14. HUNGER

14

HUNGER

YARA

W ith a knife in my hand, warm blood seeping down my fingers, I found meaning in the meaningless. It was such a rare feeling—watching as life faded from their eyes—plunging their soul forever into darkness, knowing they couldn’t hurt others anymore. Purely poetic.

Murder was how I had learned to survive the world riddled with bastards like Victor, Keaton, The Strangler, and my father. And so, with every death, I wrote another story. They didn’t deserve to be immortalized, but I gave them something in return for their help to feed my demons.

“You look like you’re sleeping, Victor,” I said, wiping my fingerprints from the storage unit.

Millicent was still sleeping soundly when I went back. Taking some of Victor’s blood, I swiped it under her fur coat, making sure it wasn’t obvious. With a smile, I pulled her to the driver’s seat and left her there.

I walked through a maze of dark alleys until I finally reached my sedan. I had only a little time to set the scene before she woke up. Heart pounding, I started the engine and drove to Millicent’s house.

I left puzzles for the detectives. They would connect them until they reached the climax of Victor’s story. Every clue would fit to form a bigger picture, bringing them one step closer to the killer.

“Do you think you’re a good person, Yara?” Katelyn had once asked me, and I told her no.

I didn’t believe that this was some kind of rational, if somewhat twisted, justice. I knew it the very first moment I killed my father and didn’t even blink. I knew it when I stabbed the man who was the reason for Tany’s death, without a drop of sweat. I knew it when I stabbed the knife into the neck of a man who had cheated on me and got angry when the spray of blood stained my favorite silk blouse and stabbed him again for that.

I was just as bad as all of them, but I chose a way to feed my demons without hurting the good ones. I found a leeway, a loophole.

I wouldn’t say I was good just because I found a less guilty way to satiate the demons in my mind. Oh no. That would make me a hypocrite. I was not that.

I was simply… a hungry woman. Always hungry.

Hungry for blood.

Hungry for death.

Hungry for stories.

I woke up, rubbing my eyes with a yawn, when my phone rang. “Doctor West, we’ve got a deceased male, mid to late twenties, found in a storage unit on Charleston Street. It appears to be a homicide. We need you at the scene ASAP.”

“Yes, Detective. I’ll head over immediately.”

“Thank you, Doctor West.”

I quickly dressed in a dark blue suit, pairing it with black heels. Grabbing a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker, I walked to my car.

Detectives Rosario and Myers were waiting for me at the front of the storage unit.

“Sorry for waking you up early in the morning,” Detective Myers said, handing me a cup of coffee. Thanking him, I took it. I needed more caffeine to survive this morning.

“We think someone was very angry with this man,” Detective Rosario said as he walked inside the storage unit, motioning me to follow him.

Oh, yes. I was.

“Damn,” I said, walking toward Victor. He looked pale, and his blood stained the floor, creating a bizarre map. The man who vowed to hurt me was now waiting for me to help the detectives catch his killer.

“Murder weapon is something sharp,” I said, measuring the wounds on Victor’s body. “The wounds caused excessive blood loss,” I continued, pointing to the blood-soaked floor. “Of course, I can only confirm after the autopsy, but I’m sure he died of exsanguination followed by hypoxia.”

The two detectives nodded. “The wounds are consistent with stab wounds. Most probably a kitchen knife,” I said, examining the wounds with a straight face.

When the Crime Scene Response Unit arrived at the crime scene, they immediately began collecting evidence around the area.

“Dust for fingerprints on the headboard, Jackson,” I instructed the blonde woman in her late thirties, who looked at me like I was beneath her. Keya Jackson and I had never gotten along.

“Of course, West. This isn’t my first rodeo.” Her eyes were cold as she bent down towards the body. “Bastard did a number on this one.”

The CSRU packed every broken thing inside the unit for evidence processing and collected blood samples.

“There are a lot of fingerprints here, Detective Rosario,” Keya Jackson said to the detective with a frown. “A lot. This is going to take a while.”

Motioning the men waiting around to zip the body into the body bag, I walked out.

“I’ll have the prelim ready for you within a few hours, Detectives,” I said to the two men before walking back to my car and driving straight to the medical examiner’s office.

Later that evening, Detective Rosario walked in with the report I had sent him. He smelled of sweat and bitter coffee. “And?” Detective Rosario asked. “We need something more, Doctor.”

I wouldn’t disappoint him. I’d give him the killer on a fucking silver platter. But if it wasn’t me, any other medical examiner would have done the same. I always made sure of that.

“How much coffee did you have, Detective?” I questioned, and he let out a huff.

