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I drank half the bottle of water before the doorbell rang, announcing Tim’s arrival. I opened the door and waved him in. “What in the world could that be?” I muttered to myself as I watched him struggle to carry the huge box into the living room and deposit it on the floor.
“No clue, ma’am,” he said, out of breath. “But whatever it is, I hope you get some use out of it.” Tipping his head, he said goodnight and closed the door behind him on his way out.
I barely watched the door shut before dropping down onto my knees beside the box, my curiosity taking precedence over my need to shower. The return address said it was from the same store where I’d registered, but nothing that was left on my list could have been that big, especially not a kitchen appliance, and nothing else could have been so heavy that Tim would have struggled so much with the box.
Opening the drawer of the end table beside the couch, I grabbed the letter opener I’d placed in there to go through the work mail Elliot occasionally left for me to open myself. Using it, I cut along the taped seams of the box and lifted the flaps.
Only to discover a different box inside. My brows lifted when I saw this was a plain box that just barely fit inside the larger one with the store logo on it. It was more like a moving box, taped up almost erratically. Annoyed at the unprofessional way the item had been packaged, I started tearing through the thick layers of tape with the letter opener again.
Once it was undone and I could open the flaps of the second box, I came to a Styrofoam box that was also overly taped closed. Irritated, I grabbed my phone. As it rang, I started cutting away the tape yet again.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Mom greeted. “How was the rest of your day?”
“Tiring,” I told her distractedly as I kept cutting. “I got a last-minute wedding gift. The concierge had a hard time carrying it up because it was so heavy. I’m sitting on the floor in the living room, and I think you should call the store we registered at to complain about the way they ship items. The outer box was perfectly taped, but the second box was pure insanity, and now I’ve reached a Styrofoam one that is even more unevenly taped.”
“Well, what is it?” she asked, sounding perplexed.
I finally got the last of the tape undone and tried to pull off the top. It was stuck, so I used the letter opener to help open each side, which was made even more difficult because I didn’t dare try to lift the heavy box out. Jordan would freak if he found out I tried to pick up anything that weighed more than my handbag.
It was frustrating, and I huffed and puffed and cursed at the damned thing while Mom laughed through the receiver.
The instant the lid was off, the smell had me gagging. The scent was so overpowering that I began to retch before I could even look into the box.
“Arella?” Mom frantically yelled my name. “What’s going on?”
Wiping my hand across the back of my mouth, I peeked inside the box and puked again. “Help,” I squeaked as memories of dead birds flashed through my mind.
Only this wasn’t a dead bird.
It was a dead cat. Huge, thick blocks of dry ice surrounded it, which was probably why it had been so heavy, but the scent of death and decay had now been unleashed, and it was permeating the air. I didn’t doubt it would soak into the furniture, if not the paint on the walls.
The poor kitty had been decapitated, its head lying separately from the rest of its body. Its insides spilled out of its belly. Vaguely, I saw the note stapled to the intestines, and I knew.
Garon’s reign of terror wasn’t over after all.
Chapter 4
Jordan
“Sir?”
Something in Taylor’s voice had my head snapping up from my phone where I’d been going through my emails. The driver was trying to pull up in front of the apartment building, but it was hard to get close with all the police cars parked haphazardly in front of it.
Their lights were on, flashing from blue to red in the darkness. No police tape had been put up, but it was obvious that something had happened. People were standing on the street, barricades and several men in uniforms holding back the growing crowd as they tried to see what was going on.
A knot began to form in my gut. Instinctively, I knew whatever was going on involved Arella.
“Stop here!” I shouted at the driver. The door was open, and I was already out before he completely came to a stop. Running like my life depended on it, I zigzagged through the police cars and shoved a uniformed cop out of my way when he tried to block me from getting into the building. In the lobby, things were chaotic. At least a dozen policemen were standing around, talking to other tenants. Tim stood at the bank of elevators, his face ghostly pale as he nodded to whatever the man in a cheap suit said to him.
“What happened?” I demanded as I made my way toward the concierge.
“Mr. Moreitti,” he said, and I watched his throat work as he gulped. “I didn’t know what was in the box, sir. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have carried it up. But the package said it was from the same shop Miss Stevenson registered, and—”
“What. The. Fuck. Happened?” I gritted out, stopping him from going on and on with no real information.
My heart was already pounding hard, causing the blood rushing through my ears to make everything else sound like I was in a tunnel.
“Mr. Moreitti.”
