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Something stirs in me, a hunger that feels both foreign and familiar. I watch as she moves across the window, unaware of being observed. The distance should make details impossible to discern, yet somehow I can see the curve of her neck, the graceful arc of her arm as she reaches up to pull the curtain closed.

What am I doing here? Am I investigating Elizabeth Short’s murder, or am I stalking Lena Reid? The line between professional interest and personal obsession has blurred dangerously.

I start the car and pull away from the curb, forcing myself to focus on the road rather than the window that now glows like a beacon behind me. The darkness wraps around me, comfortable, almost sentient. I’ve always been a creature of the night, working better after the sun sets. Lately, though, light has become increasingly difficult to tolerate, the California sun too bright, the noises too loud—another oddity to add to my growing list of concerns.

Back at my apartment, I pour three fingers of whiskey and down it in one swallow. The alcohol does nothing to dull the strange energy thrumming through me. Sleep seems impossible, though exhaustion pulls at my limbs.

I think of Lena—her dark eyes holding secrets, her voice like smoke and velvet, the electricity that passed between us at the warehouse. The memory of her body pressed against mine in that shadowed alleyway as we hid from Cohen’s men sends heat coursing through me.

I lean back in my chair, my fingers unbuttoning my fly, my cock already straining against my pants, begging to be let loose.I pull it out, long, thick and hot, making a tight fist as I succumb to where my mind has been dying to go.

I imagine Lena on her knees, those fiery curls spilling over her shoulders, lips parted. Her fingers trace the length of me, teasing, tempting. I picture her straddling my lap, her dress slipping down to reveal full breasts that heave with each breath, the tiniest pink nipples that taste like heaven on my tongue. She kisses me hard, fierce and demanding, riding me like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do—like I’m the last man she’ll ever fuck.

The images flood my mind, dirty, lewd, making me groan. Her voice echoes in my ears, a breathless whisper of want and need. My own words go harder. “Take that cock, you dirty little slut,” I tell her as she moans and claws at my back. “You want it, don’t you, kitten? You fucking love it.”

I see her beneath me on silk sheets, dark eyes full of mischief and promise. It’s all so vivid; it overtakes me until I barely recognize my own fantasies. My hand moves faster as I imagine spreading her pink cunt wide open and taking everything she has to give.

My hand moves faster now and I imagine her nails digging into my skin, the heat of her breath against my neck. The whiskey burns in my veins and I pretend Lena’s body is face down beneath me now, supple ass pressed against me, taking every inch like she can’t get enough.

“That’s right,” I tell her. “You’re mine now.”

Mine.

The thought of owning her, claiming her, while burying myself deep inside her is enough to send me over the edge.

My hips buck off the chair and I come with her name on my lips, hot spurts streaking across my shirt as I gasp for air.

The release leaves me shaking, my breath ragged against the silence of the room. My cum drips down my knuckles, sticky and cooling as it smears across my stomach. I sag back in the chair,feeling empty and raw, like I’ve ripped something from deep inside myself and cast it to the floor.

Yet I can’t shed her yet. Her ghostly touch lingers on my skin. The whiskey bottle taunts me from across the room, but even that seems powerless against this new and dangerous hunger.

Afterward, shame and confusion war within me. This fixation isn’t like me. I’ve always prided myself on compartmentalizing, on keeping professional distance. Yet Lena Reid has somehow breached those carefully constructed walls without even trying.

I fall into a fitful sleep, dreams filled with shadowed figures and the scent of jasmine and blood.

The next daypasses in a fog of investigation. I follow up with the coroner’s office, calling in a favor to access Elizabeth Short’s full autopsy report. The details are more gruesome than the newspapers reported—her body completely drained of blood, bisected with surgical precision, her internal organs removed with methodical care, everything from her liver to her uterus. Pieces of her body were cut off and inserted inside her vagina. Not the work of a frenzied killer, but someone with knowledge and patience.

“Anything unusual besides the obvious?” I ask Dr. Davidson, an old acquaintance who owes me for keeping his gambling habits quiet.

“Blood type was rare,” he says, lighting a cigarette despite hospital regulations. “AB negative. Made identifying her a bit easier—we had her blood type on file from a donation drive last year, along with her fingerprints from her DUI in Santa Barbara.”

“Anything else?”

Davidson hesitates, glancing around the morgue. There’s another technician standing in the corner, back to us but out of earshot. “There were…inconsistencies in the wound patterns. Some looked older than others. We think the killer took his time, torturing her over days.”

My stomach turns. “She was kept alive during part of it?”

“Seems to suggest that.” He shrugs. “She was killed maybe 14 hours before we found her. What’s even weirder is some of the incisions seemed almost ritualistic. Not your standard sadist’s work. This was a sick freak.”

Ritualistic. Coleman had used that word before, Lena said the same thing about the drawings in the diary and the symbol on the warehouse wall—faded outlines beneath a hasty coat of paint. What kind of ritual involves draining someone’s blood? I’m not sure I want to know.

I spend the afternoon tracing Elizabeth’s movements in the days before her disappearance. The Biltmore Hotel confirms she was seen in the lobby on January ninth speaking with an unidentified man just outside but they can’t give me any more info than that.

By evening, I’m heading to The Emerald Room. I tell myself it’s purely business, even though I know better.

I arrive early, securing a corner table with a clear view of the stage. The club is already filling with the usual mix of gangsters, businessmen looking for thrills, and Hollywood types slumming it for the night. I order a whiskey this time and settle in to wait.

At nine, the house lights dim. The band begins a slow, smoky number, and she appears.