Fan Art by Mg Herrera |
He’s found her at last…
Cain Killion knows himself to be a damaged man. His only
redeeming quality? The extrasensory connection to blood that he uses to catch
killers. His latest case takes a macabre turn when he discovers a familiar and
haunting symbol linking the crime to his horrific past—and the one woman who
might understand what it means.
Only to lose her to a nightmare
Chapter 1
The air reeked of dirty pennies and death. Days
ago the bodies had been removed, but Cain Killion could still feel the desperate energy of the dying
and almost—almost—hear the echoes of
their screams imprinted on the bones of the house. He abhorred the sight of
blood and yet here he was standing in another murder house, in front of another
wall smeared, splattered, and sprayed with gore.
His heart banged against the cage of his ribs,
trying to bust out and make a break for it. A bead of sweat slid in agonizing
slowness down the center of his spine.
“You don’t look so good.” MacNeil Anderson
stepped into his line of sight, diverting his attention away from the blood.
The furrows around Mac’s eyes cut deeper than normal and three days’ worth of
old man stubble fuzzed his cheeks, giving him a haggard and homeless
appearance. Not exactly the look the FBI was going for when they promoted Mac
to Senior Special Agent.
Cain almost smiled at his own thoughts, but
laughter no longer existed in this place. Only horror could thrive here now.
“Do I ever look good when I’m about to…?” Yeah.
There wasn’t a name for what he did. To the bureaucrats with their thumbs
jammed up their asses Mac called it profiling—had to call it something. But it
wasn’t profiling. Not at all. What he had to do with the blood was something
worse than profiling. So much worse.
“This is different.” Mac reached up and put his
dry palm on Cain’s forehead. “You sick? Have a fever?”
Cain might be thirty years old and lived on his
own since he was eighteen, but Mac had never outgrown the role of his adopted
dad.
“You can always walk away.” Mac made this offer
at every kill scene.
And every time, Cain’s legs twitched with the
urge to run. Only determination, masochism, and the promise of sick
satisfaction kept him locked in place. “I’m staying. I always stay.”
“I’d stop calling you out for these cases, but
I know you’d just find someone else who would.” Mac’s words were slow and
glossed with sadness.
Fan Art by Mg Hererra |
“No one else has the history I have. No one
else can do what I do. No one else can give you the information I can.” Yeah.
His profiles were more accurate, more
detailed than anything a traditional profiler could come up with. In the
majority of cases his work guided law enforcement directly to their perpetrator.
“It’d be stupid not to call me.” Not to mention he needed to be around that dynamic duo—blood and death. They stripped
away his mask of normalcy leaving him naked to the one truth about himself he
could never forget.
He was Killer Killion’s Kid—Triple K—the media called him. The spawn
of a killer with the genetic predisposition to be a murdering machine. One of
the only ways he’d found to curb the ugly urges was to force himself to attend
these murder scenes. Force himself to witness the destruction.
His deepest, darkest, dirtiest secret—the thing
he would never utter out loud because it terrified him: Sometimes he enjoyed himself.
“Son, you don’t have anything to prove. Not to
me.” Mac used a caring tone, but that word—son—threatened
to transport Cain back to his childhood. Back to his biological father using
that word like a curse.
Not going there.
Cain stepped around Mac and moved to look out
at window. The Victorian home sat on a miniature peninsula of land that jutted
out into a large pond. Such an odd place for a house. A beautiful place,
breathtaking, and yet eerie in its loneliness and total isolation. Just the
kind of place Cain loved.
Had location been a consideration for the
killer? Had he finished with his bloody work then stood in this very spot
staring out the window at the water?
Cain sucked in a breath, held it for as long as
his lungs would allow then blew it out slowly. “I know I don’t have anything to
prove to you. I do this for me.” He tried to make his tone firm, but it came
out a little shaky. Mac the-FBI-guy would hear it, but Mac his-adopted-dad
wouldn’t press. Time for a change of subject. “You notice anything odd about
this place?”
