1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  “Address is incoming. Keep it silent, boys, we’re trying to figure out what the fuck happened before we tell the whole goddamned County. Get over there.”

  He hangs up abruptly and I shift, reaching for my gun, discarded on the table.

  Eli is watching me, warily, and I remember suddenly we’re in the middle of a fucking fight.

  Feels really goddamned distant, all of a sudden.

  “Let’s move, Lijah,” I spit. “Triple homicide on County Line.”

  I see it. All of the terror and wildness that had filled me, reflected in my brother.

  It’s not her. It can’t be her. Even knowing that, the fear is like this choking thing, until the text comes through.

  3645 County Line.

  Oh thank Christ.

  “It’s six houses down,” I say, gruffly and Eli almost hits the ground. He does sway and I grab his arm. Steadying him. Steadying myself.

  Six. Fucking. Houses.

  Sure the farm houses out there had anywhere between half a mile and two between them, but still.

  It’s too damn close for comfort. I want to see her, a hungry want that hits like a visceral need, and I can’t.

  I can’t fucking see her because I have a fucking job to do. Dammit all to hell and back.

  “Let’s go,” I order, and Eli lurches into motion, grabbing his weapon holster and shrugging it over his shoulders. Neither of us are in suits, not anymore, but neither of us really give a fuck either. We’re out the door and I hit the driver seat of my car.

  “Gabe,” Eli spits out. There’s a hesitation, and then, sharply, “You can tear me a new one later, Gabriel. Get your ass to my sister’s house and call me when you know she’s safe.”

  He hangs up before Gabriel can respond, and I throw him a quick look. “Gabe?”

  “Don’t,” Eli spits, and I don’t. I just drive.

  I have no fucking clue what we’re walking into.

  Chapter 11

  I watch Gabriel hang up, his forehead furrowed into a frown as he stares at his phone like it might bite him.

  “You okay?” I ask, moving around my kitchen. Gabriel doesn’t respond for a moment, and I let him have his space, pouring tea into mugs for us, pushing his across the counter so his hands can come up and cup it.

  I add a bar of Godiva, and he flashes a quick, grateful smile. I know he’d rather have hot chocolate, but I ran out a few weeks ago, and when we raided the damn grocery store, Archer didn’t grab more.

  It occurs to me that I should make a note to grab it soon. Especially if Gabe was about to become a fixture at my home again.

  “You okay?” I repeat and he nods.

  Flashes me a quick smirk. “Your brother has definitely upped the crazy, sweetheart.”

  I frown, blow on my tea and ask quickly, “Eli has always been crazy, Gabe. You just like his hair too much to give a fuck.”

  He leers. Actually fucking leers at me. Who even does that? “It’s not his hair that I like, Hazy.”

  I make a face and wave a hand, “Dude, TMI. That’s my brother!” Gabriel laughs. Sips at his tea and make a face when it’s not chocolate.

  “He wants to know you’re safe. You got some kind of stalker you forgot to tell me about?”

  I roll my eyes, and he grins. “Pretty sure if I did, you’d notice just because you won’t quit fucking watching me.”

  “It gives me something to do while cupcakes bake,” he says, waving a hand.

  As if Gabriel Delvin is ever actually bored. He has his fingers in too many things to ever be truly bored.

  “Hey, Gabe, speaking of brothers,” I say, gently and he stiffens, all of the easy warmth draining out of him and I remember.

  We’re still slipping into the easy place that is us. After four years, I can’t expect all of the ease that we had, once. I can’t expect that when I push him, he’ll fold and give me the hard stuff without flinching.

  “Sorry,” I murmur.

  Because there is, under everything, the loss of a brother.

  His favorite brother. Aidan. I shift a little, away from him, but still close.

  Giving him space. Gabe doesn’t like caring. Not really. But he also can’t seem to help himself. He cares because he can’t not, even when he’s an ass and acting like it’s him against the world.

