AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The moment that I did the last rep, I headed directly for the door that led to the outside area behind the gym.
I kept walking until I got to the grass and promptly threw up into the weeds.
The moment I did, I felt a thousand times better.
Face flushing, I turned around to see Taos staring at me from the gym door.
He gave me a thumb up as if to ask if I was okay, and I gave him a weak one in reply.
But even that was a lie.
I might feel like shit.
I might want to melt into a pile of questionable liquid underneath my feet.
But I’d just worked out.
I’d just worked out for the first time in two and a half years since my assault.
I was… euphoric.
That, and I beat Maria.
Worth it.
It was on my way out of the gym with my sister fifteen minutes later that Taos caught my eye. “You’ll be back.”
Not a question.
Not even a statement.
A demand. One that I was more than willing to obey.
CHAPTER 3
Be a badass with a good ass.
-Madd CrossFit T-shirt
TAOS
The white-haired woman turned slowly, her long curls brushing the tops of her butt cheeks, and looked at the puddle of blood with a glowing sense of horror on her face.
She didn’t know that I’d done it for her.
She didn’t know that…
Brrrrring.
I frowned and glanced at the phone, pissed that I’d had to stop that particular scene.
“Hello?”
My terse words felt like sandpaper in my throat.
I’d been up all night, and it was now three in the morning.
“Taos.”
I would know that raspy, perpetually pissed-off-sounding voice anywhere.
“Hey,” I greeted. “What’s up, Chief?”
The chief sighed. “Long story short? There’s been a few murders that I’m worried about. Seriously worried about.”
I felt my stomach sink.
“What’s going on with them?” I asked, not able to help myself.
I’d been a detective at the police department in town for ten years after I’d gotten out of the Army.
I just couldn’t help myself from wanting to know. My brain was wired differently.
I just saw things, patterns, and inconsistencies, that other people didn’t see.
That was why the FBI had tried to recruit me. Twice.
However, I’d stayed with Paris PD and Chief Wilkerson because I didn’t usually buck from tradition.
“Bad shit,” Chief Wilkerson grumbled. “I know that you’re not here anymore, and I’ve left you alone for a year. But shit. This one is getting at me. I need you to look at the case notes. I just… something doesn’t sit right with me.”
I looked at my current work in progress. Then at the time on the clock. “Now?”
“I’m at a crime scene now,” he said. “The fourth one exactly like this.”
I knew what that meant.
We might have a serial killer on our hands.
“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” I stood. “I need some coffee because I haven’t gone to sleep yet. And some pants.”
Chief Wilkerson sounded like he’d had a laugh ripped right out of him at that.
“I’ll wait.” He paused. “The body’s been dead a while. Fifteen minutes, or thirty. Won’t make a fuckin’ difference.”
I looked at my watch and grimaced.
I had to be at the gym at six to teach a class.
That meant that I had three hours to sleep. Or I would have, had I not had to go do this.
“I’ll be there soon.”
And I was.
It took me two minutes to get to the house, which fuckin’ sucked because that meant that there was a murder taking place not even a couple of blocks away from me.
Parking my vehicle in the front of the house—a house that looked like it’d been built just recently seeing as it still had red dirt instead of grass along the side of the road between the sidewalk and the road—I got out.
The moment my feet hit the driveway, I stopped and studied the front yard with curious eyes, taking in the manicured lawn, the well-tamed flower bed, and the lilies that were planted around the mailbox.
Either a woman lived here, or a woman had done the gardening and the upkeep.
As much as I would like my place to have flowers and shit, they were too much upkeep, meaning I didn’t have them.
“Taos.”
I looked up to find Chief Wilkerson heading toward me.
I gave him a chin jerk and canvassed the neighborhood next.
The chief gave me a grimace.
“What’s wrong?” I wondered.
“It’s bad.”
I had no doubt it was if he was calling me.
It wasn’t like they needed me. They’d replaced me easily enough.
Sure, the solve rate on the crimes wasn’t as good now that I wasn’t around, but they were still getting through.
But this…
“Let’s get it over with,” I grumbled. “I have to be at the gym to teach a class by six a.m.”
The chief nodded his head and led me inside, looking like he’d rather pluck off his testicle hair than go back inside.
Yet he went anyway, and his face was blank the entire way inside.
