Chapter 2

There's been a fourth murder, and true to his word, Neo had thrust me out the door in a pantsuit and heels into the frigid February air. It's only three miles from our recently purchased home, and my leg bounces the entire way.

In the last few days, I have studied cop talk, radio codes, and the three murders that occurred before Neo and I got into town.

He'd equipped not only the house with a radio tuned to the local police scanners but my car as well.

When I pull up to the house's curb, where at least ten cop cars" lights are flashing, I pause to take in the scene.

People move in and out of the house's door with blue booties on. Some technicians have full suits that look like something out of a movie. But Neo assured me this is how he wants to go about this—his investigation.

Shutting off the car, I try to let some of the sanity I used to hold on to so tightly wash over me before stepping outside. The icy air whips around me when the car door shuts, and I'm thankful I wore my hair up at Neo's insistence. I conceal my hair securely under a red wig. It makes me feel a little spicy, if I'm being honest. I've learned to do my makeup to hide who I used to be, though when I look in the mirror, I don't see any visage of that girl anywhere in my features.

It was as if I had morphed with my emergence into a new version of myself.

"Badge?" a man at the rope line demands, and I huff in annoyance, as I feel any law enforcement agent would before pulling my fake badge—tailor-made for me—from within my coat's breast pocket.

He nods, handing it back over to me. Once he lifts the caution tape, I duck under and grab booties from a peon holding a box at the bottom of the porch.

Donning them, I move inside. Two detectives are standing over the woman laid out on a plastic sheet. It's nothing like I've seen Neo do. Her body lay sprawled out like a starfish, her arms and legs severed and separated from her torso. Her tongue is in a jar next to her head, the word ‘liar' scrawled on the jar's surface in blood, likely her own.

"Who are you?" one of them pipes up, spying on me as I inch around the plastic sheeting.

"Agent Black. The bureau sent me."

The I.D. and badge Neo had gotten me state I'm from the FBI, an agency that lowly departments like Crows Hollow P.D. can't question.

"Why? The murders haven't crossed state lines this time?" the female detective adds.

"Well, that's why I'm here. Your new bodies match some we've had in Colorado, near a national park."

The male detective tuts, shaking his head. "New bodies," he mutters.

"Oh," I say, shoving my hands in my pants pockets, "are these not new? You've had utter silence in Crows Hollow since two years ago?"

The two detectives look at one another, an uncomfortable moment passing between them.

One of them, a woman, looks at me. "Yeah, since the Butcher escaped the looney bin up the road."

I nod absently as if unperturbed. "And you think this is him? Why wait so long?"

"Can I see your badge?" the male detective asks me.

I pull mine out again. "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours," I tease with a playful smirk. I hope it doesn't look too distasteful. Because though I love it when Neo punishes me for slights against him, I genuinely want to meet whoever is killing in this town. Because their work is beautiful.

The detective breaks and laughs, grabbing his badge as we swap them.

Detective Mark Daniels.

He nods at mine as he looks it over, handing it back. Inclining his head toward his partner, he says, "This is Julieanne Clark. My partner."

I lean over the dead woman on the floor and shake his partner's hand before shoving my badge away.

"So, do you, then? Do you think this is the Butcher coming back to Crows Hollow?" I ask them.

They both seem to sigh inwardly. They don't know what to think. That's plain enough to see on the surface of their easily readable faces.

"To be honest, Agent Black, we don't know what to think," Mark finally admits.

I almost forgot that's my new persona, and he's speaking to me.

"It doesn't feel like the Butcher's M.O.; it almost feels…" Julieanne trails off.

"Staged," I finish for her, crouching down. "Though, I don't recall from the files, did the butcher dismember in such a way?" I look up at Julieanne.

She shakes her head, eyes lighting up slightly that I've referred to her and not her partner. Something that probably doesn't happen often, and it's why I'd done it. I've gotten good at reading my targets. Seeing through their facade, right down to the bare bones of what makes them fucking tick.

She crouches down and looks me in the eye. "No. This is overkill if you ask me. Even the Butcher did nothing to this magnitude. And he never killed those who served their time. We're looking for someone entirely different. But why come here? Why Crows Hollow?"

It's because he's trying to flush someone out.

The realization hits my brain like a ton of bricks. It's overkill because he wants to be seen.

"What was that?" Mark asks, looking at me pointedly as I stand up. "You just had a thought. I know you work above our pay grade, but we've been cleaning up bodies for weeks, Ms. Black. If you have an angle we can work, share it with us."

I sigh. "I don't want to step on toes here, Mark. I was just thinking that this man wants to be seen. He's trying to gain attention on himself. Like he's calling someone out."

Julieanne looks at me as she stands back up. Worry slapped all over her features. "The Butcher? Is he trying to call him back here?"

Awe, look at her. She's almost shaking.

I shrug nonchalantly. "I don't know, but he's trying to get someone's attention. That's for certain. You're right. It's overkill."

Mark crosses his arms over his chest as a team of forensics workers approaches, and a man in a coroner's jacket steps closer to Julieanne.

"You all about ready for me to take over?"

