Page 7 of The Shadowed Oracle (The Bonded Worlds #1)

Chapter Five

“Sleeping much?” Ingrid slapped a napkin down and handed over a menu. “Your eyes look like two piss-holes in a snow bank.”

The patron in front of her was a new regular named Dean. Tall, boxy jawline, wavy brown hair, and hazel eyes that he would lock directly on to her when ordering.

He didn’t seem offended. “Not at all, actually,” he said, managing a self-effacing grin. “Thank you for asking.”

Ingrid hesitated at this answer, something like guilt weighing down her tongue. It was the night after the run-in with Kyle Twyker and the stink of him hadn’t quite come off of her yet.

“Sorry,” she said finally. “I don’t know why I?—"

“I know I look like shit,” he cut her off. “Work has been exhausting lately.”

Ingrid scanned the rest of her patrons, doing a quick estimation of how long it might be before one of them shouted at her for another drink. The bar was half full, but since the incident, her frequent patrons were more lenient with Ingrid’s attentiveness.

“I know how that goes,” Ingrid continued, tucking her bar rag in the waistband of her leggings. “What do you do for work?” She leaned on the wooden tabletop, indicating she wasn’t just mindlessly making small talk.

Dean perked up in his seat. “What?”

“What do you do for work?”

“No, I heard you.” He laughed nervously. “I just meant… are you okay?”

Since first coming in a month ago, Dean had gotten the usual cold treatment Ingrid reserved for men she thought were a little too flirty.

He was always well-mannered, well-dressed, and vexingly attractive—but had the arrogance to match his good looks.

The first few weeks after meeting him, he tried all manner of tactics to get Ingrid to soften to him.

Even used the old, “you have such interesting eyes” line when the prospects seemed bleak.

Directly after that comment, however, something changed.

He seemed embarrassed, hurriedly apologizing.

Where some men devolved and darkened around Ingrid, Dean had shown genuine vulnerability and kindness.

He swapped the flirting with smiling glances as she took his order, moved on without pouting, and stopped saying anything to her beyond a “thank you” or “please.”

Ingrid figured that night, of all nights, seemed like a good time to match his politeness. She’d be happy with any distraction.

“Something’s gotta be wrong with me, right?” she asked. “If I’m being friendly?”

“Honestly? Yes. I once heard you call a guy a vapid little worm , just because he asked about ‘the meaning’ of one of your tattoos.”

Ingrid couldn’t remember ever calling someone a “worm,” but that didn’t mean Dean was misremembering entirely.

“Maybe it was a rat,” Dean corrected himself. “ Vapid little rodent, maybe? Either way, you’re not known for your social decorum.”

Ingrid made a dismissive humming noise, then calmly walked toward an older couple that had just sat down at the other side of the bar.

“Wait!” Dean called out. “I didn’t answer your question!”

Ingrid twisted her neck around lazily. “You had your chance,” she said, not breaking stride until she was standing in front of the couple, getting into her tired routine.

“Welcome in. What can I get?—"

“I’m a crime scene investigator!” Dean yelled across the room. The older couple flinched at the volume of his voice, maximized to cut through the music. “That’s what I do! Photographing them, analyzing evidence! Sorry, I just didn’t expect you?—”

She swatted at his words. “I’ll be right there, detective,” she said, and continued her rounds.

It wouldn’t have taken her long with how drunk the crowd already was, but she found herself speeding things along.

Ever the opportunist, she thought that if she could befriend someone in law enforcement, her case against her stalker might be paid more attention.

Not to mention, whatever stories a crime scene investigator had were far more distracting than another night of taking drink orders.

At least that’s what Ingrid told herself. The possible “in” it would give her, that’s what interested her, not who was telling her those details. No matter how confusingly intrigued she was by him.

“Have you heard about what’s going on lately?” Dean asked her when she returned to his corner of the bar. “You know…” He lowered his voice. “The body?”

“The girl in the suitcase?” Ingrid threw her thumb over her shoulder, pointing at the TV hanging above her.

“Saw it on the news, yeah. People here wouldn’t shut up about it.

” Even with how occupied she’d been, Ingrid couldn’t miss a young woman being stuffed into a hard-shell travel case, her hands and feet amputated to aid the fit, then dumped like garbage not twenty minutes from where she lived.

