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She was plenty short enough I could see easily over her head at the severed, bloody finger that lay on my porch.
A string was tied around it with a white card attached. In simple black type, it read:Last warning. Next time it’s your wife in a body bag.
Kian glanced over at me. “I’m going to be late.” He stepped over the severed finger like it was a couple of stray leaves the breeze had dragged in. He got in the driver’s side of his truck, gunned the engine, and disappeared down the driveway.
Rebel watched him go, then stared up at me with big eyes. “What the hell? Is that finger Brooke’s? What are we going to do with it? Should we call the cops?”
We were already in enough trouble with them, all of us suspects in my dad and Miranda’s murders. I wasn’t sure calling up Detective Dickhead and telling him we had random body parts delivered to us was the smartest idea.
But this couldn’t keep happening. Anger boiled up inside me. At Brooke for getting herself in this predicament in the first place. At Harold for not telling me sooner that the company wasn’t as profitable as I’d always believed.
At myself for being a stubborn jackass, so caught up in his own shit that I’d left Brooke to deal with this herself.
I’d loved her once. At least a little bit.
If it had been Kian, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have done whatever needed doing because that’s the kind of guy he was. He might have thought being good was a flaw, and that being nice meant he got walked all over.
But the world needed more people like him.
I needed people to remind me to pull my fucking head out of my ass and be a decent human being.
I grabbed my keys from the hook by the door. “I’m going to my mom’s place to see if Brooke is still there. If these guys have taken to hand-delivering body parts, they must be in town, which means she is too.”
Rebel trembled in my arms. “Did I do this?”
I spun her around so we were facing each other. “What? This has nothing to do with you.”
But she shook her head. “I’ve been so hell-bent on getting revenge. On hurting the people who hurt me. I’ve spent all this time putting out this negative energy, but instead of releasing it, it just feels like I’m drawing more and more in. Kara’s lost her baby. Kian’s hurt.” She gestured down at the porch. “Brooke is apparently missing a digit!”
I squeezed her arms. “This is Brooke’s problem. My problem. This isn’t the universe punishing you, Roach. You did nothing wrong.”
But if she was listening, it didn’t get through. “This has to end. The murders. The threats. The revenge.” Her eyes were glassy with tears. “I’m hurting people who I’m supposed to love.”
I didn’t know how to make her feel better, because I was doing the same thing.
I straightened my shoulders. “We start with Brooke then. Come on, I’m not leaving you here alone. Let’s go see if we can find her. Maybe it isn’t her finger at all.”
Rebel nodded and put her shoes on while I gingerly picked up the severed body part and deposited it into the trash so she didn’t have to see it. The blood we’d have to deal with later.
Brooke’s car sat in the driveway at my mom’s place, just down the road from mine. I let myself into the house, calling out for my mom.
She stuck her head out of her bedroom down the hall. “Vaughn? What’s going on?”
“Is Brooke here?”
Mom’s eyebrows furrowed together. “No, I don’t think so. She went to meet up with some old friends from college in the city last night. I didn’t hear her come back in.”
She walked a few steps down the hall to the guest bedroom and peered inside. “Her bed hasn’t been slept in.”
“Shit.”
Mom took Rebel’s arm, squeezing it in greeting. “Is there a problem?”
“Maybe,” Rebel said quietly. “Vaughn, we should call around to the hospitals. I’ll check the city hospital and you call Saint View.”
Karmichael padded down the hallway, wearing one of his brother’s pool cleaning company’s branded work shirts. He had his boots in his hand and was obviously on his way out to work. “Who’s in the hospital?
“Hopefully no one,” I mumbled, phone already to my ear. When it connected to the hospital’s switchboard, and a pleasant-sounding receptionist greeted me, I asked if they had a patient by the name of Brooke Weston.
