KALLUM
Dr. Stoll Verlice is a lanky, middle-aged man with ultra-white hair who looks more like a politician than a psychiatrist. One well-timed boo will have him quaking in his cheap loafers and scare him off the case.
From the way Halen is apprising him with guarded glances, she also considers him a poor choice to be assigned as my field psychiatrist.
But here we are, in the heart of Hollow’s Row, all three of us ready to make history. If only I could intone sarcasm in my thoughts.
Halen hands me a room key, careful to keep our fingers from touching. I turn the key over; it’s an actual key. Not a plastic card. The bronze is dulled and worn, much like this gothic hotel and town. Although there is a certain macabre charm, like the deathly murmur that creeks in your bones and whistles threats through ancient trees, it’s mostly a dilapidated pile of ruins.
Regardless of my appreciation for all things ancient and mysterious, I still prefer new, clean, and contemporary when it comes to where I lie my head.
“Be content it’s not Briar,” Halen says, reading my aversion. “Your room is connected to Dr. Verlice’s, and the conjoining door is to remain open and unlocked. Put your stuff away. We’re meeting up with the feds to head to the scene.”
“I all but inked my name in blood,” I say. “I’m yours to command.”
Dr. Verlice doesn’t take offense to this statement the way Halen does, but he ushers me toward the stairwell, making sure I know who’s in charge.
Once Halen confessed to the urgency of the case, admitting the potential was high the victims may still be recovered alive, events moved swiftly. My meager personal items were approved, packed, and taken to an airport, where an agent cuffed my ankle with a monitor.
I’m able to roam within the approved areas of the town, such as the crime scene, hotel, and main street vicinity, but one step past the figurative town limits, and I’ll be hunted like the FBI’s most wanted.
The rundown of the rules have one major overlap: if I fuck up, I’m sent back to Briar.
“Your actions will be on me,” Halen said on the flight. “I won’t let you fuck up.”
I got a deviant thrill out of her vow.
By the time the major players of the unit are assembled in a caravan of giant, gas-guzzling SUVs, I’ve gotten a feel for the dynamic of the town. Admittedly, I’d already done my homework years ago when news of the disappearances first went viral.
Hollow’s Row has a reputation for bad things.
Our vehicle lurches forward with Halen seated in the passenger seat, Special Agent Wren Alister behind the wheel, and me and my watch dog psychiatrist taking up the two backseats. Agent Alister has one hand on the wheel, the other tapping the keyboard of his console computer. Halen and Dr. Verlice both stare at their phones.
I’m the only one without a device to distract me from the scenic view as we cruise through the narrow, timeworn streets. It’s like a shadow has been cast over small-town USA, as if a dark shroud has fallen over the once-white picket fences and smiling faces.
The gothic revival homes are ancient themselves, some dating back two-hundred years. They appear to have been restored at one point, but where time couldn’t break the structures, loss and pain have chipped away at the classic veneer.
People drift like ghosts on the sidewalks. They are extensions of the dead houses, bound to the skeletons by memories, unable to depart their haunts.
My expertise is not in the social sciences, but even I can appreciate what hardship the disappearance of so many people from a tight-knit community can cause. Many family units lost at least one loved one. Thirty-three members of a family-focused society vanished from existence.
And now, as news of the discovered remains airs through the town’s corpses, these people lurk like animated zombies, their bated breath a death rattle waiting to exhale, to hear the names of those loved ones announced.
They wait for closure.
As our SUV coasts close to a freshly worn trail in the marsh, I look at Halen. “When are the DNA reports being made available?”
She turns my way, a curious furrow notched between her brows. She glances at Agent Alister, and I dislike that she feels she needs his permission. At his affirmative nod, she says, “The DNA of five remains were confirmed to be town locals.”
“That sets a very dark but redundant tone,” I say, and Halen frowns disapprovingly.
Five positive IDs should be all that’s needed to draw a likely conclusion to the rest of the eyes belonging to the missing. Let’s just refer to them as that from now on, for simplicity’s sake.
“I think referring to them as victims is preferable,” Halen remarks, and I realize I must have spoken my thoughts aloud.
I have to be more mindful of that. Spending six months isolated in my head, flushing antipsychotics down a toilet, has the ability to wreak havoc on one’s mental state.
Before I exit the vehicle, I reach down and rub at the irritating itch caused by the ankle bracelet. Agent Alister opens my door, and the pungent marsh scent smacks my face. As I allow my senses to acclimate, I notice another faint odor wafting through the tall reeds.
Death.
The townies call this area the killing fields because hunters discard their kills here.
But the town didn’t get its reputation because of the great hunting. After the mass disappearance, the past few years have been comparatively quiet. Before, however, Hollow’s Row earned the very clever nickname Hollow’s Death Row from neighboring cities due to the high fatality rate.
