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I couldn’t see.
I was helpless as the darkness consumed me whole.
I screamed.
Jolting up in my bed, I caught sight of my fluff-ball Persian as she sped off out of the room. My outburst had startled her. I checked the old-school alarm clock as it blinked its neon red light in the darkness.
4:23 AM…
Ugh, these nightmares were brutal. Mitzi was going to put herself up for adoption if I didn’t stop scaring the living daylights out of her every morning. You’d think she’d accepted it was our routine by now. Stretching my body and wiping the sweat from my forehead, I trudged to the bathroom.
Work was in a few hours, and I might as well get a head start on the criminal investigation file I knew was sitting on my desk. I replayed the details of the last victim that the unsub had killed as I brushed my teeth.
The victim was a male. He was in his mid-thirties and in the drug trade. Found in an abandoned apartment. Cause of death—overdose.
It was always the same.
Known drug dealer, forced to OD on their own poison. No damn trace left to track down their killer.
Sometimes, we found bloody bootprints leaving the scene, but they always seemed to disappear into thin air. We had run this never-ending goose chase enough times now that we knew to let the rookies have some exercise.
God, my head hurt.
It was throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I desperately needed to chug some coffee to make the annoying pulsing fade in my temples. Granted, it was probably counterproductive, but oh well.
Stepping out of the shower, I wiped the mirror with my hand and stared at my reflection. My blonde hair flopped in a ridiculous manner, and the steamy water didn’t do much to chase away the persistent sleepiness from my body either. At least I hadn’t woken up on the floor of the lobby or a park bench somewhere random today.
I was an avid sleepwalker, and more times than I could even count, I’d found myself curled up in random spots.
My phone buzzed, almost falling off of my cherry oak nightstand. It was the buzz of a text message.
DET QUINN: Vic at 1266 Carter Street.
Apartment 3B.
See you there.
And just like that, it was back to the grind.
* * *
After I made my way into the scene, I scoured through the dingy apartment. It reeked.
Dead bodies usually smelled like spoiled meat, but I had a feeling this place had always carried the scent of death, even before anyone died here. In fact, I wasn’t sure that some poor rodent hadn’t wandered into a trap somewhere and was left to decay.
Detective Quinn was fussing with his neatly trimmed beard and dark blond hair. It looked even more disheveled than normal.
“The cause of death is either blood loss or an overdose,” he said, snapping on a pair of purple gloves and lifting up the head of the man in the bathtub.
His skin looked pale, and I wasn’t a medical examiner, but I’d bet he died a few days ago.
“Looks like Snow White struck again.” Quinn pointed with his gloved hand.
Sure enough, there was a blood-red kiss lining his collarbone. Upon closer inspection, the mark was crusted over in blood. Per usual, it was confirmed that the blood was the victim’s. He had gashes and scrapes lining his marred flesh. He wasn’t naked. None of them ever were. The unsub wasn’t a sexual sadist. There hadn’t been reports showing any foul play regarding sex.
He had on a wife-beater tank top and tattered basketball shorts.
“Do we know if there are any signs of a break-in?” I said, staring at the doorway.