Dean stared intently at her, gauging whether or not Ingrid was disturbed. It was far from the typical barstool conversation, but what he saw in her was not disgust, nor hesitance.

Leaning in, he said, “I’ve been working those cases for the last month.” He paused, taking stock of himself, the slump in his posture weighed down by exhaustion. “That’s why I look like this.”

“How many are there?” Ingrid asked.

“Six now. The second was just a few days after. The third, fourth and fifth murders were a few days after that. And the sixth—we were there this morning.”

It was a serial case, that was a given. So Ingrid followed up with, “What’s his MO? The hands and feet? The suitcase?”

Dean’s head sloped, mouth quirking up. He didn’t seem secretive now.

If anything, he seemed relieved to share the information.

“That’s why it wasn’t in the news.” He checked his phone with a click.

“Not until about five minutes from now. Even we didn’t know for sure, so we kept it within the station. ”

Ingrid took two small steps to her left, snatched the remote from a little metal shelf hanging off the column separating the inside and outside of the bar-top, then aimed it upward until she found the right channel.

The daytime anchor was narrating footage of a traffic accident, while a box of text at the bottom flashed updates: two injured, stable .

Ingrid checked the digital clock next to it, making sure she had time before it was switched to the nightly timeslot.

She did, but not long to scoop what insider information she could get from the… what was he again?

“Are you a cop cop? Or just a… sorry, I forgot what you called it.”

“An analyst.” Dean corrected, trying to hide a smile. “But technically, yes, I’m a cop. Spiritually though, I’m a nerd.”

“Oh.” Ingrid flicked an eyebrow up. “So you’re only half an egomaniac. Got it.”

“Not a fan of the authorities?” Dean asked.

She shrugged. “I give them credit where it’s due. They can put together evidence at the same rate as stay-at-home moms with internet can.” Her hand went to her chest in mock-gratitude. “When did they figure out the connection?”

“Last night,” Dean responded. “The latest cadaver was posed the same as the others.” He glanced up at the flickering light from the TV to see that the introduction montage for the nightly newscast was playing, with that repetitive music and the flood of bright graphics.

“They were all postured in the fetal position.”

Ingrid scrunched her face. “It took you six bodies to make that connection? That they were all posed the same?”

“It sounds a lot easier than it was. The first had to be posed like that just to fit. We were more focused on the hands and feet. If the killer wanted to make it easier to discard, then why leave the rest intact? We thought it might be a calling card.”

“Pretty sure it’s harder to cut off a head than hands and feet,” Ingrid said casually. “Both ethically and physically, I mean. That’s probably why he stopped.”

Dean looked disgusted. “Ethically?” he asked. “What’s ethical about cutting off someone’s feet?”

“Nothing,” Ingrid said. “But it’s less personal. Less invasive, too.”

Dean seemed to be enthralled and confused in equal measure. It was similar to how he’d looked at her when they first met. Slightly wolfish, making sure she knew he was staring. But here, now, there was something deeper, some probing interest in what lay beneath Ingrid’s hard exterior.

“You’re right,” he conceded, placing his hands on the counter.

“I know,” Ingrid said. “Now tell me about the second body.”

“About the same. Dumped in a clearing in the woods. Male, though. And minus the suitcase,” Dean added the last bit with a certain level of disinterest, then leaned in to say, “It was the third one. The third body was what really threw us.”

Ingrid waited, pleading with her eyes.

“She was naked and—” Dean stopped himself.

“Are you sure you want to hear this?” Everything to that point had been graphic, but the details were outrageous enough to match the dramatics of movies and television, causing most people to be slightly desensitized.

As for the emotional aspects of the more intricate details…

“Yes, I’m sure,” Ingrid said. “She was naked and… what?”

“Disemboweled.” His volume was low, more discreet this time.

The patrons closest to him were enjoying a plate of pasta and meatballs, and after glancing at them, it seemed like he didn’t want to ruin their appetite.

“Then she posed right inside her front door. Another inconsistency. The others were put in fairly remote places, but this one, it was like the killer wanted whoever found her to walk in and see her like that.”

For the first time since Dean had started talking about the cases, Ingrid felt a twinge of something sinister.

She couldn’t help but see herself in the murdered woman’s place.

Alone, in bed, being jolted awake by a masked man and attacked inside her own home.

That fear was universal, but Ingrid felt especially wary of it since the messages started.

“Anything else?” she quickly said, trying to derail that train of thought.