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“Fuck!”

I hang up and text her while sitting at a red light. I just need to know she’s okay. My knuckles turn white on the steering wheel, my grip tightening around it.

“Please don’t be there. Please be home. Please, baby, please.”

Approaching the park, a huge crowd looms in front of me. I lay on the horn to get them to move out of my way. Some of them turn and give me dirty looks until I hold up my badge. They slowly part to make way for me. Once I get parked, I hear a loud exhaust behind me and look in the review mirror.

Dorian.

I exit the car as he’s taking off his helmet.

“You followed me?!” I yell at him.

He puts his helmet on the ground and then gets in my face. “Because I knew you were lying! What the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know yet,” I snap back.

I glance down at my phone to see Liv hasn’t answered me yet. I shove it in my back pocket and turn to my right. Roberts is standing along the edge of the crime scene tape, and I run over to him, shoulder checking people along the way. Dorian is hot on my tail. Roberts lifts the tape to allow us to duck under. He glares at Dorian and I tell him that he followed me here.

“This one isn’t recognizable. Her face was severely beaten. She fought back,” Roberts says and he goes to where the detectives are standing.

We follow behind him until my legs stop working and I’m frozen in place. Dorian almost collides into my back. There’s a sheet draped over a body and my stomach drops. He comes around to my side, and I can see him staring at my profile.

“Sage?” he mutters.

I swallow the lump in my throat and nod towards Roberts. When he lifts the sheet, I bite my fist and turn away. The woman’s skull is caved in on the side. Completely crushed. The rest of it is swollen and bruised. Her face is caked in dried blood.

“Jesus,” Dorian hisses.

I turn back around and shake my head at Roberts. “Lift her shirt,” I demand.

He grabs a pen out of his pocket with his gloved hand and carefully slides it under the hem of her shirt to lift it. Roberts has only ever seen her fully dressed. He doesn’t know her body like I do. Her scars. Her tattoos. No one does. Not even the Devil who stalks her.

The breath that I had been holding in finally pushes itself out of my lungs in a loud rush.

“It’s not her.”

Dorian whips his head at me. “Her as in Liv?”

I jerk my head towards the river where there’s a spot not currently occupied by police officers. The three of us walk over there in silence and stand side by side, facing the murky water. Dorian shifts nervously between me and Roberts.

“Someone is killing women who look like Liv. Same build. Brown hair. Blue eyes. This is the third one in three weeks.”

Roberts adds, “We think it might be Kyle.”

“You think?” He turns to the right to face me. “And you didn’t think this would be useful to know? Does Liv know?”

“No, Sage is the only one I told. The only one the commissioner would allow me to tell. We thought it would be in her best interest until we had more information,” Roberts states from behind his back.

Dorian spins to face him. “Her best interest is staying alive!” He turns back to me and shoves my chest. “And she’s home alone!”

I lunge towards him with my fist clenched. “Which is why I asked you to go there!”

Roberts steps between us, shoving us apart with his hands.

“Enough! Both of you!” He drops his arms and straightens his suit jacket. “Dorian has a point though. I think it’s time she knows.”

“Are you going to put her on leave?” I blurt out. Last year he threatened to do so if she didn’t see a psychiatrist and wouldn’t let her work in the field.