“It’s not the typical.” Mac’s words were spoken
on a sigh. “Not that there is a typical. This just isn’t like any other
location I’ve been called to investigate.”
“Yeah. Victorian house. In the woods. On a
pond. I get why our guy would like the isolation of this place. But there’s
something more. It has to do with…” He had trouble finding to words to describe
the gut-level truth inside him. “… all of it. The house. The woods. The pond. The
family. It’s like this guy wanted the complete package.”
Mac nodded, his expression serious as a
gravedigger. “You get that from the blood?”
“Just a feeling I have.” It was the kind of
place he’d choose if he were going to plan a murder. Kind of like how salt and
sweet tasted so good together—this was violence and peace in one location.
Enough stalling. He turned away from the window
and faced the room.
Three walls were covered in Victorian era
wallpaper—rich gold background, red blossoms on a vine, and fancy peacocks. Ostentatious
was the word that came to mind. One wall, the longest, largest wall had been
painted the same color as the paper’s background. Yeah. Four walls of peacocks
and posies might’ve caused bleeding eyeballs.
Finally, he forced himself to look at the blood
on the wall. Rosettes of red seeped into the wallpaper, the fat watercolor
splotches almost blending in with the flowers.
Mac cleared his throat as if gearing up for a
formal speech. “The techs released the scene this morning. They worked round
the clock to get everything cataloged and bagged so we could get you on this
ASAP. The blood is, of course clean, I wouldn’t have called you in otherwise.” He
pointed to the three distinct blood pools. “The family—Dad, Mom, girl—were
found here. Killed here, too. Forensics places their time of death at—”
“Mac.” Cain spoke the name loud enough to smother
whatever the guy had been about to say. “Quiet.” He needed the absence of sound
to see what happened. And he needed
to do it now before he pussied out.
Mac clamped his lips closed, nodded, and moved
across the room—out of the way.
Just
fucking get it over with.
Cain knelt at the altar of blood. The sweet
scent of rotting biological material an abomination to his nose and yet, foul
anticipation crawled underneath his skin. His mind slid sideways like it always
did when around the red stuff. Back to his childhood. Back to a time when he
was very much his father’s son. Back to when blood covered his skin—the slick,
silky, warmness of it so wrong and yet so horribly soothing at the same time.
He slapped his hands down into the congealed
sludge. The coldness sent pleasant shock waves up his arms. He didn’t want to
feel pleasure, didn’t want to enjoy this, but that other part of him had terrible intentions. Helpless to stop
himself, he smeared his hands around in the red like a kid playing with finger
paints. Only when they were coated with the family’s blood did he raise them to
his face.
A miniscule part of him rebelled against what
he was about to do, but the rebellion was quashed before it began. He spread
the blood over his forehead, his cheeks, coating his skin in the thick, sweet,
goo. He painted his neck, his bare arms, then lifted his T-shirt and wiped his
hands on his chest.
His head fell back on his
shoulders. His breath came in shallow, hyper-ventilating gulps. From a
distance, he heard himself moan, only it wasn’t a moan—it was more like the
yowling of a feral cat fighting for its life. Or getting ready to mate.
Blood did that to him—was a
pleasure and a pain. A gift and a curse.
He had a complicated relationship
with blood. He hated it. He loved it. Blood was a conduit, a link, a
connection, between him and those who slayed souls. Blood opened a doorway,
allowing him to step into the mind and body of those who found bliss in ending
life. He became the killer. He saw what the killer saw. Did what the killer
did. Felt what the killer felt.
An incandescent light flashed behind his eyelids. Cain was gone. He was
now the killer.
He stood on a ladder, rolling simple white primer on the
wall.
A song had been locked inside his head for months and only
now was it time to give voice to the words.
Lift your feet when you
Dance around the old well,
Be careful or you’ll tumble
pell-mell.
Look into the dark, dark,
waters
For the blood of your
fathers.
Show some courage young man,
Find your calling young man.
