Page 21 of The Heat of Intensity

Panic hits me for a heartbeat until there’s nothing left to worry about, except the darkness that pulls me under.

CHAPTER TEN

– PARKER –

“Want some pie?” I question.

Luke rushes into the kitchen and has wide eyes as he points at something.

“Yes, please,” Cosima fires back. “Need my help?”

Following Luke, I notice what looks like a body on the ground near the road, right at the entrance of the ranch.

I glance over my shoulder and bellow at Cosima, “Nah, I got it,” to make sure she stays put.

Luke and I rush out the door and I’m already palming my phone to dial Kathleen as I get closer. A feeling in my gut tells me this person is no longer alive. Why? Because the body is lying at an unnatural angle.

She picks up when I have my fingers on the cold neck of the woman’s body and I instantly state, “Kathleen, you need to come down to Cosima and Eastlynne’s place. We have a dead woman’s body that seems to have been dumped here.”

“Is she naked?” Kathleen asks.

“Yes,” I slowly state.

A curse rumbles from her. “Make sure no one touches anything. I’ll be right there.”

She hangs up and I take a few steps back. “Kathleen ordered us to keep everything and everyone away from the body. She’ll be right here.”

“Do you think it has something to do with that serial killer case she mentioned?” Luke questions.

I release a deep sigh and wince at the sight of the body. “By the looks of it? Yeah.”

We both fall silent. Concern hits me when I realize I’ve left Cosima on the back porch by herself. She shouldn’t come here and see this. I mean, she’ll eventually know, it’s inevitable, but at least I don’t want her to see it with her own eyes.

I jab the screen of my phone and call Walker, he picks up on the second ring. “Hey, mind going to Cosima? She should still be sitting on the back porch. We have a situation at the front of the house and I don’t want her anywhere near it.”

“You got it, VP,” Walker rumbles and hangs up.

From a distance, I notice Kathleen approaching and it’s then I hear Walker bellowing from the front porch, “VP, where is she?”

Confused I turn and jog toward Walker. “What are you talking about? Cosima was sitting on the back porch when I headed out front.” I watch Kathleen park. “Go look in every room and wake Rourke, tell him in private so Eastlynne doesn’t freak out, that there’s a dead body on his old lady’s doorstep. I’ll be right back.”

I jog in Kathleen’s direction and give her a quick update on what happened when Luke signaled me to see the dead body until the moment she arrived.

It’s then I tell her, “I need to leave you to it. Cosima was sitting on the porch when I walked out of the house and when I asked Walker to keep her there since he was working in the stables, he said she wasn’t there and can’t find her.”

“Go,” Kathleen orders. “I got this.”

Rushing into the house, I almost run into Rourke.

“I sent Walker to the stables to check. There’s no trace of her in the house. I just fired up the laptop to check the security feed,” Rourke states.

Walker jogs into the living room while Rourke and I have our eyes set on the laptop.

“Nothing in the stables,” Walker grunts.

“Where the fuck can she be?” I snarl. “She was sitting on the back porch, waiting for me to bring her coffee and pie. There’s no damn way she would have left without saying something. Hell, she wasn’t even fully dressed.”

“I can see that,” Rourke mutters as we all watch the screen to see Cosima strolling onto the back porch with a cup of coffee. “What time were you in the…oh, for fuck’s sake.”

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