Page 73 of Wife Number One

“Cowardly,” Ron added with a sigh. “You should have heard the cries from her sisters. This girl was loved.”

I lifted the sheet and covered the dead girl’s face respectfully. “And in an instant someone just took it all away.”

“I’ll never understand how someone can do it, you know?” Ron mused. “I mean, the dead bodies don’t bother me. I see them every day so it would be a bit of a problem if they did. But they’re already pale and lifeless when they come to me. I can’t imagine watching the color fade from their face or hearing them struggle for breath.” He grimaced. “That’s messed up.”

“I agree.” I didn’t know how a man could do it. How he could put a cord around a woman’s throat and pull while he stared her in the eye and watched the life drain out of her.

But I knew men who did.

“There’s a pattern developing.” I pulled out my phone and the magnetic stylus from the pocket of the case. With quick fingers, I scrawled notes across the screen, letting the phone turn my scrawls into text. “Do the cops even realize that?”

Ron shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I shook my head. “The other victims were sisters.”

Ron looked over at me slowly. “You think that’s a thing for this guy?”

My heart thundered, thinking about Kara.

Kara who was so much like this dead girl beneath the sheet.

Bile rose in my mouth at the thought of standing here next month, staring down at another lifeless face. This had to fucking stop.

Everything inside me revolted at the thought of this happening again.

It was only made worse by seeing Kara in the parking lot, and knowing this killer preyed on women who looked just like her.

21

KARA

Rebel cried the entire way home from the morgue. Her quiet sobs were painful to hear, and agonizing to watch as she curled up on the passenger seat and hugged her knees to her chest.

I couldn’t stand the sound. Couldn’t stand the way it made me want to do the same when I’d only just managed to pull myself together. I scratched the skin across my wrist, absentmindedly trying to distract myself at first, only to dig my fingernails in harder and harder as the sounds of Rebel’s grief continued.

A warm heat settled on me, and when I glanced up, Hawk was watching me, his eyes glued to the mess I was making of my wrist.

I tugged my sleeve over it, twisted away, and tried to stop, but Rebel’s cries only intensified and the scratching was the only thing that distracted me from it.

“Give it a rest, would you, short-ass? You barely even knew the woman,” Hawk complained obnoxiously.

Rebel’s cries cut off instantly, and she twisted on her seat to glare at Hawk over her shoulder. “Are you fucking serious right now? God, you are the actual scum of the earth, do you know that? You can’t even give me one minute to grieve my sister? You think I don’t know I haven’t been able to see her in years? You think that makes this hurt any less? God, I really fucking hate you sometimes…”

Rebel’s anger all pointed in Hawk’s direction was a thousand times easier to listen to than her pain.

I stopped hacking at my skin and laid my head against the window, letting the cool surface soothe my flushed face instead.

Hawk watched me for a second, his head bobbing slightly, like the fact I wasn’t destroying my skin anymore had been his aim all along. He turned back to Rebel and continued his argument that she didn’t get to be dramatic over a sister she’d only met a couple of times.

It was probably lucky for Hawk that Fang was driving because the look he sent him in the rearview mirror was deadly.

I didn’t have it in me to deal with any of them. All I could think was that this entire thing was my fault.

Right now there were probably police officers out at the commune, telling my parents their daughter had been found murdered.

Or would they already know?

Would Josiah’s men already be back there, covered in Alice’s blood?

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