Page 43 of Kiss of Deceit

“Something happened?—”

“What was that?” Kyle cut him off, jumping to his feet.

I saw it too, and I rushed toward the door, pushing past Harry to look outside. Tristin glanced over his shoulder. People were walking down the street, all heading in the same direction.

“What the hell is going on?” Harry asked, grabbing his flannel coat from the hook.

“I…I don’t know. I haven’t gone there yet,” Tristin sputtered out. “But someone came into the station, saying there’s a dead body?—”

He stopped talking when a faint scream tore through the air. The back of my neck prickled, and I strode back to the table, grabbing my jacket from the chair. Kyle was already heading out the door after Harry, and I followed them into the chilly night.

Tristin pointed toward the main street where a crowd was forming near the center of town, around a cluster of benches encircling a tall statue of a bear with the town’s name carved under it. As we got closer, and the murmurs grew louder.

“Alright, back up,” Harry boomed as he pushed through the bodies. “Move.”

The crowd parted for him, and I ignored the stares as I followed. Harry halted mid-step causing me to nearly slam into him.

“Christ,” he muttered, shock coating his voice.

Peering around him, my heart sank when I saw the scene in front of me. A body was propped up in a sitting position against the statue with a knife buried in her chest. Her head was tilted up, her eyelids open to make it seem like she was staring at the sky, but there was no life in her horror-filled eyes. It was like she was stuck in her last moments, staring at the person who’d killed her.

My gaze drifted to the ground in front of her where dark blood covered the concrete. But it wasn’t pooled from her being stabbed. The killer wrote a message using her blood.

Want to play?

The large letters were scrawled across the pavement, and while messy they were still easy to read. My heart was thundering in my ears, drowning out the crowd. In all the years I’d been here, this was the first murder. Crime like thisdidn’thappen here. Since I didn’t recognize the woman, I had a feeling it was an intern.

“Kole…Kole,” Harry’s loud voice broke through my thoughts. “Tell Kyle to go get Natalie. We’re going to need all the help with this one.”

My eyes snapped to him as he stared at the body with a heavy frown on his face. I noticed the people surrounding us had shock on their faces. I searched the crowd, my gaze stopping on Dani. She was standing completely still, but unlike everyone else, she wasn’t looking at the gruesome scene. She was studying everyone around her.

I stared at her, trying to catch a hint of what was going on in her head. She didn’t look scared or terrorized. In fact, she was the calmest of everyone in the area. Her face was paler than I’d ever seen, but that was the only outward reaction she had. Maybe it was because she’d seen this kind of thing before. I had no idea what she did for work in her past, but with her being a forensic psychologist, she could have witnessed crimes like this.

“This is going to be a long fucking night,” Harry grumbled, swiping a hand down his face.

“One of the butcher knives?” I asked under my breath.

“Looks like it.”

“How many were stolen?”

He sighed. “Seven.”

“Shit.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

dani

Want to play?

The letters written in blood were branded in my mind. It didn’t mean anything. At least that was what I kept telling myself. The man who’d tortured me said the same thing before he’d stabbed me. My monster wasn’t the only one who killed for fun—who made it a game. I had a feeling that whoever did this was just as bad as him.

One thing was clear.

I wasn’t the only killer in this town.

“Did you organize it all?”