I glanced around the alley, taking my time and soaking in my surroundings. No one would have seen much. The alley was small, nothing more than a sliver between two condemned buildings. The club where Autumn had worked was only a few blocks away. I was tempted to go to The Pink Flamingo and ask questions, but since I worked for the competition I wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
Instead I strolled up and down the narrow stretch of walkway, hoping for a ghostly glimpse of the twenty-three-year-old who’d stripped as means to support her three-year-old son and pay for college. That was the primary reason she’d made the evening news. An exotic dancer who’d gotten herself killed wasn’t likely to cause a fuss, not when reporters could spread the good word about meth busts and convenience store robberies. An exotic dancer who’d left an orphaned child behind, however, was great for after dinner conversation.
Crazy fucking world.
An image of Autumn and her child flashed before my eyes, the snapshot burned in my memory like a brand. The picture on the news had been taken around Christmas, since a large tree with glowing rainbow lights was visible behind mother and son. The little boy shared his mother’s blonde hair and blue eyes, although his face was round and pudgy in that bittersweet stage between infant and toddler. Visualizing the two during happier times felt voyeuristic and wrong. Would they have smiled so blissfully at the camera if they had known what was coming?
Highly doubtful.
The visual vanished, forced aside since I wasn’t ready to go there. Instead I tried to mentally recreate the violent act that had killed her, sliding together imprints in time using my tortured, fucked up mind. Autumn had fought, and she had lost. But she hadn’t given up. Her struggles told me she wasn’t ready to go. There was something important for her in this life, something she refused to leave behind. The spasm in my abdomen caused bile to rise to the back of my throat. Of course she had something worth fighting for. Hell, she had something worth dying for.
In those final moments had she mourned the lost time with her son? Had she resented the fact she would never get to know the part of her who would exist despite the fact she was gone?
My stomach rolled, making me queasy. Inhaling a heaping lungful of stale New York air didn’t ease the sensation. The entire situation made me sick. Autumn had wanted to better herself and create a stable future for her child, only to have her efforts wasted in a violent and senseless act. Due to tragedy, her son would never know her, talk to her, or love her beyond a memory.
God, it pissed me off.
Move on. Focus.
After thirty minutes walking along the alley, I accepted what I already knew: Autumn had crossed over. Sometimes a ghost would remain in our dimension if they had a loved one they were leaving behind, but not always. Autumn must have seen the light, walked into it, and went on whatever journey it is we take when we die.
“Damn it,” I murmured and ducked under the yellow tape in my path.
Nothing useful to go on, nothing to help me find my target. There were only the dark images my perverse mind conjured that I didn’t want to deal with—of Autumn in the grips of death, suffering at the hands of a batshit fuck, fighting with all she had to stay alive.
I forced the thoughts away. If I wanted to find the person responsible for Autumn’s death and use him as the sacrifice to revive Marigold Vesta, I had to be patient and bide my time. That was the best way to go about ending my debt. The only way I could end someone’s life and face myself in the mirror. Killing someone who preyed on the weak was something I could deal with. I had to stay on my toes and locate the son of a bitch.
It was time to connect the dots elsewhere.
Now for plan two.
Another stripper was killed a week before: Lucy Mueller, twenty-four years old, who had worked at The Grind. Lucy and Autumn’s deaths were remarkably similar, leading me to believe the same asshole was responsible. The deaths had occurred in a close timeframe, indicating said asshole would strike again soon. Once a serial killer got a taste for death, he couldn’t help himself. The god complex started, he experienced the thrill that was ending a human life, and the rest was icing on his demented cake.