He loved
the song. He hated the song. But that was life, wasn’t it? It was all one big
paradox.
A breathy
sound intruded. He turned on the ladder to see the ones on the floor.
They
were laid out in a neat row in the middle of the room. Each of them on their
stomachs, hands bound behind their backs and tied to the shackles on their
feet, mouths obliterated by duct tape. The male’s wrists were hamburger,
dripping blood from fighting against the metal cuffs. But none of them
struggled now.
Their
faces were wet from tears, or maybe sweat—didn’t really matter—and splotchy red
and pale. The child grunted.
“Do you
want to sing along?” He used a soft tone, the same as he would if he were
cajoling a whipped dog. “I will let you, but you must sing it properly. No
mistakes.”
More tears slicked the girl’s face and dripped on the drop
cloth underneath her. A bubble of snot blew from her nostril and hovered there
waiting to pop. She shrank from him. The female seal-humped herself up and over
the girl as if to hide the child beneath her body.
Oh, well. He wouldn’t allow them to destroy the pure
freedom of this moment. He turned back to his task, losing himself in his song
once more.
Save pomegranate seeds
as payment for the ferry man,
Offer red, red wine
as payment to the bar man.
Carve some red, red meat
as food for the hungry man.
Show some courage young man,
Find your calling young man.
And then, the wall was done, the completion of it sneaking
up on him like a surprise party. He stepped off the ladder, moved it to the
side to have an unobstructed view and then unzipped his painter’s coveralls and
let them slide down his body.
The cool air whispered over his naked flesh like an
endearment, the sensation wonderful after the confines of the material. His
head fell back on his shoulders and he stood there absorbing and savoring.
Everything from this moment to his finish would be carefully recorded in his
memory. No matter what happened, no one could erase his memories. They were his
alone—safe and untouchable—to be lovingly replayed until his death.
The female sobbed, deep throaty sounds similar to gagging.
He faced the ones on the floor and used a gentle voice. “I do understand this
is distressing for you, but I—” He dropped his tone a couple of octaves to show
his seriousness. “—need. Complete. Silence.” He took his time, meeting and
holding each one of their gazes before he continued. “I need to rest now.”
Only when they all quieted did he sit on the couch he had
moved to face the wall. The material he’d spread over the cushions—couldn’t
risk leaving DNA when he left—scratched against his ass and testicles, but that
couldn’t be helped. He laid back, stretched out, waiting for his body to relax.
The blank canvas before him was a beautiful thing. All the
potential in the world was right here. A picture waiting to be born.
He emptied his mind of all thoughts and feelings and stared
at the wall. He stared, unblinking, until his vision yellowed and then darkened
into something that looked akin to an x-ray. He stared, until tears watered his
cheeks and his eyes burned like hot coals in their sockets. Only then did he
catch a flash of what needed to be created—all he needed was a glimpse.
Wings. He saw wings.
He was
about to create a masterpiece in blood.
A sense
of timelessness came over him as he killed and painted. Painted and killed. He
lost himself in his work. Not thinking about anything, just letting his hands
wield the brushes mindless of the image he produced. When the blood was nearly
gone and an image had been born upon the wall he came back to himself.
He stepped
away from the wall taking more and more of it in with each footstep until he
stood on the other side of the room, taking in the full magnitude.
The
color contrast of blood on white was as breathtaking and beautiful as a flock
of cardinal against the brilliance of snow. Tears burned his eyes. His face
stung, and a wild freedom he’d hadn’t experienced in years surged through him. He
recognized the feeling. In this moment he was God. The author of destruction. And
creation.
The image
he’d painted was so… No words existed to convey the gloriousness. Words were
small and meaningless compared to this wall.
On the
wall—a man knelt, head bowed, hair falling forward, shielding his face from
view. Even in that supplicant’s position, supremacy and authority radiated from
him. He looked like the strongest of warriors after a great battle—exhausted,
but not weak. No. Never weak. There wasn’t an ounce of vulnerability in his
sinew, muscle, and bone. Nor was there any delicacy to the lacework of scars
marring the skin of his arms. And on his chest, directly over his heart were
two criss-crossed slashes that dripped blood down his torso.
