A bit of a pissy response, but I let it slide. Aside from me, he’s the only person who actually gives a damn about finding the killer hiding in the shadows.
Swallowing the rest of my bitter remarks, I report the same details we’ve seen on these murder victims over the last decade: lacerations made with astonishing surgical precision, mutilated body parts, creative gags personalized to the deceased.
In this case, a rapist died with panties in his mouth. Justice served on a gilded platter, if you ask me.
Every single victim has been a criminal, typically the bottomfeeders of Salem no higher on the underworld food chain than rats. Whoever is killing them knows the cops aren’t doing shit to find them. The most police have done is kept the news of these murders under wraps, blinding the public to our very own vigilante doing their job better than them.
Not that the cops care. Even after the DNA samples collected from each kill have consistently pointed toward an exotic cat used to deliver the deathblow, they’ve turned their cheeks. Why wouldn’t they? The killer is taking a sizable load off their backs.
Or, such as in Sebastian’s case, shouldering the entire damn precinct.
When I’m finished with my assessment I already know will go no further than a filing cabinet, Scull takes his leave to debrief his recruits.Alone with the body, I scan the mangled cadaver. Searching for any imperfection discernible as remarkablyhis:tattoos, scars, blemishes, birthmarks. If he’s doomed to a fiery grave like the rest, it’s a necessary precaution before his hide becomes my next premium leather project.
My rebound books cannot be linked back to criminals meant for the incinerator. A single DNA test would spell my downfall, but I market the skin as animal hide to avoid any mishaps. False advertisement has saved me from a padded cell so far.
Thankfully, Sebastian’s canvas is a clean slate.
“Fantastique,” I utter beneath my breath. “I think I’ll wrap you aroundJane Eyre.A taleabouta woman, writtenbya woman. Seems fitting for your debut, no?”
He doesn’t confirm or deny, which I take as a promising sign. The moment these dead bastards wake and talk back,I’llbe the one bathing with a toaster.
As I head for the door, a flash of color snags my attention. Edging a pool of dim light on the floor beneath a nearby scene lamp, something pink winks at me. Grabbing a clear evidence bag and pliers from my pack, I kneel and pinch between the prongs a strand of someone’s hair. It’s long, sleek, and straight. Not synthetic, fully human.
A wicked smile stretches my lips taut. This may as well be a piece of priceless treasure. Even if the strand is from a wig or some type of extension made with human hair, it’s as traceable as a fingerprint.
I should call Scull back in here. But if I do, his superiors will take this glittering gem and let it dull in an evidence locker until the case inevitably grows frost. And the mysterious vigilante will continue their killing spree. Their victims may be criminals, but there’s no knowing when the city’s guardian angel will turn on the innocent.
Heroes so often fall from grace. How long until this one trades their halo for horns?
The chambers of my heart stutter as a very insane, veryillegalidea forms.
“I probablyshouldn’ttest this to find out who they are so I can hunt them myself.” I leer at the corpse of a predator searching endlessly for the paradise he’ll never see. “Guess that would make me no better than you, wouldn’t it?”
Yet there’s a grinding gnaw at the back of my skull. It’s the same feeling I had twenty years ago, when home was a deadbeat’s house in Texas and every day was a game of survival. Listening to intuition saved both me and my brother then. I’ll be damned if I ignore it now.
I seal the pink strand in the evidence bag and slip it into my pack.
“Don’t judge me,” I toss back to the dead prick, his gaze mercifully unmoving. “I’m no saint, but I’mnothinglike you.”
I deliver the felonious evidence to the local medical examiner’s office, calling in a long overdue favor Quinn Wildes still owes me for her most recent rebind ofDracula.
After my brief explanation of the case and the gold I’ve just handed her, she stealthily slips the evidence bag into a pocket of her lab coat and pantomimes slitting her own throat to indicate her consent to keep quiet. I let loose an easy chuckle. Quinn is the only person aside from my brother who has the power to make me laugh on a bad day.
From outside the thin plexiglass window separating us, I ask, “How long,ma chérie?”
Quinn scrunches her freckled nose and glances over her shoulder at the lab bustling with staff carrying armfuls of specimens and reports. “At least a few months.”
I blink. “Sorry, did you say ‘months?’”
Her sharp sigh ruffles her wild cinnamon curls. “This is a forensics lab in Salem, Brontë. We’re abitbacklogged.”
“How can I jump the line?”
She starts to laugh then stops when I don’t join in. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“What gave you the impression I wasn’t?”
Rolling her deep sapphire doe eyes, she inches closer and murmurs, “Look, you know I’m good for my word. But if you want this to stay off the radar, there is no jumping the line. You’re just going to have to wait your turn.”