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What the hell just happened? Even more importantly, how do I stop myself from wanting things to go further? We just lit one hell of a fuse, and I don’t know how we’re going to keep our hands off each other going forward.

3

LUCAS

It’s hard to get that guttural moan Tassia made when she climaxed out of my head. Persistent like a subtle echo in my ears, it has kept me company all through the night and well into the morning.

One shot of coffee later, I’m standing in the doorway of another murder scene. The echo goes away, replaced by the silence of death.

“Sheriff.” Gary, one of the CSI techs, greets me with a nod as he comes out of the townhouse. “It’s a nasty sight.”

“I heard,” I mutter, letting him go about his business.

He and the others move around the crime scene taking photographs, dusting for prints, bagging and tagging evidence, and marking blood spatter while the medical examiner, Dr. Halston, checks the body.

“Hey, Doc,” I say, standing just a few feet from the deceased. “What are we looking at here?”

“Dina Kellogg. Age twenty-six,” he replies, his grey brow furrowed. “You know, I delivered her. I delivered Tanya Burrow, too.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how that must feel.”

Mitch joins us while Tyler walks through the house, surveying the crime scene. “I guess that’s the downside of being the town’s ME and general practitioner,” Mitch mutters. “You get a glimpse of both sides of the coin.”

“Honestly, I never had high hopes for the girls,” Halston says, shaking his head. “Their parents were so young and reckless. Hell, I never even met Tanya’s father. He was just some seasonal worker passing through, according to her mother, who was barely sixteen at the time.”

“Two victims, same MO, or am I looking at this wrong?” I ask.

Dina was a pretty girl with pale blonde hair and blue eyes—now wide open and milky, devoid of life. Her lips are purple and slightly parted as she lays in a puddle of her own blood, congealing on the linoleum floor. Halston covers her up with a white sheet.

“Multiple stab wounds, and just like Tanya before her, the first blow was to the neck. She bled out fairly quickly,” the doctor says. “At first glance, she’s got all the signs of opioid addiction as well. I’m certain the tox screen will be positive for oxy or something in the oxy family.”

“There’s been a spike in drugs and drug-related crime all over the district,” Tyler reminds us as he comes back into the living room. “But two murders in less than a month?—”

“It’s escalating,” I interject. “We need to figure out a way to get ahead of it, fast.”

“But how?” Mitch asks. “We don’t have any connections.”

“I’ve been pushing for the town council to set up a Narcotics Anonymous group for months,” Halston says. “You’re aware of how many OD’s we’ve had this year alone. It was only a matter of time before some of these people wound up dead.”

“Except Dina and Tanya were murdered in cold blood,” I contend. “Something tells me there’s a connection between the two women. We just need to find it.”

Mitch goes over his notes and shakes his head in dismay. “Tanya worked at Home Depot and lived on the other side of town. Dina had a part-time job at Walmart on the south side, a few blocks from here. Tanya moved to Claryville five years ago, so we’re not going to find any school connections?—”

“There has to be something,” I insist, then turn and walk outside.

You never get used to seeing a dead body, no matter how many times, and I’m tired of stumbling upon them in Frost Valley. This was supposed to be our safe haven. Our home. Not a new battlefield for Mitch, Tyler, and me to fight on.

Tyler follows me outside. “We need to revisit Tanya’s case and go over it with a fine-tooth comb.”

“Well, it’s still open. We have no new leads, no CCTV, no witnesses?—”

“None that were willing to come forward, anyway,” Mitch chimes in as he approaches. He has a faraway look in his eye, and I know he’s still processing the crime scene in the back of his head. “Whoever did this was fucking brutal, man. One stabwound to the side of the neck, then a few more to the body just to make sure she dies.”

“It’s not a rage killing,” Tyler adds. “I’ll bet Halston will confirm each of the stab wounds were deliberate, targeting vital organs.”

“The killer doesn’t appear to be some grade A hitman, either. There were no signs of forced entry at either crime scene, indicating both victims knew him. They willingly let him into their homes,” I point out. “Whatever is going on here, I think it’s just the beginning.”

“We need more information,” Tyler says.