“Good,” I mutter. Maybe Dean can’t see past my blond hair, full breasts and made-up eyes, but I am a conniving shell of a girl, hollowed out by truth and bank notes, twisted by things she shouldn’t know.
I’m trying to make the world better. Trying to pay for my sins. That’s all philanthropy is, in the end…debt and repayment.
I have plenty of money, but not nearly enough of a soul.
CHAPTER SIX
Leo
Red herring (noun): red sky at night, shepherd’s oversight
Since you’ve probably never been attacked with a chopstick, allow me to explain how it works.
They’re blunt, for the most part, though their edges become sharper when applied to flesh with force. If driven with the right trajectory, they’re small enough to penetrate like needles or knives, too. Aeron, bless his sweet soul, did not want to stab me, and so he angled the bastard thing down and scraped. Hard. A tiny hole was gauged—not deep, but deep enough—and then the surrounding skin peeled down for a good inch. Perhaps you can imagine the precision and strength required to inflict this sort of injury without snapping the chopstick in half. Dragon Hut may have quite the awesome menu, but its implements aren’t medical grade.
Normally, I manage to leave fresh wounds alone. They need a day or two to settle beneath their dressings; chances are, I even forget about them after a couple hours. Maybe stress is preventing this one from settling, but God, it hurts. So here I am, my office door locked, my shirt hitched up and a cold compress wedged between the wound and my palm. Frick, as they say. Crazy little sting called love.
I only came in here to watch the Blood Honey press conference in private. I needed headspace to explore my paranoia; the moment they began to describe the victim, though, the scratch started to throb with the coldest heat I’ve ever felt, and I sat and winced like some miserable BDSM Harry Potter. Aeron, if he could see this, would laugh and feign sympathy. Would pat me on the head and then probably slip his hand between my legs, just to see if such a scene made me wet.
They aren’t releasing photographs of her body. It’s the respectful thing to do. But they’re describing the poor soul in unsettling detail, and I suspect that this is worse. She was indeed a prostitute, as they initially suspected; Rayne Thomas, the Sweetheart. Thirty-three, a seasoned professional, and had been missing for at least a week. They have yet to start a post-mortem but estimate that she was murdered shortly after Jamie Perkins. She has the same intimate injuries as her predecessors and the same messy bruise around her throat, though this time, the killer painted her bleached blond hair with blood too, staining it a dark shade of crimson. Our psychologist will go batshit over that one.
I won’t blame him. It’s beyond creepy—I’d let loose a shudder if it didn’t intensify the sting in my cold-pressed flesh, but instead, I keep rigid, and it only makes an ache sizzle in my lower back. Everyone thinks Blood Honey hates women, that he’s carving up their genitals and leaving pet name inscriptions to mock them, but this one’s a game changer. Kinda seems like he’s grooming them, Frankenstein-style.
I know another man who cuts to groom. To him, the application of a sharp object is foreplay. A kiss. I’d say it was affectionate but it’s more like masturbation; he bulges inside me at the mere sight of blood, swollen with the imagined impact of pain. Sadism is the only form of empathy he knows.
The officer leading the press conference lays out safety guidelines in a solemn voice. Women should be particularly wary of strangers, especially those who make an effort to be charming. They should avoid being alone in quiet public areas. Great. There’ll be a curfew next. We’ll all need escorts if we want to leave our own homes.
The compress is warm now. I ought to re-soak it, but before I can rise for the bathroom, the screen of my phone lights up with a call.
Private number. I am so not in the mood to be playing mental footsie with another stuck-up fed.
Agent Chen’s deep voice pours down the receiver. “Hello, Miss Reeves.”