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PROLOGUE
Lafourche Parish, Louisiana
SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 10:15 P.M.
Oh no. No, no, no.” Rocky Hebert smelled death, the stench hitting him hard as he approached the doctor’s kitchen door. He was no stranger to the smell of a decaying body, having encountered it multiple times during his career. But this was different.
This was... not more important, because all of the dead were important. Well, not all of them, he allowed. Many of the dead deserved their fate. But the doctor wasn’t one of them.
He’d needed the doctor alive and well.
And able to tell him things. Important things.
Maybe the dead guy isn’t the doctor, he thought. But it was a fool’s hope, he knew. The doctor lived alone, and nobody came out this far into the sticks without good reason.
Maybe he’d died of natural causes. Maybe it wasn’t anything nefarious. Maybe they were both simply unlucky, he and the doctor.
Rocky eyed the doorknob with a growing sense of dread. The lock was scratched up, like someone had broken in. He withdrew a disposable glove from his pocket and twisted the doorknob, unsurprised when the door opened easily.
It’s a trap. Turn around and leave.But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He was so close. He needed to know if this was the doctor or—
He released the breath he’d been holding, reflexively sucking in another when the stench hit him full force. Fucking hell. His eyes stung, his stomach rebelling. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It was the doctor, all right. Or it had been. The man’s throat had been slit and—
He swallowed hard, taking a step back, away from the grisly sight.
The man’s throat had been slit, his gut eviscerated. There was blood and intestines and—
Spinning around, Rocky vomited into the doctor’s rosebushes. Goddammit. He was too late.
Too late by at least a day, if the flies covering the man’s open wounds were any indication.
He hovered over the rosebush, frozen in place, hands on his knees as his body continued to shudder. I should call the police. But not here. And definitely not from my own phone.
Luckily, he had a burner—the same one he’d been using to communicate with the doctor for the past two weeks as he’d nagged and encouraged and begged the man to meet with him.
He’d stop on his way home and make the call. The guy deserved better than to be left to rot on his own kitchen floor.
He spat again, wishing for a strong drink. Wishing he hadn’t finally gotten sober.
Wishing he’d done so many things differently.
He straightened with a muted groan, looking around to be sure he wasn’t about to meet the same end as the poor doctor. There was no one around, the only sound the croaking of frogs in the small marshy canal behind the doctor’s house.
There was more than frogs in that water. Gators were more than likely, this close to the bayou.
Rocky wondered why the man’s killer hadn’t simply dragged him to the water’s edge and tossed him in. And then he froze again because he knew why.
I was supposed to find him. They knew I was coming.
Except he didn’t know who “they” were. He’d been searching for “them” for more than fifteen years.
I was so damn close.
Or was I?
At this point, “they” were probably just playing with him. Cats taunting a mouse.