Julieanne nods. "Yeah, we'll come to your office tomorrow and see what you've found." Her eyes swing my way. "Want to meet us at the station later tonight? You can see what we have. Fresh eyes might do us some good. You've helped tons today just by stopping by for as long as you did."

Fucking idiots.

I smile despite my inner monologue. "Sure. I'm going to run for some coffee, and then I'll meet you at the station."

They bid me farewell. I move outside and discard my booties with the same nobody who'd given them to me before I return to my car and head away from the scene.

My heart is battering my ribs when I pull into our drive.

My heels click in time with my pounding heart as I push inside. I didn't lie; I'm getting coffee—just not where they thought I'd go to get it.

Neo's at the bar, and the coffee pot is already brewing. He's on his laptop, dark eyes downcast as he reads an article, likely from whatever lowly reporter had gotten to the scene and rushed back to write it as quickly as they could.

"Well?" he asks me.

"They believed my identity, first off. Second off, something is off with the kills. He's calling attention to himself. Over-killing."

He closes his laptop as I pour coffee into mugs for us both. I give him black coffee, and he takes it. "You think he's trying to flush me out?"

"And didn't it work? Here you are. Purchased house and all."

I add cream and sugar to my coffee, stirring it while Neo contemplates all the angles this killer could come at him from and why.

I take the first sip of warmth I've felt since I left two hours ago, letting it steep through my soul as it travels down my throat.

"Why, though?" Neo says absently.

I shrug. "He's dismembering them, but leaving their parts, they're on the scene. Her tongue was in a jar, and the jar had a liar written on it in the victim"s blood."

He listens intently, cataloging all my words. "What the hell could he want?"

"I'd say revenge, but why kill innocents to get it?"

Neo has been killing for years upon years, so there are many a family who could want revenge on him. But to take it as far as this one is confusing on all fronts.

"Well, he's not, is he? He's killing those he knows aren't innocent. Those who were found guilty by a jury of their peers."

"He?" I ask.

He shrugs now. "To dismember is a feat of its own, stupid girl. It takes stomach, and it takes strength."

He's not wrong, but my tongue itches to tell him I could do just as brutal a thing to someone if I wanted.

"Come here," he says, crooking his finger at me.

And just like that, the spell of sanity breaks. It popped like a bubble I'd had to don to leave the house and mingle with society.

He turns on his barstool, bringing me between his powerful thighs. His arms wrap around me. These are the moments I live for. The moments he forgets himself and tugs me to him like he needs me.

Like I am as much to him as he is to me.

"Did you admire his work, stupid girl?"

That stops all my inward fawning. "What?" I'm taken aback. It's our version of him asking me if I found another man attractive. And a small amount of guilt dances inside my stomach like a petulant child, waving back and forth to be seen because I had.

"No lies. You know I fucking hate them."

His tone is even, but it will change if I admit what I felt. Everything is going to change.

"He's a show-off," I say matter-of-factly.

His brows draw together, and he tugs me closer. His lips hover over mine, breaking me down bit by bit as his electricity seeps through my flesh and down to my bones. "That's not what I asked you. I asked you if you admired his work. Did you see what he'd done to that woman and get wet for him?"

Now, I'm shaking.

It's been so fucking long since I've known fear.

It's been nearly two years since I entered this psychopath's room and asked him to take his medicines. Since I crawled to him with his pills on my tongue.

I whimper as his hand behind my back grips the nape of my neck firmly. His teeth sink into my chin, and I'm panting like a fool for him in a flash.

"Tell me."

"Yes," I admit, and I don't know why I'd admitted it, nor how he'd gotten it out of me. It's like it slipped. But things don't slip out of me. Not anymore.

I'm calculated and cold.

I'm his stupid girl.

"What did you admire most?" he asks, and I can't tell if he's mad at me.

His hand shoves down the front of my slacks, the other still holding the back of my neck.

"Was it the way he took her apart bit by bit? Or was it how he severed her tongue?"

"Neither!" I shout as he slides two fingers through my pussy lips over my clit.

"Tell me, stupid girl. I want to know what has you so riled up."

I could tell him I'm riled by him and what he's doing to me. But it would be a fucking lie, and we both know it.

"It was how he taunted you," I cry as he shoves his fingers inside me.

"Mmm, you think he's brave?"

I shake my head.

"Your fucking words!" he growls, and my pussy clamps around him in answer.

"I think he's stupid!" I whimper. "I think he's a stupid, stupid boy. One calling attention to himself incorrectly, and I know it will get him killed. And it excites me."

I'm nearly panting at my words as he fucks me with his fingers perfectly. Consumingly.

"There it is. You like the game, my greedy whore," Neo says, nipping at my bottom lip with his teeth.

It nearly makes me come.

"Look at me," he says, and my closed eyes find his, frantic with lust and heat.

"You're going to help me find him. And you're going to help me end him. Aren't you, Lyla?"

I nod, body quaking and on the verge of shattering by his hand. I'll do anything he says right now, and he knows it. And I don't care that he does.

I belong to him, and I have to fall in line.

And more than that, I want to fall in line.

"There's my good girl. Now, what are you waiting for? Come for me. I don't have all fucking day!"

I lean forward, forehead resting against his as I explode, knees nearly buckling as I do exactly as I'm told.

Like always.