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“Well, then, we don’t just have a psycho murderer on our hands; we’ve got a murderer who is sneaky enough to get in and out without destroying locks. I’ll check my surveillance videos. Hopefully, they caught him. Oh, and the corpse was wearing a Las Vegas tee,” he tells Remy. “Yeah, like a tourist would buy in Vegas. The same place where we picked up a hitchhiker over a year ago and brought her back on our plane,” he adds while narrowing his eyes at me. “Remy says you need to talk to your wife and find out who the fuck would do this and if we need to step up security.”
I nod and Greer ends his call with Remy after telling him he’s sending out the message to warn everyone and will be on his way over.
My back slumps against the brick wall, head falling back while we wait, wishing I had a cigarette even though it’s been years since I last smoked one. This murder isn’t just gruesome, it’s personal to Maddie.
“Look, kid, even if this is someone coming after Maddie, the Kings will protect her. She’s not just your wife, she’s one of our own.”
“I know, I just, I’m not sure if she’ll tell me anything. She doesn’t ever talk about her life before...”
“If it involves some motherfucker who kills men and scoops their eyeballs out like ice cream, then I don’t blame her. But we need to know what we’re up against if we’re going to take them down. Get her to talk, whatever it takes.”
I nod my agreement, wishing it was as easy as just asking her. While I may be keeping a big secret from my wife, I know she has her own skeletons in her closet.
Greer takes a few steps away from the building, hands on his hips, before pacing back to me. “It can’t be a coincidence that the dead man was thrown over Maddie’s jars, either. It’s like whoever this was knows how much her business means to her and wanted to fuck it up.”
“I know,” I agree. “I was just thinking about that, too. But who is it, and why take the dead guy’s eyes?”
“Hell, if I know. Maybe he saw some shit he shouldn’t have seen, or maybe it’s a warning that he’s watching Maddie.”
I grit my teeth, not liking either scenario, but especially hating the second. “You keep sayinghe. You don’t think it could be more than one person?” I ask Greer.
“No clue about that, either. But the Kings are going to need some back up, whoever it is or how many of them. For once, the worthless sheriff’s office might be able to help us. Hopefully, they’ll figure out who the fuck the dead guy is fast. And once we know that, we can figure out who would want him dead.”
2
Maddie
Pacing back and forth in front of the auto shop office windows, I keep searching the parking lot, the trees beyond, waiting for some sign ofhim.
For several days now, I’ve had this tingling feeling on the back of my neck that made me think I was being watched. It was like the first few weeks when I got to Rockland and was so paranoid my father would immediately find me that I couldn’t relax. And then I did, eventually.
So, I stupidly thought the suspicion was in my head last week whenever I was out in public with Jordan and felt it again. When we were sitting on the beach the other night until it got dark, then again one night when we left the bar, and another when we left the apartment one morning...
If I’m right and not just imagining things, then my stalker knows everything there is to know about me. He knows about Jordan, where I work, where we live, what I sell online. Nowhere in this town is safe anymore.
“I should leave,” I blurt out.
“Leave?” Celeste repeats as she leans against the office wall in her pajamas while Thane and Ruger, RJ as everyone calls him, keep watch outside, one of them circling the building on foot every few minutes.
“If I don’t leave, the next dead man could be Jordan or Greer or one of the other Savage Kings. I-I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to them because of me.”
“You’re that certain that whoever did this did it because of you?” she asks, and I nod my head.
“Then you can’t leave,” she replies. “I understand the urge to want to bail, to flee in order to protect everyone, but you’re safer here with the Savage Kings protecting you than you would be without them.”
“Even if I’m safe, even if I won’t end up dead, but they might?”
“You’re saying whoever did this won’t hurt you?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know. God, I hate this!” I exclaim, shoving my fingers through the sides of my hair to tug it in frustration. “This morning, everything was fine and perfect. Now...now I feel like all the good things in my life are slipping through my fingers like sand as my past tries to drag me back.”
“We’ll figure this out. Between the Kings and the cops, the killer doesn’t stand a chance.”
I shake my head in disagreement. “There won’t be any evidence connecting him to the murder. He won’t ever let himself get caught.”
“Nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, even killers.”
“He is by no means perfect, but he’s the perfect serial killer. And thinking about Jordan becoming one of his victims...he doesn’t just kill, he tortures his captives, breaks them for days or weeks before he kills them.”
