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“Why bring Alex here but then commit the other murders in the glade?” Teddi asked.
“He’s an outsider. He doesn’t belong to Sylen and its history. He’s not theirs.” These murders were more than calculated or ritualistic. They were a message to someone. Recalling the feeling of being watched, she felt another piece click into place. Whether it was them who made the carvings or who they were for, she wasn’t sure. But they were a part of it all.
“How did Alex get mixed up in all of this?”
“I don’t think he was supposed to. Or maybe he was just practice. I don’t know.” A bitter chill seeped in causing her to shiver.
“What if… what if this wasn’t a big enough show? What if they committed this murder and when a stranger found him and reported it and it still didn’t make waves in the community because Sheriff Malis hid it, they went bigger.”
Vera felt it. The hair-raising static of reaching her hand out towards a lightning bolt of truth. The edge of a vital piece of evidence that would change the course of their case. “And now the bodies are piling up faster, the timeline shortening with each kill because they're still not getting what they want.”
“So, it’s about attention.”
Vera shook her head. “I think that’s just one part of the greater whole. But if Deputy Gunson is behind all of this and he wants more attention, what’s his next big step?”
“More like who.”
Their eyes met as understanding dawned.
Chapter 30
Teddi
Teddi double-checked there was a round in the chamber of the pistol before slipping it back inside her waistband carrier. It was positioned next to the sharp curved claw of her karambit knife.
Parked a block from Deputy Gunson’s house, they paused to check their gear before approaching. They needed the element of surprise, keeping him away from Sheriff Malis’s influence if they could help it. It was his first day off since they got to Sylen according to the copy of the work schedule J downloaded. It was the last chance they were going to have before he took another life.
Clipping her flashlight onto her belt, Vera tucked her shirt in for easy access. Her firearm was nestled behind it.
The conversation with J came back to Teddi. While she’d yet to report any findings about what happened in D.C., the guilt was beginning to make itself known. Whatever happened had been catastrophic. The tender trust between them, when Vera broke down in a way she’d never seen, was too fragile to break. If Vera found out she went behind her back, they would take ten steps back when they only gained three. She wasn’t so sure it was a risk worth taking now that she saw a sliver of what her secrets were doing to her.
That was the difference between them. Teddi got a different dose of reality early on. Too early. She saw the world for what it was and what it wasn’t thanks to a mom who ran off before she got her first period, leaving her with a dad who found her to be a nuance he couldn’t wait to be rid of. She held no visions of grandeur about her role in the world and that was fine. No one person is more important than another and that’s how it should be.
Except Vera. Vera always seemed made for bigger things. Maybe that did mean changing the world in her corner of it and maybe not. That wasn’t why she loved her, it was just one more thing to love about her. The last thing she expected to hear was that she’d begun to give up altogether. That was not the Vera she knew. The woman she fell in love with was a fighter—a blazing fire behind a wall of steel. It sent a bolt of fear into her heart to consider how bad things were that they bent that steel and left that fire a pile of ash.
The bang of Vera’s fist against the wood front door was loud, the sound carrying far enough to draw attention. A large black pickup with chrome runners sat in the driveway of the modest home, a porch light shining down on them as she did it again.
Silence.
The cul-de-sac was quiet. One only other home took up residence in the loop with Deputy Gunson’s, but no one bothered peering out their windows at the commotion.
“Deputy Gunson, it’s Vera Aguilar!” Stepping back, she peered up at the second-floor windows. Soft light glowed behind them, but no passing shadows suggested someone was home.
“Maybe he’s gone for a drink. Or to hide another fucking body,” Teddi mused, watching Vera try to get a look inside the glass in the top third of the front door.
“No, that’s his truck. It was the same one parked in the diner lot the day we got here. He was watching us, following us from the first minute. That asshole is here.”
Teddi was stunned at the new information. She never saw him in the lot or anywhere else. He seemed to be everywhere she wasn't looking. “Why the hell didn't you tell me he was following us?” Vera cupped her hands around her eyes against the glass when a sound came from the rear of the house.
They stilled. Listening.
Another sound, like something heavy dropping on the ground.
“Behind me,” Vera whispered as she reached for her firearm and rounded the corner of the house. Drawing her weapon, Teddi followed closely, flashlight in her opposite hand as she pointed it wide around Vera’s shoulder.
No fence divided the front and back yards, the siding free and clear of debris. The house was small enough for them to reach the back of it in twenty strides. Their lights scanned over the area. The poles to a clothesline lay bare next to the back door. A lawn mower sat unattended in the far corner next to a garden. A small wooden shack sat on the opposite side, its door hanging open. A shovel lay on the ground in front of it. The woods formed a natural fence behind it. Its gnarly fingers reached over the property line above the manicured grass.
They moved towards the shed in one fluid motion. Pressing her back against the siding, she scanned the property border as Vera peered inside. The source of the thudding sound was nowhere in sight. Teddi's mouth went dry as her eyes darted around, hunting for movement.
