Page 2

CELINE

M ost twenty-six-year-olds would be spending their weekend out with friends at the bar. Me? I’m currently standing in front of what looks to be a crude attempt at a smiley face made out of decapitated heads and body parts.

What the fuck?

I tilt my head in absolute bewilderment, trying to process what I’m seeing.

“Detective Brennan.”

I snap my head up at the sound of my name, Captain Barnes pulling me out of my trance.

“Yes, Captain?” Shifting my weight and putting my hands on my hips I fully face him.

He scratches at his mustache. “I know this is your first case after getting promoted, but I have to say this isn’t uncommon. I feel like you should know that.”

Captain Barnes is a burly man with an imposing figure.

His brown hair is shaved short to his scalp with dark eyes that convey a no-nonsense attitude that dares you to try to pull a fast one on him.

It’s no wonder he has the highest clearance rate with that scrutinizing gaze.

I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of his wrath.

I’ve known the man since I was a child. My father was a detective too, so Captain Barnes has practically watched me grow up.

“Sir,” I reply in a deadpan tone. “You’re telling me you come across bloody smiley faces made from body parts often?” I try to breathe through my mouth, because the scent of blood and bile is stifling.

What kind of predicament have I gotten myself into? Maybe I should’ve stuck with being a patrol officer.

The captain shakes his head. “Unfortunately, yes. We’ve had murders that all end in these crass, grotesquely childish depictions for years now.”

I can swear I hear a disbelieving scoff of, “Childish?” but when I look around it’s just Captain Barnes and me on this side of the warehouse.

He places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes.

“I know you weren’t fully briefed as we just promoted you, but you’re one of the most promising in the force.

Your recent work has already been outstanding and we need to get to the bottom of this.

” He runs a hand over his scalp. “I’ll understand if this is a bit much.

I’ve lost a few good officers that couldn’t stomach this.

” He gestures at the mess of blood and limbs.

So much blood. I’m not normally one to be squeamish but even I’m having a hard time not gagging.

I try to calculate how many bodies we’re looking at for there to be that much blood, but my brain can’t seem to compute beyond a lot.

“Okay,” I drag out the word, and look around the warehouse at the various corpses. “Thank you for your candidness, but I’ll be fine.” I think. “How many murders are we talking?”

Captain Barnes sighs and grabs a thick case file from a fellow detective who brings it over. Paging through, he counts out loud and lands on three identical crime scenes within the last month alone.

I gape. That’s unheard of.

“Can I have that?” I offer my hand, and he nods.

The pictures contained within the manila folder are disgustingly vivid and I can’t help my wince when I see human bodies manipulated in ways I didn’t know were possible.

Three offenses in a month is beyond excessive, especially considering each one has a minimum of ten dead.

Killing one person in this kind of manner is exhausting on the human body let alone so many.

It makes no sense. It doesn’t seem possible.

“Always a gory mess and yet they have enough time to clean it up and leave a nice picture for us,” he says clean with quotation fingers.

“They also leave a signature in blood each time.” Coming around to me he points at a bloody poorly drawn smiley face with —is that fangs?

— found in each photo from the previous crime scenes.

Walking over to our current massacre I delicately step over a dismembered torso to see the tell-tale ‘signature’ off to the side.

“What a bunch of psychos,” I mutter under my breath. “It has to be a group.”

There’s no way one person is responsible for this.

Captain Barnes huffs a laugh. “It’s like chasing a ghost. Never any DNA of any kind and anytime a shoe print has been left behind it’s always been the same size shoe.

One perp doesn’t make sense and yet…” He trails off with a tired sigh.

“Oh, and there’s one more important detail.

” Barnes rubs the back of his neck and exhales.

“The other common denominator between all these murders is that they’ve been deaths of criminals or complete annihilations of organizations we’ve been trying to take down for years. ”

I whip around to face him fully. “All of them?” I’m flabbergasted as to who would be capable of such a thing, let alone be motivated to do it.

Like a real-life Dexter?

“Every single one.” The captain looks just as confused as I feel, and I know my work’s cut out for me.