  Which is why he took it so hard, when Aiden ran away from Green County.

  It wasn’t really Aiden’s fault. When you’re living an epic love story and one half decides to walk away without any fucking reason, it’s hard to stay and face the fall out.

  Gabriel understood that as much as I did. Didn’t make it any easier to accept it.

  “He hates it there,” Gabe says, softly.

  I go still, watching him and he gives me a small shrug. A little thing that stings.

  “Not so different from you, when you think about it, Hazel. He ran away from what he wanted and hates it as much as you did.”

  “Who says I hated it?” I ask, my heart pounding.

  Gabe scoffs, a smirk on his lips and the moment passes, too quick to hold onto.

  “I’m your best friend, Hazy. I know you.”

  “What did Eli want?”

  Something flickers in his eyes. “Wanted me to make sure you’re safe. He didn’t tell me why.”

  And Gabriel would. Because drama between them aside, Gabriel and my brother have always worked to keep me safe and happy.

  Archer has always worked with them.

  “I need to call him,” I say, softly and Gabe nods once.

  Eli doesn’t answer. Jackass.

  I growl a curse under my breath and hang up, dialing Archer while Gabe putters around my kitchen. “How long did he say to stay with me?” I ask and Gabriel shrugs.

  “Didn’t really put a time stamp on it, sweetheart,” Gabe says. The phone is ringing and ringing and…

  “What, Hazel?”

  “Watch your fucking tone,” I snap. “Why the hell did you sic Gabe on me?”

  There’s a breath of hesitation and I know what it is.

  It’s got the feel Eli has, when I ask about work and he hesitates before telling me the barest details. But then. Archer spits a curse. “Triple homicide, a few miles away on County Line.”

  I feel my gut seize up, flutter in that shift of nerves that I always get when a story is there inches away and begging for me to snatch it up.

  “Hazel, for once in your fucking life, I need you to do what I say. Lock your fucking doors, stay with Gabriel and wait for me to give you the all clear.”

  “Archer,” I say, softly and he huffs a sigh.

  “We just got here, Hazy-eyes.” He goes distant for a second, and I can hear him talking to Eli before the door to car slams shut. Then his voice is back and it’s my voice. The gruff, low, sexy as sin voice he only ever uses with me, when we’re alone.

  “Hazel, please. This—it’s bad. I can’t be worried about you. Gabriel will keep you safe, and you’ll keep him safe, and I’ll give you as much information as I can, as soon as I clear the scene. But, please. For me?” I let out my breath slowly.

  “Okay, Archer.” I whisper.

  I hear his huff of relief, too real for him to choke it off, and then, “Baby girl, I gotta go. I’ll call soon.”

  I nod and he disconnects and I look over at Gabriel. Flash a smile that doesn’t feel even the slightest bit real.

  “So, it looks like we’re gonna be spending some time together,” I say, weakly.

  Chapter 12

  I spent four years in the Marine Corps before I joined the GCPD.

  Two of those were spent on deployment, a nightmare of war and blood and death.

  I saw people torn to pieces by bombs, girls ripped apart by rape and abuse, men beaten so badly they couldn’t breathe, eyeballs hanging from shattered orbital sockets. I saw my own unit torn apart by gunfire and shrapnel. I saw blood splatter and dead dogs being eaten by children, and dead children being eaten by dogs.

  I saw every f
ucking nightmare I could possibly imagine.

  War is a beast, a fucking monster. But it’s supposed to be. It’s like the devil—something you know and expect and can depend on because it’s supposed to be evil.

  That wasn’t the world I came back to. It was supposed to be quiet. Bad shit should happen, but not…. Not this.

  Because this? This is worse than anything I ever saw in war.

  “You need this,” the scene tech said, her face pale, lips trembling.

  Eli frowned. Pamela was too much of a hardass to be this torn up by a dead body, so what the actual fuck?

  I take the masks from her and slip it over my face, sliding my feet into protective booties.