But that’s another story.
I trail behind Alister as he walks the well-worn path. Dr. Verlice stays behind with the SUV, catching up on “patient work”, but I suspect he doesn’t have the stomach for this part of the deal.
Halen stalks a short distance behind me, as if she’s fearful I’ll pull a Houdini and vanish right here in the killing fields.
“When I give my word, I honor it, Halen,” I say, stepping around the bleached bones of a stag carcass. “I’m not sprinting off into the forest to live off of berries and brambles. Don’t let my presence preoccupy your mind and deter your focus.”
“I’m capable of multitasking,” she says. “You just focus on the scene, Kallum. What you’re here to do.”
And as we come up on said scene, I remove my hands from my jacket pockets, letting them hang loosely at my sides. Caution tape wraps the trunks of several spindly trees, designating the crime scene within. Or what’s left of it.
“Would have been better if I could’ve viewed the scene before the uniforms and techs disassembled it.” I flex my fingers, picking up on the lingering energy of the site.
Halen moves to stand beside me. The hum of her nearness vibrates in my bones, distracting me, overpowering me. “Had you not been such a primadonna, you would have,” she says. “Yesterday.”
“Everything has a price, sweetness.” I give her my devilish smile before I duck under a tattered section of tape. “Especially brilliance.”
Her strained exhale reaches my ears as I move closer to the crop of dead-looking trees. A few straggler techs and officers are conducting useless tests on the trees and grass, but I push them out of my mind, trying to see only what was here before.
I locate the burnt reeds—the area of Halen’s interest—and stalk to that spot. As I crouch down to get a better look, Halen removes a tablet from her satchel.
“Analysis from the lab workup logged a substance on the reeds containing calcium carbonate, potassium sorbate, sulfur dioxide, glucose—”
“Sugar,” I say, touching one of the sooty reeds. I draw my fingers up the blade, and a smudge of sticky residue adheres to my fingertips. “Wine.”
“That’s what the lab concluded.” She scrolls the report. “A tawny mixture, most likely homemade. The analysis states—”
“Halen.” Her name is a guttural command that gains her full attention. “I’m not law enforcement or a lab geek. And neither are you.”
After a heated second where our gazes stay locked, she lowers the tablet. Understanding lights her hazel eyes, and she pushes the escaping white streak of hair behind her ear to break the intensity of the connection before she directs her focus on the fire pit.
“Just talk to me,” I say, my tone yielding. “Why did you first leap to an esoteric connection?” I wipe my fingers off on my black jeans, spreading the residue thin in search of any defining substances, such as blood.
Blood is to rites and ritual as lead is to alchemy. One claims to produce gold, the other to strengthen life force. But when both are present, it’s typically to provoke something very dark.
“The intricate yarn work,” Halen says, interrupting my thoughts and surprising me. “The craftsmanship feels ritualistic in nature. Why that particular thread? Why not rope? Or some other simpler, logical means of adhering the oculus? It’s almost ceremonial, ornate, like the act itself is sacred, and the exhibit is an offering or…”
“A sacrifice,” I say.
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth briefly. “He took a lot of care with staging the eyes. He spent time here. Around a fire. Pouring wine. Weaving thread.”
Becoming docile, contemplative, she disappears somewhere inside herself. I’m again tempted with a famished hunger to explore that inside chasm, that part of her psyche she keeps hidden.
I want its secrets.
Inhaling a lungful of swampy marsh, I rise to my feet and shift my focus to the trees. “The alchemy of the soul is transforming pain into creative genius.”
I’m not aware I’ve said this aloud until I catch Halen’s tapered gaze directed on me. Her guard lowers a fraction, allowing a suspended heartbeat where her ache becomes mine, before she reins in her unruly emotions.
“And which one of your philosophers said that?” she asks, voice clipped.
Me.
“Some writer. I don’t recall,” I say. “But along with the intricate thread work, your suspect makes his own wine. There’s a certain alchemy to the vinification process, going as far back as Hermetic Egypt. His method or signature”—I use her terminology—“could be as simple as that. His signature.”
“None of this feels simple.” Tension layers her voice. “You’re going to have to narrow the scope.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Where are the images of the eyes?”
A printed image is slipped into my hand, and I look down. “These are the crime-scene photos taken by first responders,” she says.
I hold one of the photos up against the overcast sky, and just as I felt the day before, it’s useless. I lower the image. “I need close-ups. Pictures of the eyes, the thread.”
Halen briefly touches the diamond at her neck, a subconscious habit, before she drops her canvas satchel to the ground and digs out a digital camera. She hands it up to me.
