46. BERRY RUSH

46

BERRY RUSH

R yden and I stood in the echoes of silence, neither of us daring to break it. I could hear Irene move about inside her room, opening and slamming shut with enough force to shatter it.

When she finally came back out, after ten minutes, she had a small backpack with her.

“Let’s get going,” she said, staring only at Ryden.

The car ride was filled with suffocating silence. Irene refused to even look at me, and I didn’t have the strength to try to talk to her. Perhaps this was the time I had been waiting for since the day Irene became my only family. I always knew that one day she would realize she had made a terrible mistake by choosing to stick with me.

When he parked the car in a massive field, my eyes narrowed. Ryden shrugged, opening the door for us.

This is so convenient, I thought as I looked around. The funeral home looked solitary on the vast plot of land, and there was no hint of life around this place.

“That doesn’t look like a house,” Irene said as she suspiciously looked at the building.

“That’s a funeral parlor,” I said, and Irene’s frown deepened. She shot me a quick look, and I knew she must have put two and two together.

Ryden. Killer. Friend. Funeral business. It wasn’t rocket science.

Enzo opened the door before we even reached it.

“Doctor Death, you truly look like death warmed over,” he said as Ryden shook his head with a frown.

“Dude, shut up,” he said, and Enzo shrugged.

“Still sexy, though.”

I chuckled when he turned toward Irene.

“So… you’re my guest?”

“Prisoner,” she spat out. “Don’t you have a house?”

“I have,” Enzo said. “Come in. I just finished embalming a body. Do you want to see?” he asked her, and I almost scoffed. She wasn’t a kid to get distracted by that.

“I’m coming in only because I don’t want to be with her,” Irene said, glaring in my direction before she walked in. Enzo winked at me, mouthing it’ll be alright. I appreciated that kind gesture.

“Go. Don’t worry. I’ll keep her safe for you,” he said, taking out a gun from the back of his pants. “She’ll be safe here. I’m good if I say so myself.”

After thanking him, Ryden drove me toward the crime scene. My legs trembled when I stepped out of the car.

“I’ll be right here,” Ryden said as I walked toward the crime scene. Another innocent woman died because of me. Guilt and anger writhed through my body, constricting my lungs as I robotically moved forward to where Detective Rosario was talking with Keya. The officers had put a small black barrier between the crowd and the dead woman.

My legs buckled under me when I saw the woman sitting on the bench in a red wig, this time with a bunch of hydrangeas clutched between her palms.

My barista.

Miranda from Hot Cuppa. Her beautiful face was frozen in an immortal smile, and her lips were painted with Ruby Rush . Guilt burned my throat.

HI, DOC. Miranda smiled.

The red line around her neck was leering at me, so familiar and yet so strange.

Here’s his second gift.

How could she be dead? For the first time in my life, I felt fear, fear like I had never felt before.

“Did you eat anything?” Keya asked, frowning at me. “You look pale, West. Here, have some water.”

“I didn’t have the time to eat anything. Thank you.” I gulped the water down greedily until I didn’t feel like I was floating in vacuum.

My hand trembled as I leaned closer to Miranda, tugging the wig off from her head, and placing it inside the evidence bag. Miranda, kind, sweet, smiling Miranda with the singsong voice and a great memory was no more.

“Do you know her?” Detective Rosario asked, studying me carefully.

“Her name’s Miranda. She worked at Hot Cuppa,” I said, voice shaking.

“He killed two women in Detroit. He never killed more than one in the same place. This was different, but how and why?” Rishi Patel’s eyes narrowed as he studied the woman and then turned to look at me. “How well do you know Miranda here?”

“Very well,” I answered. “I see her every day when I get my coffee.”

“Have you met her outside the coffee shop?”

“No.”

He was starting to wonder. He was slowly connecting dots—though they seemed peculiar—in his head. He was trying to make sense of it. I knew Daphne. I knew Miranda. It wasn’t a coincidence. Soon the Detectives would find out about that, too.

“He might have met her in the coffee shop,” Detective Rishi said, his brows knitted together. “But why change his whole MO now?”

“Because the fucker is bored,” Detective Rosario said.

“Detective, you need to go to Hot Cuppa. They may have receipts and lists of orders. If he met her in the coffee shop, he would’ve ordered something to not stand out like a sore thumb.”

“You’re right, Doctor West. I’ll send someone to Hot Cuppa. I hope they’ll cooperate without a subpoena.”

“I’m going to check on the local flower shops,” Detective Rishi said, giving me another suspicious look before he walked away.

I collected all the samples. I knew the forensic report would reveal the same result as Daphne’s—same wig, same cheap dress and shoes, same makeup and nail polish—except for the lipstick shade.

My throat closed as I was taking a sample of the lipstick for evidence.

I’m sorry, Miranda.

After telling the CSRU to move Miranda’s body to the ME office, I walked to where Ryden was. He touched my shoulder when I reached him with a tired smile.

“Hey? You okay?”

“No. I’m not okay. This is… not okay.”

“Who is it?” Ryden asked as he softly caressed my cheek.

“Miranda… my barista from Hot Cuppa. She calls me Doc and knows my coffee order by heart. She always gave me extra dark chocolate.” My eyes burned. “She was…I liked her and—” Someone tugged at my dress. I looked down to see a blonde girl in a green dress. She was holding something out to me.

“Miss? Your friend asked me to give this to you,” she said.

“Friend?” She nodded vigorously.

“He said ‘thank you’ for your help.” She handed me a stapled brown packet.

I quickly took it from her, making sure no one saw me. Ryden and I hurried to his car. I tore it open, and my lipsticks fell out.

I gasped.

Scarlet Rouge and Berry Rush. My lipsticks.

“Is that…” Ryden asked, and I nodded.

My phone vibrated with a new message.

TP: Thank you, Love. I’ll return the rest when I’m done with them.

“Fucking bastard,” Ryden growled, seething. “I’m going to bury him for this.”

I took a calming breath. He was pushing me to break. He wanted me to break. But I wouldn’t. Not yet.

“Let’s go to Hot Cuppa.”

It took us twenty minutes to reach Hot Cuppa. When I walked in, I could feel the grief lingering in the air. The place was deserted, and the employees sat on the chairs, faces masked with pain.

“Doctor West.” The owner of the coffee shop walked toward me. “Did you see her? Would she have been in much pain?” She sniffled.

“No. No pain.” I shook my head, feeling the black vines of guilt climbing up my heart. “Mabel, sorry to be an inconvenience right now, but can I get a list of Miranda’s past week’s orders? Receipts?”

“She always kept such a neat record of her orders,” Mabel said. “Whatever you need. Please, find the bastard, Doctor West.” She looked at me like she believed that I’d find him for them. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she quickly wiped them off. “She’d been working for me since the day I opened the coffee shop. She was my manager, but she still loved making coffee, and continued to do that.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered when Mabel handed me the thick file.

“I think this is this week’s order lists,” she said. “Please… find him.”

Nodding and assuring her that I’d do my very best, Ryden and I walked to the tables on the outside.

“What are we looking for?” Ryden asked as we took a table.

“Anything that stands out,” I said, scanning through the list of coffee orders. Some made me wince, but nothing felt out of the ordinary or creepy.

What the hell was I even looking for here? I had no idea, but I hoped I’d find it.

“This is no use. While we’re sitting here, he’s finding his third victim,” I whispered. “He killed my best friend, and he took Irene away—”

Three shots of plain espresso in a to-go cup.

I jerked up. I had heard that before once, and I wouldn’t ever forget it.

Miranda had written… hot but weird guy, on the receipt.