  And then I enter the house, my brother following me, and we step into hell.

  The first victim

  (I had to think of them like that. Had to.)

  was found in the foyer. Less than ten feet from the door. Three bullet holes, one to the gut, one through the shoulder. The last was through the back of her head, punched out the front, taking half her face with it.

  She was a mess of blood and brain and bone, most of it splattered in a grisly pattern on the beige carpet.

  (It was beige. Once. Now it’s a deep, deep red, and it squishes under my feet as I crouch next to her.)

  Back of the head, splayed limbs, the expression of terror on her face—the unforced entry.

  She opened the door. Let the killer in.

  She ran, when they pulled the gun.

  (Oh, jesus, they shot an unarmed grandmother in the back of the fucking skull.)

  The first victim knew them. Enough that she let them in, on a cool summer evening. It’s Green County. Not completely unheard of.

  (This is. Holy fuck, this is.)

  There are two distinct set of footprints, tracking bloody away from the first victim.

  There’s vomit, in the middle of the hallway, and bloody hand prints braced on the ground.

  (Eli makes a noise that’s like a choked sob. I grit my teeth, and give him a sharp look, questioning. My brother looks like he’s gonna fall the fuck apart. “I can process-”

  “Shut up, Archer.”)

  The victim’s son found her.

  He’s the one who threw up and smeared blood prints on the ground in the hallway. The second victim, (Oh jesus oh fuck fuck fuck.), is found in a closet.

  She’s bound, with duct tape, at the hands and feet. Two shots to the head, neat and tidy. Close up, and not the gun that killed the first victim.

  She looks startled. Not scared.

  (Silencers. They fucking used silencers. And she knew them.)

  It’s at the back of the downstairs, well away from the first victim. The door was left open, after they shot her, and blood dried, dripping down the wall where she’s slumped with her forever startled expression.

  (What the hell was the last thing she saw, that put that startled look in her eyes?) There are no tracks in her blood.

  (She was fucking collateral damage. Her and the grandmother. They weren’t here for her, but they sure as fuck didn’t have any problem killing her.)

  The third victim is upstairs.

  (Eli gags when we reach the top of the staircase, and for a second, as I look, I can’t process what I’m seeing. I have to process what I’m seeing. I have to do my job. Stay detached.) There is blood. Everywhere.

  She wasn’t restrained.

  There are footprints, and they crisscross across the room.

  She was running. And one of the killers—there were two, there had to have been two, because of the footprints next to the first victim—was chasing her.

  And there’s blood, everywhere.

  Like they worked her over with a knife.

  It sprays, obscenely beautiful patterns against the stark white walls, dried now to a rusty red.

  This was the target.

  There is a fourth victim here, a girl, maybe nineteen, shot point blank.

  (Who the fuck is she and why did they kill her? I wonder if Pamela has ID’d them.)

  The target. The third victim. They didn’t just chase her and torture her with a knife. They beat her to death.

  She’s almost unrecognizable as a human. She’s a red smear of meat and guts and bones. (Eli throws up. I hear him retch, messy and loud and my stomach almost rebels.

  This isn’t hell. This is so fucking far past that.)

  There’s a bloody barbell next to the lump of meat and bone and hair, and I crouch next to it and the victim. Faintly, I can see the impressions of the barbell in her skin.

  This was personal. Whoever this girl was, whoever the hell the killers were. This was the goal. They had a problem with her.

  The other three dead bodies were incidental, or—

  (Oh fuck, did they kill them, just to torture her? Before they cut her up and beat her to death, did they slaughter her family first?)

  She was the target. And it was personal.

  It wasn’t a random home invasion by a drug addict looking to score some money or prescription pills.

  This was calculated and personal and fucking savagely executed.

  And the killers walked out, without ever being seen.

  I feel sick, when I step out of the house. Eli is already outside, crouching next to the bushes, and Pamela is hovering over him, all caustic concern.

