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He was paying too much attention to me.
“I don’t remember asking your opinion.” I glared at his light green eyes. Damn, they looked like cut emeralds when I was close enough to really see them.
He shrugged indifferently. With one long, heated gaze, his eyes drifted down my body. Then he wandered off back to the bar. Happy he got the hint, I waited and paced around a bit more while chatting to random people I didn’t give a shit about to create an alibi if this led to police sniffing around the cove again. I had heard they were there, and it pissed me off to have them rifling around like they cared at all about the people living there.
After I was satisfied with the number of people who spotted me in this ugly yellow dress, I walked back into that dark alley next to the bar. I wrapped an oversized jacket around my body that I’d stolen from a random hook inside and went to find the man I’d knocked out earlier. Slowly, I dragged him out from behind the garbage cans I’d left him behind. He was still out cold from the drug cocktail I’d given him.
Time to find out who this Ripper was.
Here we were up at the crack of dawn. Again. This shit had to stop. Based on Quinn’s face, it was clear that he was feeling the same way. We yawned in unison. My body ached, and my migraine was constantly a dull throb in my head.
“Looks like we need to be at the club on Beverly,” Quinn said, handing me a laptop. The thing looked strange to be owned by Quinn. It was pink with glittery stickers all over it.
Maybe it was his late sister’s?
I opened it up, Googling the club and reading the first article that pulled up. A gorgeous black, wavy-haired guy was smiling at the cameras. He wore an expensive-looking baby blue suit, his lazy grin looking like he could melt the panties off of anyone. Ugh, he irked me. There was something about his light green eyes that just made me mad.
“What does it say about the owner?” Quinn said, pulling over on Clay Street. We weren’t far from the scene now.
“Besides him looking like a devilish playboy?” I snorted, brushing off the feeling of lust that tangled in my gut and heated my body. “His name is Lucius ‘vas-il-ee-iv. Vasiliev? An arrogant fuck head with too much money and some supermodel on his arm.”
Quinn had a smile playing on his lips, a humorous interest in those baby blues of his. “Anything about the club? The man being clearly Russian, I wonder if he has any affiliation with Moya Kotova.”
I gaped at him.
The Russian mafia? No way. This guy wasn’t Bratva. Was he?
“I don’t know why I’m being dragged along for this. I’m supposed to be dealing solely with Snow White. The chief keeps making me do his work because he’s too damn lazy.”
I cringed at my own words, realizing I let my anger get the best of me. That was stupid to say with such a by-the-book-order-following soldier like Quinn.
His booming, husky laugh made me visibly jump. It was the last thing I expected to hear. “Isn’t that the truth?” he said through his musical laughter. I stared at my partner like he was an alien, waiting for him to chastise or scold me for being childish. “At any rate,” he continued. “I’m glad you’re on the case. If I get stuck with Emily one more time, I am going to lose my shit.”
Now, I was the one laughing.
Emily must have really stepped in it with their last investigation. I’d heard they went on a stakeout with their confidential informant. However, they got some information about the Butcher, so that was good. If we could find this man before Snow White did, we’d finally have the upper hand.
Arriving at the scene, I was starting to want to give this killer a high five, not a prison sentence. There was no real connection to Snow White, so it looked like another crime of passion. Three guys were laid out by a dumpster in the back alley behind the club.
Thin heels were impaling the necks of two victims, and the last one lost in a knife fight. He was gripping the knife that was now sunk into his fat gut. Ally walked up to me. Her horn-rimmed glasses made her eyes wide. She pointed to a random spot more toward the back, a few feet from the other dead bodies.
Her coffin-black nails sparkled in the sun. Her lacey purple gloves made her look like the eighties gothic queen she was.
“So, I could be wrong, Ella, but I think Chief Doger wanted you here because this may be your Princess killer after all.”
My eyes grew wide, waiting for her to continue. She pulled me along the alley by the back end and pointed to the ground, where there was a weird pattern of blood.
“This blood splatter around this area here….” She pointed to the circular dark wall. “And here.” She pointed to an area with a puddle of clear liquid that looked to have dried up. “It makes me think there was another person with these guys, and our killer took the individual.”
She pushed her black glasses up, and her deep brown eyes looked calculated as she walked to the far back wall of the area.
“I also deduce that there was a car parked here. This liquid was from an air conditioner.” She gestured to the faint stain on the pavement. “My guess is Snow White killed these other ogres, and whoever the other person was took the one they could better manage.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Ally smiled, and her slightly downturned eyes gleamed with pride.
“That’s what I thought too, El. The blood splatter near the other guys shows a distinct pattern shadowed out. It’s smaller in frame and height than the others. My guess is our unsub took him to question him further instead of killing him here with his goons. The blood that was there has to be his comrades.”
