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Or does she just blame me for her ex-boyfriend’s death, when I’ve been so obsessed with tracking the Arrendells that I went blind to something else popping off right under my nose?
I don’t notice the harsh fist I’m holding at my side until my hand stings from the tension.
I stay frozen while Micah leans down and mutters something to her. Delilah nods slowly, then looks up, looking past me like I’m made of glass at the sound of a car door slamming and a worried call.
I tear my gaze away from her to see the Bowdens’ personal Durango pulling up to the curve—but it’s not the chief who steps out.
It’s Janelle.
“Delilah!” Janelle calls, fretting as she nearly flings herself against the fence. “Oh, honey, I came as soon as I heard—are you all right?”
Sniffling, Delilah rubs one eye. “...no, not really, but I’m ready to get out of here. He said they just need to photograph me and take my clothes for evidence. But I can’t go back in that house.”
“Don’t you worry, hon. I brought you something fresh to change into, and the neighbors staring through their windows will be happy to let you change next door,” Janelle says cheerfully. “Then you can come right home with me. Your room at The Rookery’s all freshened up.”
At least they have Delilah taken care of.
Which means I need to stop standing here, feeling my heart bleed out all over the grass, and go do my damn job.
I drink in one last look at her, but she’s so pointedly pretending I’m not there she might as well be screaming at me.
It fucking guts me that I can’t just walk over and hold her.
Still, the one thing I won’t do tonight is make things worse.
Stay away, she said.
So I do, tearing myself away and making my way up the front walk, stepping around a couple of evidence markers as I go.
On the porch, Henri crouches down in front of a few scattered photographs, next to a fairly new-looking high-end shoebox, all of them splattered with blood. His nitrile-gloved fingers click away with his phone camera.
I frown, my gut churning with confusion.
“Where’s the body?”
I stop as Henri throws a grim look over his shoulder, then looks up pointedly.
No way.
No fucking way.
I crane my head up and feel my heart turn to ice, this frozen asteroid floating in the dead space in my chest.
Roger Strunk’s dead, empty eyes stare back at me.
He’s been gutted. So neatly and efficiently hollowed out it could only have been done by machine at a slaughterhouse. The man’s just a hollow cavity of meat and bone now.
If I didn’t have a stomach for this kind of trauma, I’d be heaving my guts out on the ground.
His arms and legs have been wedged into the support beams underneath the roof, spreading him out like he’s bound to a kite.
“Motherfucker,” I spit, sickness roiling through me. “Who the fuck does something this sick?”
“You tell me,” Henri drawls. “I’m not from around these parts. Who do you know that’s real good at butchering?”
Henri doesn’t need to say it.
Neither do I.
We both have one guess.
No one else in town has the kind of sweeping farm and slaughterhouse operation like the Jacobins.
Fuck.
“It had to be done somewhere else. Not here,” I say. “Grant find any of the organs in the yard?”
“Nada. No sign.”
“There’s not enough blood,” I growl, hunkering down next to Henri.
I position myself away from the slow drip of blood still trickling down from above. If the photos weren’t evidence, I’d rip the damn things in half when I see them.
Textbook stalker shit.
No wonder she’s so worked up.
No wonder she doesn’t want to see me, when the way I’ve been shadowing her probably makes me seem no better than everybody else making her life miserable.
“They did it somewhere else,” I say again. “Killed him and did their work, then brought him here.”
“What you thinkin’, Lieutenant?”
“Two possibilities.” I frown, rubbing at my chin. “Either one of the hillfolk’s been stalking Delilah this whole time, slashing those nasty red Xs to send her a message, taking those photos, and now killing Strunk like it’s some big gift to her, or...” I trail off.
“Or?” Henri urges.
“Or Strunk was behind the stalking,” I say, and there’s a feeling of rightness to that. “The Xs, the photographs, whatever. Only, somebody else didn’t like it. He wasn’t worthy, so that somebody decided to get him out of the way. They killed him because they were protecting Delilah.”
Henri stares at me for a few seconds with his brows trying to crawl off his forehead.
“That’s some fucked up protection, all right. But about that.” Henri lowers his phone, giving me a grave look. “Got something to show you, Lucas, and you ain’t gonna like it.”
If I could cut off my right arm and make her talk to me again, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
