Page 50 of Skin Deep

“He’s preying on innocent women,” Xander pointed out.

“He’s left children without a mother,” I added.

“And while I find that tragic, I am not driven to hunt him,” Shepherd said, looking at me.

That was… odd. Shepherd usually reveled in the opportunity to hunt another predator, especially one operating so close to home. I wouldn’t have thought much of it except that there were a lot of odd things going on with him lately.

Maybe it was burn out and he needed to take a step back from everything, or maybe something deeper was going on. Either way, he’d neglected to share his inner thoughts with me, which hurt. We used to be so close, Shepherd and me.

“Nevertheless,” he continued, “I am here to assist. So, let’s build this profile. I had a look at the files Xavier sent this morning, and I believe I have some ideas. We know he isn’t economically motivated, since he isn’t removing valuable items. He clearly possesses decent transportation and the necessary tools for the job, which speaks to both his financial status and the level of forethought. He has both time and money.” He picked up the wine and added some to the pan. “What does that tell you?”

“Statistically, he’s probably white, thirty to forty-five, and has a comfortable middle-class income.” I frowned. “He’s choosing his victims from the lower income pool, so he must have some way to access their financials.”

“Or he simply knows where they live,” Xander mumbled.

Shepherd nodded and started stirring the chicken into the pot. “One’s socioeconomic class is often easy to deduce from public records. What do the scars tell you?”

I thought back to how the ripper had made his cuts. “He’s cutting their faces,” I murmured. “Always the faces and never anywhere else. And where he’s cutting… He’s avoiding the eyes or anything that will cause them to bleed out too quickly.”

“Why?” Shepherd pressed.

“He wants them to live to see what he’s turned them into.”

“What he’s created,” Shepherd supplied, pulling down three bowls. “Our ripper is a craftsman, but not one who makes beauty. He is an architect of the macabre, taking what was beautiful and making it grotesque, and he wants his victims to live with what he’s done, which also tells us he’s not ashamed of his deeds at all.”

Shepherd brought the steaming pot of chicken and noodles over.

Usually, I associated his Amish style chicken and noodles with the winter months. It wasn’t what I’d call a summer dish. I knew it was one of his comfort foods, however, and one he made often when he was thinking of the timebefore. He didn’t like to talk about his life before he came to live with the Laskins, but I knew some of it.

Like I knew he’d been incredibly sheltered as a child, to the point where he hadn’t seen a TV before. He’d spent the first decade of his life in some fundamentalist cult before child protective services removed him and all the other kids. I didn’t know the specifics of all the abuse he’d suffered there. With how his personality had fractured, only some of his alters knew what had happened to him, and talking about it was incredibly triggering for him. It must’ve been terrible, though.

“These are not his first attacks, either,” Shepherd said as he filled a bowl for Xander and then himself.

I picked through the broth, pulling out a few chunks of chicken and some vegetables with a little broth. Even though I loved Annie’s mashed potatoes, I’d already had more carbs than I should have with the bread.

“What do you mean?” Xander asked.

“First attempts are messy,” Shepherd said. “Often, a killer’s first victims are much closer to home. Our ripper may have issues with female authority. I’d look for someone who had an absent or abusive mother. He feels slighted by their success, or their beauty. It’s possible we’re looking for someone who grew up poor and feels neglected by the female sex.”

“He doesn’t seem to be getting sexual gratification from the attacks,” I pointed out.

Shepherd bobbed his head in agreement. “Not immediately, no. But it’s possible he seeks it afterward through masturbation. He is destroying what he perceives as attractive, and thereby gaining power over these women. His sexual desires make him feel out of control, and these attacks are his way of attempting to regain control, but he doesn’t want them to die. Not out of any sense of affection or loyalty—he wants to punish them for making him desire them.”

Xander frowned. “So he’s basically an incel who’s disfiguring girls out of his league because he has mommy issues?”

Shepherd nodded again. “That’s my theory.”

We ate in silence while I contemplated what Shepherd had said. His profile was helpful, but it didn’t narrow our suspects down too much. Hopefully, there’d be more information in the police files once we looked closer.

After we finished, Shepherd collected the dishes and put them in the sink. “When are you seeing Paxton again?”

I picked up the last of my wine and drank it. “Not tonight, obviously. We’re going out to the Foxhole.”

“Does he take good care of you?” Shepherd asked.

I blinked and lifted my head. “Who? Pax?”

There was a dull stab of emotion in my chest as I thought about how he’d fussed over me the night before, insisting that he put the bandages on himself. The cuts weren’t even that deep. I’d bled a good bit, enough that the sheets and mattress were ruined. I’d have to replace it before I slept on it again, which meant crashing in the guest room for a while. But I’d had worse. When I’d gotten all emotional over every little thing, he’d held me.

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