Victor’s body, stitched and cleaned, was waiting on the steel table. It wasn’t often that the men I murdered ended up under my scalpel, but when they did, it made it so much better. It was like a full karmic cycle.

“This is my seventh cup. Are you done with this, Doctor West?” He gestured in the general direction of the dead man.

“Yes, Detective. The TOD is around three to five in the morning,” I said as I pushed the printed file toward him. “Walk with me.”

“The stab wounds indicate the perpetrator was furious. This was likely committed in a moment of intense anger. A crime of passion. The first wound here is notably deep, compared to the others. This one must be the last; notice the hesitation and reduced pressure. The perp’s anger was subsiding, and they were realizing what they’d done.”

The detective was enraptured, as I continued to explain to him about how Victor died. I gave him only the truth. I never fabricated anything. That would be imprudent to do.

“No defensive wounds. He was shackled, so it would be hard to defend himself. It must have been someone he knew.”

“We’ve been digging into Victor Bane, and nothing that comes up is good. The man is…” Detective Rosario trailed off with a shrug. “Shackled, you say?”

I pointed to Victor’s wrists, which had an impression from the leather shackle when I tied him to the bed—from Millicent Wark’s toy collection. “From the abrasions here and here, the victim was likely bound before he was killed. The pattern here on the victim’s skin is distinct. There was also a small piece of leather left on his skin. It’s the kind of cuffs people use during sexual activity. This could be a sexual game gone wrong.”

“You mean a sex toy, Doctor?” The detective cleared his throat.

“Yes. A sex toy.”

“Anything that can actually help me? DNA?”

“No DNA, but I do have partial good news for you,” I said, picking up an evidence bag with a pair of forceps. “I got a few partial prints from Victor’s body, and I fit the puzzle together to get a full print for you. I sent it to Amy. She’s trying to match it with the ones the CSRU gathered from the scene.”

Amy Walden was our forensic expert.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he said and smiled when Amy Walden walked in with a frown on her face. “Tell me you have good news, Amy,” the detective said with a hint of hope.

“This one is a match to one of the fingerprints collected from the crime scene. I processed the print through AFIS, but it’s not in the system,” she said dejectedly. “Oh, and I got a message from Anna.” Senior Digital Forensic Analyst Anna Chen was the best in the field. She worked in the Cybercrime department. “They’ve finally unlocked Victor’s phone. The last message he received was from someone named MW, inviting him to the storage unit for some fun.”

I smirked.

“Yes. Thank you,” Detective Rosario cheered. “Myers is already ripping Victor’s life apart. We’ve also pulled up footage from traffic cams on Charleston Street for the last forty-eight hours. We found a silver Tesla coming and going around the time of death. Rodriguez is digging up more info about the vehicle.”

“I assume we haven’t found the murder weapon yet?” I asked.

“No. You mentioned in your prelim that it’s a knife. A kitchen knife, right?”

“Yes, Detective.”

“The more we dig into his life, the more we find that this hijo de puta deserved to… die.” The detective paused and wiped his face. “My mama always says one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but this man…”

“The world’s full of them,” I said, carefully schooling my features.

“True, Doctor.”

“Anna is tracing the origin of the message,” Amy said, prompting another cheer from the detective.

“I don’t want to jinx it, but I think this will be a slam dunk.”

The detective’s phone rang, and he answered. When he hung up, he gave me a smile.

“Doctor, we found the owner of the storage unit. Millicent Wark. Could it be our MW? Guess who also owns a silver Tesla?” The detective rubbed his hands together, looking excited. “Myers is getting a search warrant for Millicent Wark’s car and house as we speak. I hope we find something.”

“That’s great.” Amy and I smiled.

“I’m going back to the station.” The Detective walked away, leaving me with Amy.

“This looks personal,” Amy said, studying the body, her face pale. “I just can’t get used to it even after all this time.”

“It is personal,” I said. “If you get used to this, you’ll become like them,” I said with a shrug, and Amy nodded.

“You’re right.”

“If you find anything else, let me know,” I said, turning to the dead man, my eyes burning in satisfaction. Amy walked out with a goodbye.

It gave me so much happiness to see him like that, to see that I was the one who had to talk for him. I scoffed, pulling my latex gloves off and throwing them into the biohazard waste bin.

I often used the waste bins at work to throw away the gloves I used during my kill. It was a bit outrageous and brave, but this was the easiest way. I often dealt with blood, and no one would look twice.

“Don’t worry, Victor. Detective Rosario is good; he’ll find your blood in Millicent’s kitchen sink and the knife in the neighbor’s backyard. Adieu, then.”