“That’s not what this is, and you know it. I know how overwhelming work can be, and I know working this case has caused you to crack. I just want to help. Maybe this isn’t the best time to have the girls around is all I’m saying.”
“But you called your mom!” I hate the whine in my voice.
“Oh, grow up! It’s not like she’ll hit you with her purse.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
“Can I talk to the girls now? I tried calling the phone, but it’s unreachable.”
“Yeah, Rita uh... lost it,” I say, thinking about the phone smashed against the wall in my apartment. All the technological gizmos and parts exposed.
The perp had left a shiner and hand marks from pulling roughly. I’ll be damned if I’m not the one to put those cuffs on him myself.
“Daddy! Look who we saw by the vending machine.”
“Hello, Shelley.”
“Nate.”
“I’m here to take the kids home with me. Ellie called.”
“Yeah, she told me about it.”
“Alright. Well, then. Say goodbye to your dad, girls.”
“I don’t wanna go, Daddy. I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry, Pip, I’ll send a cop to Nana’s house, and I’ll catch the bad guy that hurt you, don’t you worry.”
“Bu...bu—but…”
“And Nana’ll let you skip school tomorrow. She’ll take you to the park to ride your skateboard, won’t you Shelley?”
“Really?”
“Sure. And I’ll come by and check on you.”
“Promise?”
“Mhmm. Cross my heart,” I assure, feeling my throat clog up at the hopeful look on her face.
“It’s alright, Pip. Let’s go.”
“Be safe.”
“You too, Dad.”
“C’mon,” Rita encourages, trying to move Nikki by her shoulder but eventually giving in to carrying her on her back. Nikki gives a small salute as they leave, twisting around to look at me.
“How did he find them, Peyton?” I ask once they’re out of the building.
“I don’t know, I… you weren’t trailed, were you?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Well, we’re going to have to ask him ourselves. We’ve got the warrant for his arrest.”
Chapter 8
Detective Joy
I stare up at the body of Angel Stuart and immediately feel a wave of nausea hit me, making my legs shake. My insides are in turmoil, both from last night’s bender and all that has transpired within the last 48 hours.
There’s a small puddle of blood beneath the body and are deep, jagged slice marks a little above his palms on both hands. At this point, we’re all trying to figure out what the exact cause of death is. Most likely asphyxiation, since the blood supply to the brain was already low, judging by the blood patterns leading from the writing on the wall to where his body is. He could’ve bled out before anything else happened, that’s still a probable cause of death. I just don’t see it for sure.
I squat down; nausea has decided to stick with me today. Placing a hand on my knee in a bid to recover myself, which does little to help, I hope to ride it out all the same. Nausea comes in waves now, blurring my vision each time.
“Are you good, Detective?” someone asks. I don’t look up to acknowledge them, simply nodding in affirmation.
We haven’t touched anything in the apartment yet. Not the hanging body, now deathly still, not the message on the wall reading: ‘I did it’ in glob-like letters.
This should be an open and shut case, but something doesn’t feel right. Everything should be adding up, but there are a few questions that still need answering. Like why target all Verity’s ex-boyfriends when you both never even dated afterward. And at least three out of the five cases suggest that the homicides weren’t perpetrated by just one killer, there had to be another killer or at least a helper. But Angel had no friends. From all accounts he was a loner who spent most of his time holed up in his apartment either playing against twelve-year-olds online or smoking meth.
I should invite Verity in for another chat. Something just isn’t adding up, it’s not making total sense.
“Forensics here,” someone informs me, and I look to see them walking in, arrogant pricks, the entire lot! Took them long enough, I seethe as they step past me to get to work. I watch them, my nausea finally easing.
“Cause of death: asphyxiation,” the head coroner calls out, and Peyton immediately strides over to me.
“Time of death?” a young guy asks. He has acne, and what looks like the remnants of peach fuzz, like he’s straight out of high school, but I don’t comment.
“I’d say 3-4 hours before the police got here; rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet,” the head coroner informs, and the younger one nods with such fervor he looks like a lizard.
We both share a look, Peyton and I, but neither of us says anything at all.
“The lacerations on the wrists are both clean. Is the deceased ambidextrous?”
“No, left-handed,” I answer.
He gestures for me to have a closer look. I squat in front of the body as he lifts both wrists for me to look at.
“Pay close mind to the cut. A blunt blade will give a jagged cut, but if a left-handed person were to use a knife on his own left hand, there’d be certain discrepancies like say, the angle, the accuracy, the depth. Let’s keep in mind that the first hand was already wounded and bleeding at this point,” he explains patiently, pointing at the injuries with the tip of his pen.
“So?” Peyton asks out of the blue.
“So? So, he didn’t cut himself. Someone else did,” Lizard boy answers for me, sounding exasperated. I swallow my comment.
Peyton looks like he’s about to say something but his attempt is stalled.
“Did you find the weapon?” the coroner asks, not looking at me, examining the purple bruises around Angel’s neck instead.