  I arch an eyebrow at her and she shrugs. Pats my brother on his back and shifts away.

  The Chief is approaching and I growl Eli’s name. He nods, and pushes to his feet.

  Chief eyes my brother for a minute and then, “How bad did you fuck up my crime scene, Eli?”

  He flushes.

  “You been in there?” I ask, and it pulls Billing’s attention to me. He nods, slowly, and I glance back.

  I can still see each of them, sprawled out and dead. “You ever seen any shit like that before?” I ask.

  And Billings, damn him, shakes his head.

  “It was personal,” Eli offers and Billings glances at him. Eli squares his shoulders. He might be in the doghouse for fucking up the crime scene, but his instincts are still sound. And he’s right.

  “There’s too much rage and intent for it to be random.” “Why do you say that?” Peter says, sharply.

  “Because they tortured the girl. The others, they killed. Quick and painless. But she was all kinds of intentional. They wanted her to suffer. No one tortures a girl like that unless they’re being pushed by motive.”

  Chief grunts and hands me a thin file.

  “They were found when the old lady’s son came home. She lived with them, but it’s his house. He worked third shift, and came home to this.”

  He’s the one who threw up in the hallway. Makes sense. He came home to a dead mother, and his daughters in the house.

  “The girl upstairs—the third gunshot vic—was a friend. Beth Griffin was visiting Crystal

  Watson.”

  Wrong night to get together with the BFF.

  “You two have point on this. It’s your priority,” Peter says, his voice a low growl. “What about the prostitutes?”

  The Chief gives us a blank stare. “What the fuck about them? Did you see that house, Archer?”

  And that’s that.

  We spend the day processing the scene. By the time Pamela and her boys have finished cataloguing all of the blood splatter, footprints, bullet casings and wounds, by the time the bodies have been carted away for the medical examiner and proper identification, by the time I finally leave that nightmare house of horrors—my head is pounding, and Eli has descended into utter silence.

  I leave him to it. Frankly, I’m not in the mood to sift through my brother’s brooding. Not when I’m so fucking deep in it myself.

  We were fighting, when I caught the call that shattered the day.

  Fuck, it’s only been one fucking day. We sat, happy, this morning at Mama’s and listened to Hazel banter with Eli and tease Hailey.

  I swallow hard.

  “Did you
call Hazel?”

  I glance at my brother who looks at me dully. We’re halfway back to the house. To our house, but it occurs to me that I don’t want to go back to our empty place. And Eli could use more than that too.

  So I swing the Roadrunner around sharply, a hard crank of the wheel. Eli mutters a low curse, but rolls with it.

  “Where—“ he starts blearily, and I shoot him a quick look.

  “Oh,” he says, instead.

  And it fucking settles me. Not all of the anger and worry, not the gnawing fear and outrage that some monster destroyed the peace in my town. But some of the edges of nerves settle, and I can take what feels like the first full breath of the fucking day.

  Nothing has changed. There’s still a fucking monster out there, and tomorrow, Eli and I have to sit down with the parents of a murdered girl, the devastated father who lost his entire fucking family.

  But for the moment—all of that drops away because there isn’t a goddamned thing I can do until the ME finishes with the bodies.

  The one thing I can do is take care of my family. Take care of Eli who doesn’t need to be alone. And take care of Hazel who I’ve been worried about all day, and who is so fucking good at settling me when I’m spinning out.

  I want her, here. Not for sex—I’m so fucked up right now, so lost in my head I don’t think sex is on the table. But I want my best friend, the one who can sit in my silence and still be so fucking present it doesn’t feel like I’m alone.

  When she’s close to me, I don’t feel like I’m alone. And I fucking need that, right now.

  Chapter 13

  Gabe and I spend the day watching shitty movies.

  I fuck around on my computer, playing with the idea of working on my article, but my heart isn’t really in it. My mind—both of our minds—are a few miles away, where my brother and Archer are dealing with a murder scene.

  A triple fucking homicide.