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That might have been due to the knife plunged into her gut. By a fucking miracle, it damaged her liver most and avoided severing any organ fatally. Her immortal healing had kept her alive.
She’d been barely conscious when discovered, the bottom half of her shirt and most of her pants soaked by her blood. The room had been wiped of fingerprints. Sydni claimed she had no memory except for someone in a hoodie and mask knocking her out.
A previous private investigator hired by the family had probed the matter for a whole month before the family let him go, never mentioning the crime again—denying the media anything to discuss.
This is so strange. I’d think the family would have been ready to burn heaven itself to find the attacker.
But Yariel Stone was the oddest case of them all. He’d been in the men’s locker room in the middle of the night, curled up in the corner with his eyes partially scraped out. He kept muttering “So much blood, make it stop,” over and over and over.
The description rattled my nerves, especially since Yariel still hadn’t come out of his psychosis. He was currently living in his family’s home with a twenty-four seven nurse practitioner watching.
The last case was Benjamin’s. For the first time, this attack seemed personal. Whoever killed the angel had hated him. The fact that he’d been conscious while his fingers were sawed off and through most of the evisceration went to the fact. The city required Hartfall to keep the crime scene quarantined, just in case, while they completed the autopsy and whatever tests were necessary.
All the situations had one thing in common: lack of clues, trails, or information from the victims. They all had excellent grades, but that wasn’t unexpected in an expensive, elite college like this one.
Benjamin was generally well-liked and quite involved in clubs, sports, and student council. On the surface, he was the ideal golden boy.
But everyone had something to hide. Even these high-performing students.
So, why had each trail gone so cold?
What had Razai said? That the victims are lying?
I struggled to think of a reason why; could they know the person who attacked them and be too scared to speak up?
The vodka slipped over my tongue and down my throat with ease. I barely tasted the burn. Clave had given me these files. Could he tell me more—
Magic tugged on me, blooming in my belly. “Oh, yeah?” I questioned with a downward glance, as if expecting magic to explode from my womb. “I have to talk to Clave?”
Another tug gave me all the answers I needed.
“Thanks for the help,” I replied. “Glad you decided to join the party, though it would be nice if you could lead me to something of the killer’s. Anything I can track?”
My stomach gurgled and burned, but that was definitely from the booze.
I sighed and raised the bottle in salute. “Fine. Be all coy like that. Time is ticking. Let’s see if I can beat the clock.”
* * *
The next day, I hardly left the office. All counselors were officially in, and everyone had shit for me to do. Who would have thought an office job was so damn hardcore? By the end of the day, my eyes burned. My fingers stung with a thousand paper cuts.
Professional office workers were built different, and I had an entirely new appreciation for them.
Clave wasn’t on campus today, so I just sent a quick email requesting a meeting. Nothing suspicious. Just your friendly neighborhood community coordinator hoping for a teacher’s spare moment.
I spent most of the early evening digging into the files again, trying to find patterns. Connections. My hope was to find information here that would lead me toward the killer, but this wasn’t enough. Not nearly. Groaning and falling to my side, papers crinkling beneath me, the weight of this employment truly crushed me.
I faced an undeniable truth: to find the culprit, I might have to talk to people.
I didn’t want to talk to people.
Gross.
Quinn had said that I’d start meeting with students in my office around next week. That would give me an opportunity to dig around and use the full extent of my powers.
If only I could hunt for clues without dealing with the dreaded humanity.
I bolted upward, grinning. Maybe there was a way I could make this night useful. Pulling out the contract I’d signed with Razai, I re-read through the last page’s section.