Surrounding
him were a magnificent pair of wings. Not the kind you’d see on a sparrow or
even on a chubby cupid, but the kind of wings that conveyed power and strength
and utter indestructibility.
He loved
the picture as he loved himself.
An incandescent flash and Cain returned to
reality, to the stench of decomposing blood smeared over his face.
His brain re-categorized everything that he’d
just seen and done into the it-wasn’t-really-me file. But that didn’t take the feelings away. The awe spreading through
his chest at what he’d seen. The guilt sinking into his gut because he’d had no
remorse.
A dull thumping started behind his eyes. Usually
when he did his blood work, he was there for only a few seconds before skipping
on to the next images and the next. Those flashes gave him a migraine every
time, but seeing entire scenes like this…The migraine was gonna be a badass bitch
today. He had maybe ten minutes before the pain ratcheted up to the level of axe-buried-in-his-brain.
Mac handed him a black towel—black concealed
the blood better than any other color.
“You back?” Mac knelt next to him, his face
full of concern, but Cain could see the concealed disgust in the way Mac’s
mouth turned down at the corners, like he was fighting an outright grimace.
That look—especially when it was aimed at
him—always took him back to the moment Mac found him. When Cain had been
covered in snot and blood and shame. He had to give it Mac, the guy had tried
to hide his horror, tried to pretend Cain was just a kid when he’d never been a
kid. He’d been more monster than anything.
Cain scrubbed the material over his face, his arms,
wiped his hands. The blood on his body—so thick and dry it smeared into his skin—would only come off after
a good scouring down in a scalding shower.
He turned his attention to the image on the
wall. But… There was no image, instead the wall had been painted gold,
perfectly coordinated with the rest of the room. Mac must’ve called him back
before the killer covered up his work with the paint.
Holy.
Fucking.
Christ.
His legs wobbled when he stood. His hand shook
like an alcoholic in need of his jolly juice, but he pointed at the wall. “He
painted a picture.” His brain bashed against the backs of his eyeballs. He
wanted to press his hands to his eyes to keep them from exploding out of their
sockets, but his hands were smeared with the family’s blood. The pain was only
beginning.
“I… I don’t know what you mean.” Mac’s tone was
full of question.
“He painted the wall white—made a blank canvas.
Then he created a portrait—using the family’s blood—of some guy—” Cain closed
his eyes, seeing on the back of his lids the scars lined
“Fuck!” His lids popped open, his gaze
automatically sought the wall, hoping to see the actual image again, but gold
paint pulsed in his vision from the thumping inside his head. He held his arms
out in front of him. Underneath the thin coating of blood on his skin, a
network of white slashes ran from his wrists to his shoulders.
The wounds had healed decades ago, but the
scars still remained. He pulled his shirt up high, and looked down at his chest
stained with drying blood. A thick white criss-crossed scar rested over his
heart—cut into his flesh by his father. Every scar on his body—placed there by
his father.
“What is it?” Mac’s tone was full of question,
mixed with a bit of suspicion. “You’ve got to talk to me. I don’t know what’s
going on.”
Cain’s heart galloped up and down his rib cage,
but he forced himself to speak slowly and quietly—in deference to the axe
beating against his skull. He told Mac everything he’d seen and
everything he
remembered about the artwork in blood. “It’s there. You can’t see it, but it’s
there. I’m there. Underneath that
gold paint.”
It took a lot to catch Mac off guard and score
one for Cain—he’d just done it.
Mac’s mouth was slightly open, lips twitching
like they were trying to form words, until a one finally spilled out.
“Infrared.” The word came out soft and hesitant. “We might be able to see the
image using infrared photography.” Things went quiet for a moment while Mac
stared at the perfectly painted gold wall. “Why paint you? Why not paint
Killion? I mean people are obsessed with you both, but why choose you over him?