“I didn’t have time to print off all the images,” she says. “But I wanted closer shots. To see if the perpetrator had doctored the eyes at all.”
A knowing smile curls my lips. Figures my little unseen seer would be the one to look beyond the obvious.
Flipping through the digital photos on-screen, I stop on one pair of eyes and use my fingers to zoom in on the glazed-over iris.
“I looked for any puncture marks,” she says, crossing her arms. “There are none as far as the images allow us to see.”
A frantic bat wings to life in my chest at her inclusive us. I glance over to catch her turn her head away, seemingly aware of her slip. But I don’t mind. As far as I’m concerned, we are the only two here in this field of death and decay.
I pan over a few sets of eyes on the camera screen, focusing on the pupils. “If he did, he’d likely go through the pupil, making it more difficult to determine. Maybe your lab geeks can get you a report. But he wanted the pupils in a particular way.” I point to three sets that appear to all align.
A caw sounds from above, and I momentarily glance up at a row of crows perched on a thin branch.
“The perpetrator used an animal to deter the birds from the crime scene.”
“He hunted it himself?”
She nods in confirmation. “Possibly. I assumed as much.”
Interesting. “Likely because he didn’t want the scavengers picking at his exhibit.” They would ruin his work, steal the sacrifice. But where is the blood? He’s either the least practiced…or the tidiest little OCD freak.
“I know where you’re going with the pupils,” she says, bracing her hands on her hips. “The unis already combed the marsh looking for the bodies. The eyes weren’t staring at anything, Kallum. There are no bodies in the fields.”
A light breeze tosses her lock of white across one eye, and a violent need to sweep it aside, to let my fingers taste her skin, stirs heated embers in my veins.
I swipe my tongue across my bottom lip, watching as she gracefully tucks the hair behind her ear.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
I unclench my hand from around the camera and return her device. “Law officials are limited in their thinking.” I turn to stare out over the gray-washed marshland. The reeds gently sway in the slight breeze, carrying the scent of death.
“That may be, but it’s their case to solve.” Anxiety leaks into her voice. “I need you to look for any philosophical correlations, that’s all.”
I could tell her what she needs, but she’s not yet ready to hear. Instead, I start off in the direction just left of the beaten path.
Little Halen follows, leaving Agent Alister behind, and that brings a smug smile to my mouth. She’s not one of them.
“You haven’t said anything about the scene itself other than a wine recipe and signature.” She sidles up beside me, her mud-covered rain boots requiring two quick steps for my every one to keep up. “I need more to go on, Kallum.”
“Your suspect chose three trees on purpose for his exhibit.”
“Because…the philosophy of trees states three is the magical number?”
I chuckle, nearly alarming myself and her. “Something like that.”
I can sense her wariness drifting, becoming less intense. Which opens a portal to a glimpse of Halen before her grief. She was witty, and charming, and made people laugh. Those who knew her then must miss her, and it’s probably why she lurks in the shadows now, trying to be unseen.
I’m not interested in restoring her.
“The site is very well organized,” I say, my pace slowing as we head deeper into the soggy earth. “It’s clean, practiced. Which makes you wonder if it’s his first one, doesn’t it?”
She’s silent as we wade through the marsh reeds, careful our steps don’t land on a reptile. But I can hear her thoughts shouting above the caws and insects.
Then, she finally says, “Five years is a long time to practice. If he’s been torturing these people for all this time…” She trails off. “There could be many more crime scenes buried in these fields.”
“What kind of space would a suspect like this need?” I ask, prompting her.
“Somewhere assessable to him, but a place he feels safely hidden.” She marches alongside me now, her curiosity superseding any hesitancy or trepidation.
I carefully swat at the reeds the deeper I verge into the wetland. Mud forms a suction to the soles of my boots. If the canine squad was utilized to comb the area, the dogs didn’t direct them on this course. The water could’ve hindered the smell or, more likely, the notable scent of citrus I catch a whiff of every time I fan the reeds.
“What’s that smell?” Halen asks.
“Lemon.”
She doesn’t respond right away. I imagine she’s processing the fact there are no lemon trees out here.
Ground water seeps up over the toes of my shoes, and when I see the starburst blooms, I halt and hold my arm out, preventing Halen from walking any farther. My arm grazes her chest, and her breath hitches before she pushes away on reflex.
“I don’t need your protection, Kallum.”
I look over, my eyebrow craned. The irony is amusing. The woman who set out to destroy me—my life, freedom, reputation, career—believes I have concern for her safety.
I take a step closer. My towering height casts a shadow over her slight figure.
And then we’re both instantly aware of the silence, of the very aloneness of our state.