“No, we’re still scouting the perimeter for it,” I answer this time, getting up from my squat position.
“It’s imperative we find it, it might tell us more,” he adds, still not looking up.
“Very true doctor, very true.” The youngling pipes, doing the lizard nod once again.
“Ah! College internships! That must be it. This young Padawan over here must be trying to impress the good doctor,” Peyton whispers good-humoredly to me after a few minutes of silence.
“You both know we can hear you; we’re right here,” the head exclaims, tutting. I watch the tip of the younger one’s ears turn scarlet and suppress the urge to smile. I was like that once.
Peyton pulls away from them, and I follow distractedly until we’re in another room, which by the look of things has been swept through by detectives and the evidence carted away. My phone rings, I answer almost immediately.
“Detective Joy, it’s Paige, Paige from the crime lab.”
Her voice rings out, there is no subduing this one.
“Yes! Paige, thank you! What do you have for me?” I ask, hoping for something, anything, to make me understand what I’m dealing with here.
“From the evidence you sent to me I was able to get not one but two DNA samples,” she starts, pausing for suspense.
“Mhmm...” I egg her on.
“The first was too little to register into our database and get anything tangible, but the other one... You won’t believe whose DNA it matches.”
“Surprise me,” I say, dryly.
“Verity Anne Jones,” she informs, sounding a bit shocked herself. I gasp at the revelation.
“What? Verity?” I sputter.
“Yes, Verity. She was at the scene of the murder, even though she claimed to have broken up with the deceased almost a year before... Ten and a half months to be precise.”
“So, what are you saying?” I sputter, still trying to wrap my head around it.
“What if Verity wasn’t the victim, but working with your killer?�
� she adds, her voice lowering like we’re co-conspirators of some sort.
“I don’t know Paige, that’s a lot of ‘what ifs,’” I say, rebuffing not her hopes, but my own, all the while ignoring the blind anticipation building in my chest.
“Sure, but you might want to bring her in for questioning all the same, sir,” she offers.
“I will,” I assure her, before ending the call.
“Peyton,” I call out, gesturing him over to relate all that Paige has told me. He looks mildly surprised but nods as the pieces fall into place.
“Are we looking at a possible pair of serial killers?” he asks as we exit the room and make our way to the door.
“The Bonnie and Clyde of murder in Memphis,” I soliloquize, still shellshocked. It’s not entirely out there – it’s actually quite believable. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time something like this is happening in the history of crime, to be honest. But you’d need to meet Verity herself to know what I’m talking about.
“You think they both planned the killings?” Peyton asks once we’re in the car. I start the engine, not entirely sure what to say to that.
“It is, as always, probable. But why don’t we ask Verity ourselves? Once again, she is the connecting factor in this case,” I say, backing out of the driveway, heading to the only person that can explain what exactly is going on.
* * *
I arrive at the apartment complex where Verity lives, shocked to find police tape all around the entrance, warding off everyone else. Is she hurt? Did someone come for her, or did she decide to end it herself? My mind is awash with theories, and glancing at Peyton’s worried face I know similar thoughts are running through his mind.
Peyton shows his badge to the officer at the entrance, and he lets us both in without a fuss. I run to up the stairs two at a time with Peyton close at my heels.
I immediately make a beeline to the apartment number she told me during the interview—the door’s flung wide open. Walking in, I see a body partially submerged in the bloody bathtub, stab wounds visible in his chest. There’s a rope tied haphazardly and slung over the water heater, so his hands are above his head, but I can’t see the fingers. One bony leg is hanging outside the tub, toenails pulled out, blood still dripping from it.
“Officer Peyton and Detective Joy, the woman who lives here was our profile. We need to be here,” a voice explains.
The voice sounds so far away. I don’t look back to check. My mind works at lighting speed, pulling together all the information I’ve garnered.
She moved, she always moved after the deaths, like she knew, or suspected at least. The woman at the bar has said she controlled Angel like a dog on a leash, at least that was how she felt. Playing the victim was her trump card, but Angel had become too rowdy to handle, so she silenced him in the end. But she slipped – Angel was too busy dying to be the killer in this murder, which leaves only one suspect.
“But the girl, Verity, she’s a suspect in this case and previous cases. Has anyone seen her?” I ask, speaking for the first time since I got here. The detective speaking to Peyton throws a questioning glance at him before answering me.
“She’s not here. Apparently she fled, looking hassled. That’s when a neighbor called 911.”
Chapter 9
Verity
Verity is asleep now. I’ve taken over from here. She hates the quiet. It fills my mind — our mind — with petty nonsense like Ethan and Mike and that detective with eyes like liquid metal. What comes after the thrill though, the chase, when our mind plays tricks on us, although she might hate that part, I love it. The sickly feel of it all, warm and out of place like a child’s cough syrup.