And this guy made it clear it was you he painted. Without those scars we
would’ve thought it was Killion.”
Yes. Cain was cursed with looking too much like
his father—like one of the world’s most horrendous killers. It usually took a
double-take and some head scratching before people realized he wasn’t Killer
Killion.
Mac shook his head. “But then our guy covered
up what he’d painted. Probably thinking we’d never know the image was there.”
“He even fucking signed it.” Cain didn’t
realize until the words exited his mouth that he had seen a signature.
“He put his name on it?”
“Not his name. A symbol.” Cain wiped his hands
harder on the towel then dropped it on the floor. He yanked his cell from his
back pocket, and tapped on the art pad app. The white light from the phone
lasered into his skull. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open and not
groan out loud. He drew a Christian cross then put a hook on the bottom of it that
looked like an upside down question mark “You’ve seen this before. I’ve seen
this before.”
He showed the image to Mac and watched the
guy’s face turn pink, then tomato with recognition.
“Yeah.” Cain voice was straight as a line.
“It’s from my father’s last kill. But he didn’t do this. Not unless Petesville Super
Max allows weekend furloughs.”
Mac snorted. “Only way he’s getting out of
there is in a body bag.”
Couldn’t happen soon enough. His father was a
stain on humanity. “So we know he didn’t do this.”
“But…” Mac’s words disappeared for eight thumps
of Cain’s brain. “The girl—Mercy Ledger—made that mark on the wall as she was
bleeding out from your father cutting… From her throat being cut. It didn’t
mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Didn’t
mean anything until today. That symbol was at that scene twenty years ago and
it’s here now.”
Mac shook his head slowly like an old dog with
neck problems. “No one ever questioned her about it. The prints on the wall
were hers. Jesus—we need to find Mercy Ledger.”
Mac didn’t say it, but Cain knew how the man’s
brain worked. Mac thought Mercy must’ve done this. “She didn’t do this. She’s
been locked down in The Center of Balance and Wellness for the past few years.”
The words popped out his mouth before he censored them. And he really should’ve
censored them.
He lifted his arm, pressed his eyes against a
clean patch of material near his shoulder, and spoke without looking at Mac.
“I—” Yeah. Just what was he going to say? It wasn’t like he could confess that
he’d been checking up on Mercy Ledger for the past twenty years. That would
make him sound like a damned stalker. And stalking was considered the gateway
drug to killing. “Liz told me.” Bold faced, flat-out, flaming-bright lie. And
Mac would know it. The guy was trained to spot a lie at thirty paces. And yet,
Cain would rather endure the cost of the lie, than spend the truth. Call him
chicken shit—he would own it. He kept his eyes closed against his shoulder.
“Isn’t that a violation of confidentiality or
something?” Mac worded it as a question, but it sounded like a statement. “Liz
could lose her nursing license.”
But Liz hadn’t actually told him. He’d guessed. He’d known Liz long before he’d
met Mac. In those dark days of childhood, his father had forced Cain to work
with him at The Center. Liz had been a night nurse and the only person to ever
show kindness to him. Even after his father had been caught, she remained a
part of Cain’s life—babysitting him when Mac was away for work. She was one of
the few people he considered a friend and the closest thing he’d ever had to a
mother. And now he’d tossed her in front of the bus because he was a pussy.
The quiet closed in around him. His head felt
like it was about to burst off his shoulders. His stomach started rolling.
“The Center?” Mac finally broke the quiet.
“That’s a horrible irony.”
And it was. That Mercy Ledger
had lived the past few years of her life among the same hallways his father had
roamed as a janitor was beyond irony. It was downright wrong.
Abbie Roads is a mental health counselor known for her
blunt, honest style of therapy. By night she writes dark, emotional novels
always giving her characters the happy ending she wishes for all her clients.
SAVING MERCY is the first book in her new Fatal Truth Series of dark, gritty,
romantic suspense with a psychological twist.
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