Page 4 of Saving Meadow

Bitch.

By the time lunch rolled around, I was ready to go home. Monday mornings always sucked, but this one was especially craptastic. My normally mild-mannered, sweetheart of a boss, was tired and crabby. She had only been back from maternity leave for a month, and her new baby had colic, which in non-parent layman’s terms meant I am miserable, so you will be too.

I’d normally work through lunch, snacking at my desk, but today I had to get some fresh air. The entire office seemed to be off. I grabbed a turkey sandwich from the sub shop next door and sat on one of the benches out front and just as the deliciousness that was a turkey on rye with extra swiss and extra mustard was at my lips, Rory plopped down beside me.

I jumped, squeezed, and mustard shot out of the bottom of my yummy sandwich at the speed of light, and now I was wearing it, a huge yellow spot on the front of my teal blouse.

“Shit. Sorry, Meadow,” she stammered and proceeded to molest my breasts with a napkin, further smearing the offending condiment into the material.

I will admit for a moment I did contemplate the fact that in the past five years, my co-worker had been the only person to touch my breasts; and how sad that detail was. I was twenty-six years old and hadn’t had a single sexual experience with anyone in years – until Rory and her exploring hands.

“It’s fine.” I stilled her hands and took over, but it was too late. The stain was huge now, spreading nipple to nipple instead of smack dab in the middle of my chest.

“Today sucks,” Rory huffed.

“You’re telling me.”

I was going to smell like a hoagie all day.

“It’s like a case of the body snatchers on my floor today. Everyone is acting like assholes,” she complained.

Rory worked on the floor above mine in the accounting department. She was nice enough, but our paths rarely crossed.

“Oh good, it’s not just the sales team then. I thought they’d all been infected with douche canoe virus.”

“You know, me and some of the girls from HR are going to happy hour tonight. You should join us.”

Memories of the last time I went to happy hour flooded and the panic that accompanies those thoughts rose to the surface with such force I physically jerked, dropping my sandwich on the ground.

“Fudgesicle.”

“Shit girl, are you okay?” Rory asked.

“Yeah. I just remembered I didn’t finish Beth’s weekly sales forecast. She’ll be pissed. I gotta get back to the office.” I tried to cover up my freakish reaction to her mentioning getting drinks.

Then I did what I always did when the memories of that night became too much. I sent a message to Veronica Venus.

3

The 20th

“Kylie Peters, twenty-two, five feet one, one hundred ten pounds.” Mike looked up from the girl’s license and shook his head. “Poor thing didn’t have a chance.”

The young woman looked smaller than her five-feet-one lying crumpled on the cement behind Lucky’s Bar. It was the twentieth, and the local PD had called the team to the scene before they’d moved the body. Rot and decay from the nearby dumpster masked the coppery smell of the pool of blood around the victim’s head. Thirty puncture wounds in the face and one knife wound to the lower abdomen.

The area was a mess. Bystanders looked on; some tried to take cell phone pictures and video. What the fuck was wrong with people? A woman was dead, and all some people could think about was posting the images on their twitter feed. The alley was too small to pull the ambulance in, not that it was needed, but protocol dictated EMS still answer the call. It sat at the curb next to the medical examiner’s van. Blue and red lit up the area like a beacon for all to see. So much for keeping these latest murders from the media. They’d be here next, no doubt.

“Christ,” I muttered. “Looks like she took an ice pick to the face.” Not having the stomach to look at what was left of her face, I moved to look around the area that had been marked off with yellow crime scene tape. No murder weapon, no trace blood leading away from the body, nothing. Two new bodies and we were no closer to catching the offender.

“You ready to head back?” Mike asked. “The rest of the team is loading up.”

“More than.”

The drive back to the office was filled with Mike lamenting how his ex-wife was now dating. Their divorce had only been finalized recently, and he’d been holding out hope for reconciliation, even after the judge stamped the final decree. They’d been married eighteen years and had three girls, and now Mike found himself alone in an apartment he hated while his ex and the kids remained in the family home.

Mike parked the SUV and turned to me. “I never thought I’d be forty-two years old and starting over. I haven’t been on a date in twenty years. You know what she said when she left? She needed a fresh start. I’ve been with the BAU for almost ten years. I have a master’s in psychology. Years’ worth of training in behavioral science and I still don’t know what the fuck that means. What signs did I miss?”

“I don’t know. Are you sure you missed the signs?” I asked.