The last one crawls back into my view, all blond hair, wispy like a cherub, and a lanky frame, looking so frail like he might get blown away anytime. Verity thought he was cute at first – I didn’t do anything. I don’t think much of men unless they satisfied, and this one took too fragile for that.
I later found out he wasn’t weak at all. The way he held on to her firmly and pounded from behind when we fucked no matter how many times she cried out, asking him to stop, piqued my curiosity. He liked that, the pain and vulnerability, so I took over and made him mine, not hers, and also made sure she never had to witness that again.
But I enjoyed the way he was with us, our body. He was full inside us, sating parts that weren’t even physical, rough and beast-like, biting, scratching, slapping, punching, it made me feel alive, I was born from a moment like that. it only made sense to want to keep recreating it.
“You want me, you love this, you love me like this,” he’d panted into my ear, slapping so hard I saw spots and heard white noise. It repulsed Verity into silence, but me, I was thrilled to the bone. That was why I came back almost every night when Verity was too dog tired to argue, she let me take over without putting up a fight. I allowed him to wreck me gloriously.
On nights like those, I came back to his bed, spreading my legs, letting him take his fill and fill me up in the process. Our existence was symbiotic. We were both animals that fed off each other, he saw it in my eyes, and he misinterpreted it. He thought he had found his mate, he thought he was in love. That’s why he ended up dead.
“Men!” I scoff out loud, earning an inquiring look from the woman sitting across from me. I give her a polite smile and turn my head to the exit doors. The train carriage is almost empty save for the woman opposite me and me... oh, and a dapper man a few seats down. I size him up before looking away. Not bad, not bad at all.
Looking down at our lap, I see traces of something red still caked in our fingernails, anchored firmly at the edges and base. Unbidden, my mind dredges up pictures of Angel. It didn’t have to end the way it did with him, he just blabbed too much. Made it seem like he was invisible. I never should’ve asked for his help from the start, I never should’ve! Then maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess now.
But I couldn’t handle the first, that trucker at the bar where we worked our first job, barely seventeen still new to figuring out how to put on the Tampax. The dirty man with his beady eyes and hands that never seemed to stop. Before the trucker was her father. I couldn’t handle him either, he was too much, and I was too little... We were both too little. I could only wrap my hands over her ears, blocking out the noise, blocking out everything. But we grew up, and eventually.. I got tired of hiding, so when he pushed one day – he was pissed silly – she pushed back.
The image of him at the bottom of the stairs, his whole body at a weird downward angle while his eyes stared up at us from a ghostly face, frozen in death… it haunted me. Verity panicked and cried and panicked some more; that was the first time I officially took over, ready to save her from the hurt and fear, ready to save her from herself. We met Angel a year after the trucker with beady eyes. Verity thought he was the bee’s knees, so I let her keep him. He did prove useful after all.
My eyes feel damp at that thought. Angel didn’t have to go like that, he really didn’t. The thought comes at me with such force I have to rub my throbbing head. I mentally chide her for it. I can’t believe she’s still mourning him. I need a distraction – we both need a distraction.
Looking up, I find the stranger staring at me, eyes hooded, his intentions are obvious. I don’t look away, and he flashes me a dazzling smile. I return one of my own, tucking a few strands of hair behind my ear. This does the trick as Mr. Dapper closes the distance between us, sitting next to me.
“You have such beautiful but troubled eyes. I’m Adam... What’s your name?” he asks, stretching out his hand to take mine. My face blooms into a knowing smile.
The number one rule is: you never mix business with pleasure.
About The Author
Rhiley McCabe Rhiley McCabe is an emerging fiction author and the creator of the nail-biting thriller series, "In The Line of Fire".
Rhiley specializes in the thriller, crime, and suspense genres; his work promises to have you at the edge of your seat from sta
rt to finish.
Rhiley McCabe lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland with his wife and five children. They often take trips to other countries during the summer months. The inspiration for his stories comes from the many places that they visit and the people he gets to meet on these trips.
Books In This Series
Sword and Lead
Thrilling crime fiction from author Rhiley McCabe. Next in this series...
Lead or Lipstick
With Angel Stuart dead, the killer of the Memphis Four has apparently been identified. But for Detective Nathaniel Joy, something about the conclusion of the case just doesn’t add up…
As for Verity, the gaps in her memory have become a source of terror that she has to confront. No matter how frightened she is, she’s determined to discover the truth about herself.
When the families of the Memphis Four report their homes are being broken into, it becomes clear to Detective Joy that the killer is still at large. Both Verity and Detective Joy are looking for answers, but the questions they’re asking are potentially deadly…
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Detective Joy
Chapter 2 Detective Joy
Chapter 3 Detective Joy
Chapter 4 Verity
Chapter 5 Detective Joy
Chapter 6 Detective Joy
Chapter 7 Detective Joy
Chapter 8 Detective Joy
Chapter 9 Verity
About The Author
Books In This Series
Sword and Lead (Book 1) Page 4