Her snap of anger is a poor concealment tactic for the fear I see harbored behind her large hazel eyes. She doesn’t want to be afraid of me, but she can’t contain her strongest emotions. She’s afraid of so much she doesn’t understand, and I reflect that fear back at her. I sense little Halen hasn’t been in control of her world for some time.
I wonder how often she gives in to the pain, lets herself spiral out of control.
“I’m not really the protecting type,” I say, “but you definitely need something from me.” I step toward her and close the distance between us.
She doesn’t retreat. She raises her face toward mine, her chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. I reach out, and she starts to lean away…
“Don’t move—”
She freezes.
Shock is an electric jolt to my adrenals as her gaze locks with mine. She doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, as my command hovers between us. I could wrap my hand around her throat and choke the life from her tiny body before she eased out a squeak.
I swallow hard at the thought, and a fiery ache drags along my throat as I use the cuff of my jacket to detangle a stem from her ponytail. She angles her head slightly to peek at the sprout of white flowers held aloft by my covered hand.
“Hemlock,” I say.
She exhales. My stomach tightens at the tantalizing caress of her breath along my neck. She’s so close, I can taste her dread. It leaves an aftertaste of her sweet lily of the valley.
“Water hemlock,” I clarify. “The kind that grows in marshes and wetlands. Although—” I glance around “—it’s not really native to this part of the country.”
“Someone planted it here.” Her voice is breathy, stirring a visceral reaction that ignites my chest.
The closer I am to her, the more her pain is sweet agony, a torment so fucking raw I have to grit my teeth.
I take a purposeful step backward. “I’d say that’s an intelligent assumption, considering this person also planted the ears.”
A confused expression draws her features together until she turns to see the shriveled human ears strung to the stems of the hemlock shrubs.
“You can hear no evil…if you have no ears.”
Her little sprite features seethe, indignant. Admittedly, that wasn’t my best pun.
She immediately drops her bag and digs out her camera to start taking pictures and cataloging the crime scene. “How did you know this was here?” She turns incensed eyes on me. “You better start explaining what the hell is going on, Kallum.”
The accusatory tone of her voice crawls under my barely restrained composure. “Or what?” I ask, my voice dropping to a lethal decimal. “Most field agents carry some form of weapon. You have no gun, no Taser, no baton. Not even handcuffs, which is just a shame.”
The rapid shutter click of her camera halts. Her body stills as the sounds of the secluded grove encapsulate us.
“I’m not sure if it’s arrogance or stupidity,” I continue, situating my jacket cuff to occupy my hands, “why you choose to walk around unprotected.”
“I’ve never had use for a weapon.”
And then I catch what she realizes instantly.
Until me.
I lick my lips and smile. “You’ve never had use for a weapon…until me.” I gauge her body language, the defensive draw of her shoulders. “If that’s what you’re thinking, I’d say it’s a little late.” Far too late.
“There are agents and officers out here,” she says, trying to rationalize with me. “Would harming me…physically harming me, be worth risking any chance you may have at freedom? Would that satisfy your compulsive need?”
Not even fucking close.
She rises to her feet slowly. Camera in hand, she faces me like she’s not aware she’s half my size. “I understand what you’re feeling.”
This intrigues me—everything about her is intriguing. “You understand?”
She nods. “I am a psychologist…you can talk to me, Kallum. Whatever is torturing your mind, I promise, I’ll understand. I can maybe even help you.”
How tempting to split my mind open right here and let her take a tour. How would little Halen react to the visual of her pressed up against a tree, her wrists bound to the rough bark. Blood coating soft skin in the most enticing dark-red.
The image has my teeth sinking into my lip until the metallic trace of blood hits my tongue.
She chances a step closer, as if I’m a wild animal she fears startling. “If there’s something you want to talk about…anything from your past that you’ve done. Anything I can do or offer—”
“Stop.” The sharp edge in my tone halts her.
With contempt, I wrangle the frenzied thoughts into a dark corner of my mind and lock my hands together before me, proving I have no intention of harming her. “You should be careful how you word things, Halen.” Keeping my hands bound, I lean in closer, just to absorb the fragrant scent of her terror. “You do happen to have some powerful weapons at your disposal.” My gaze tracks over her agonizingly slow, making my point.
Her scent, those intense liquid eyes. That pouty mouth and dangerous body. All lethal when she wields those assets with grave intent.
Her mouth parts, the intensity of her eyes damn near flaying me as she senses my waning restraint.
“But you should also carry a weapon,” I say. “Just in case.”
With a sideways step, she removes herself from my proximity and pulls out her phone. “Agent Alister, we found something.”
Then, before there can be anymore revelations between us, she departs the scene, leaving me and the shriveled ears to listen to the hollow sounds of the marsh.