He takes in the scene and says, “I’ll only say this to you, but I’m kind of relieved at least someone is getting rid of the rapists, child predators, and traffickers.

We don’t have enough manpower to take them all down. ”

He walks away when his name is called by a squad member.

I sigh and brush soaking wet hair away from my face. I’m glad one of us has faith. This crime scene is like nothing I’ve ever seen or dealt with before. During training I saw all kinds of crazy shit and I do love a good horror movie, but this might take the cake.

Letting out a breath, the shift of a shadow above catches my eye. I look up but find nothing.

“Probably a fucking rat,” I mutter to myself. “I hate rats.”

Throwing my apartment keys into the dish on the stand in my entry I stand in silence. Crazy mass murderers who make art with intestines and only target bad guys? Not on my bingo card.

A furry head suddenly rubs itself along my calf and I look down to find Midnight, my inherited cat.

I refuse to claim him as mine since I’m pretty sure he’d sell me for catnip if he could.

His pitch-black fur in the darkness makes him look like a mass of shadows with no visible form save for bright yellow eyes.

“I’m not petting you,” I warn and walk away. He hisses at the insult. “That’s what I thought. I know this game.” Grabbing his wet food from a cabinet in the kitchen I start the process of feeding the crotchety cat. “You act all lovey-dovey and then go in for the kill.”

Midnight struts over like the prissy prince he is and hops up on the counter to wait impatiently for his dinner. Tail curled perfectly around his fluffy paws he paints the perfect picture of innocence.

“I do feel bad you’re getting this so late today, but better late than never, huh?

” I rest my elbow on the counter as he delicately laps up the food when I set the can in front of him.

I resist the urge to scratch behind his ear.

He might be cute, but he’s deadly. I have an automatic dry cat food feeder that goes off at scheduled times throughout the day, but Midnight needs his wet food or hell will be raised.

Looking at the cat I can’t help but think about my father and his situation.

My parents were sickeningly in love until they weren’t.

It’s supposed to be ‘til death do us part, right? Apparently, my mother didn’t believe that.

My dad was diagnosed with early on set dementia when he was fifty and it rattled her.

The symptoms started slowly with forgotten dates, items on the grocery list, and repeated questions of things that were just answered.

Then it morphed into wandering, misplacing important things, and loss of recognition.

My mom panicked and couldn’t deal with it, even though it’s the responsibility of a loving partner to help their spouse through the best and worst of times.

As soon as the doctor told us it was going to progress quickly, and he should be admitted into an assisted living community she ran for the hills.

I haven’t talked to her in a long time. Although, she’s tried to call me randomly over the years, for what I’m not sure. Out of guilt? To beg my forgiveness?

She didn’t just abandon him when she left. I was only eighteen. I still needed my mom and she was just gone. It was a harder blow than my father’s diagnosis. At least he didn’t forget about me because he wanted to.

As his daughter it was hard to watch as the strong, proud man I once knew as my father slowly deteriorated into a shell of himself. A much loved and stellar detective himself when he was in his prime, I saw how much it hurt him to lose every part of himself.

I hope most people will never know the excruciating pain of walking into a room and having one of the most important people in their life not recognize them.

The first time it happened was a knife to my gut and after the visit I sobbed on my couch. I think that was the one rare occasion Midnight let me use him for comfort without scratching me.

Even though he was a little piece of shit, the cat was one of my last few ties to my father. He was his partner in crime for ten years. While he still had a sliver of lucid mind left, he asked me take care of him.

“I don’t trust anyone with him besides you.” He had said while giving Midnight an affectionate last pat on the head. I wanted to insist he keep him since pets can help dementia patients, but with tears in his eyes, he had said I needed him more, knowing I’d be alone.

“Ow!” I rub my ankle where Midnight has suddenly decided to take a bite out of my leg. Looking down he’s glaring up at me with his beady eyes, tail whipping behind him. “I gave you your dinner and apologized for it being late.”

He grumbles and I roll my eyes, heading back to my bedroom making sure to close the door so he can’t follow. Exhaustion weighs heavily on me and sleep can’t come soon enough. Not when I know the kind of work cut out for me tomorrow.