Page 29 of Captured By Chaos


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“Not surprised, but always good to check.” Nolan shrugged.

“Also,” Eden leaned back in her chair, fingers curling around the armrests, “I was able to confirm that Melinda never changed her hair, and based on her partner’s statement, never had plans to. So, it confirms that Elliot was the one who made those changes.”

I picked up my stilo, marking a question on the overgrowing list that we kept on the board—questions that we believed could be key answers into identifying and catching this killer. I ignored Nolan standing only a few feet behind me, watching as I wrote:Who is he trying to make these victims look like/remind him of?

“Do we have a list of the different cases that involved bodily changes post-death?” I asked, looking over the board to see if anything popped out, even though I didn’t remember seeing anything.

“No, they were few and far between in the past, so focus wasn’t necessarily put on it.” Nolan tapped his own stilo against his thigh.

Emric removed his glasses and dropped them on the table, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I remember reading a past case that had a body change to a victim: a male, and a tattoo had been added to his body.”

“Of what?”

“It was just a circle, but the way the skin was absorbing the ink made the physician rule it a pre-death marking. But his family confirmed that he hadn’t had the tattoo before he was taken.”

“We should collect all of the cases that have any kind of body disfigurement or change,” I said. “We might be able to get a pattern put together.”

“Agreed,” Beckett said, running his fingers through the tips of his white-blond hair. “Any volunteers to stay up tonight and read through the reports again?”

Everyone let out a deep groan, a laugh escaping all of us Keturi members. This was something we could get out of easily—typical delegated work. Sometimes it was simple to give this type of project to Deltas and Dairchtas, but with it being a high priority case, only Hierarchy members were allowed to work on it. So, all of our seconds knew this would fall on them. If I hadn’t had counseling the next day, I would have offered to help; but showing up to Vanessa’s about to fall asleep might not be the best idea, even if I didn’t want to go.

“You know, the more of you that volunteer, the quicker finding everything will take.” My eyes went directly to Lucas and Taylor, their gazes strategically trying to avoid mine, but I didn’t relent until I caught one of them: Taylor. I stared him down with a mix of pleading, guilt and authority. It rarely ever worked on Lucas, but his twin tended to crack.

“Alright, fine, I’ll do it!” Taylor relented, dropping his head on the table.

“Taylor!” Lucas smacked him on the back of the head. “Can you please grow a spine?”

Taylor rubbed the spot Lucas had just hit. “You know I can’t say no to her when she looks at me like that.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “Fine, looks like I’ll be helping, too.”

“We might as well all help,” Milly, Beckett’s other second, said. She had been away for a few weeks, traveling home to take care of her mother after an operation. Liv and I had spent a part of the previous afternoon catching her up on the case so she would be ready to jump right in. She had an attention to detail we would need. “It’s just over a hundred case files…if we hit it together, we can be done in a few hours.”

“It’s not like you need to memorize them, just look at the autopsy reports and find any mention of bodily changes,” Nolan pointed out. “Although, since Eden and Colton spent most of the day interviewing locals and then wrote up this report, I would say maybe they could be excluded.”

“Thanks, man.” Colton smiled, giving Nolan a smack on the shoulder.

“Yes, thank you.” Eden said, barely above a whisper as she stared at Nolan, her brows pulled inward, eyes narrowing.

The rest of the seconds agreed to meet at Lucas and Taylor’s house, finding it easier to spread out in the comfortable location. Eden finished up with a few more details before leaning back, adding her report to the case file we had already started to put together this afternoon for Melinda.

Beckett came forward next, weary lines etching deeper on his face. “As expected, the autopsy didn’t bring up anything we didn’t already know. Internally, everything looked normal for a woman her age…”

He continued on as we all listened intently, my body now leaning against the board, waiting to hear any details I should write down on it.

“Excuse me,” Nolan whispered, tapping me on the arm with the end of his stilo as he tried to get past me to the other side of the board.

My body seized at the touch.

I kept trying my best to focus on reading the report in front of me, but the constant tapping of a stilo against the wood surface itched at my skin.

“Stop it, Logan!” I threw my hand over his stilo, his mischievous smile telling me he was far from apologetic for the annoyance.

“What’s wrong with tapping?”

“It’s making me feel violent,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to return my focus to the order report we needed to send out in an hour—or else we wouldn’t be able to get another shipment of arrows and bolts until next week.

“Shocker,” he laughed. Next thing I knew, his stilo was no longer tapping against the desk, but me, knocking against my hand, my wrist, my arm.

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