuts, but the ME will confirm. Positioning suggests the killer posed her post-mortem.” Silas gestured to the symbols.
“These were done while she was alive. Shallow enough not to kill immediately, deep enough to hurt. He wanted her to suffer.”
“Jesus.” Holloway scrubbed a hand over his face. “Any witnesses?”
“Security guard found her, but he didn’t see anything. I’ve got patrols canvassing the area, but this place is pretty isolated at night. Whoever did this picked his spot carefully.”
“You said ‘his.’”
“Statistically, yes. This kind of ritualistic violence, the strength required for the positioning, the sexual undertones—it fits a male profile.” Silas paused. “But that’s preliminary. I’ll know more once I can work the scene properly.”
Holloway nodded, then cleared his throat. “About that. I got a call from the FBI—”
“Yeah. She found me at the crime scene.” Silas kept his voice neutral, professional. “Agent Harper Sinclair. She introduced herself about an hour ago.”
Holloway’s eyebrows rose. “She’s already here?”
“Already working the scene, actually. Took photos, examined the body, made herself right at home.” Silas couldn’t quite keep the edge out of his voice. “Would’ve been nice to get a heads-up before the FBI just showed up on my case, Captain.”
“I was going to tell you this morning, but you were already at the mill by the time I got the call.” Holloway’s tone turned firm.
“And it’s not your case, Kane. It’s our case.
The city council is breathing down my neck about this.
A ritualistic murder makes people nervous.
If the FBI is offering help, we’re taking it. ”
Silas bit back a curse. Politics. It always came down to politics.
“She wants to meet later. Go over case details, align our approach.” He said it like the words tasted bad.
“Good. Then you’ll play nice and work with her.” Holloway clapped him on the shoulder. “I know you prefer working alone, but this isn’t negotiable. Agent Sinclair has specific expertise we don’t have.”
Alone. Yeah, that’s how Silas preferred it.
Alone meant no one got hurt because of his calls.
Alone meant he didn’t have to trust anyone else to watch his six.
He’d learned that lesson in the Army, and he’d relearned it in Blackridge when his first partner turned out to be on the take from a local gang.
Trust got you killed. Or worse, it got other people killed.
“I’ll play nice,” Silas lied.
Holloway gave him a look that said he didn’t buy it but wasn’t going to push. “Just...try, okay? For me.”
After the captain left, Silas turned back to the body. The dead woman’s open eyes seemed to accuse him. You’re wasting time. Find him.
“I will,” he promised quietly.
***
Silas pulled into his driveway at four-fifteen a.m., killed the engine, and sat in the darkness of his truck.
The house looked exactly as he’d left it six hours ago—small, neat, unremarkable. A rental on the edge of Blackridge where the trees started to take over and neighbors were scarce. No porch light because Silas didn’t need one. No welcome mat because no one was welcome.
Just the way he liked it.
He climbed out, locked the truck with the automatic precision of someone who’d done it ten thousand times.
His body moved through the familiar routine while his mind stayed at the crime scene.
Young woman. Dark hair. Symbols carved with surgical precision.
A killer who’d been dormant for five years suddenly active again.
And Harper Sinclair, standing in his crime scene with recognition in her eyes and guilt written across her face.
I read the report. You ignored protocol. Went in without backup. Your partner followed you and died for it.
The words had been cruel. Silas knew that even as he’d said them. But cruelty had a purpose—it established boundaries. It made sure people understood that he didn’t want them close, didn’t trust them, didn’t need their help.
Especially people whose judgment had gotten their partners killed.
Inside, the house was dark and quiet. Silas flipped on lights as he moved through the space—living room with minimal furniture, kitchen that looked barely used, hallway leading to a bedroom and bathroom. Everything in its place. Everything controlled.
He’d learned control in the Army. You controlled your environment, controlled your emotions, controlled every variable you could because the world was chaos and chaos got people killed.
His team in Afghanistan had trusted him to control the variables.
Clear the buildings, secure the perimeter, keep them safe.
And Silas had failed. One building not properly cleared.
One suicide vest he’d missed. Three men dead because he’d moved too fast, been too confident, made assumptions instead of checking every corner.
Williams, Johnson, Brown. Their names were carved into his memory deeper than any symbol on any victim.
Silas stripped off his clothes—they smelled like the paper mill, like death and industrial decay. He walked to the bathroom, turned the shower as hot as he could stand, and stepped under the spray.
The water beat against his shoulders, his back, the scar tissue that ran down his left side from the blast that should have killed him. Sometimes, he wished it had. Would have been easier than carrying the weight of three deaths, three families who’d never gotten their husbands and fathers back.
He’d survived. They hadn’t. That was the math that kept him awake most nights.
Silas scrubbed at his skin mechanically, washing away the crime scene, the interaction with Harper Sinclair, the creeping certainty that this case was going to be different from anything he’d handled before.
A serial killer with a five-year cooling-off period.
Ritualistic elements that suggested obsession.
And an FBI profiler who’d been hunting him for years.
I’ve been hunting this bastard for five years, and he just turned up in my backyard.
Her words echoed in his memory. There’d been something raw in her voice when she’d said it. Something personal. Like this killer wasn’t just a case to her—he was unfinished business.
Silas understood unfinished business.