Page 7 of Blood

Reed flips through the papers on a clipboard he’s acquired and says, “Nineteen hours ago.”

I bristle at his answer.

What?

“When was the last time you saw her?” He tilts his head, studying me, his tone inquisitive.

I close my eyes, filtering through my thoughts. “Yesterday.” At the clubhouse, another party. I left early to pick up my wedding dress from my aunt, who was doing last-minute alterations. Harley mentioned going to a nightclub. She was drinking heavily. I should have taken her home.I failed her.

“Doesn’t an autopsy take time?” I’m sure we waited days when Grandma passed.

“When it’s a homicide, they take priority. It helps with the investigation to get the facts straight away.”

The facts are someone killed my sister.I want to die, too.

“Miss Stewart.” Detective Hope’s voice penetrates the self-hate in my mind. “Can you confirm the body is that of your sister, Harley Stewart?”

My eyes spring open. I inhale a shaky breath and reach for the glass again. The blue and purple bruises around her throat register for the first time.

My heart booms, scraping and clawing at my chest, but it has nowhere to escape. “She was strangled,” I choke out, my body heaving with the effort it’s taking to draw breath.

“Asphyxiation is the cause of death, yes.” Reed confirms.

“Does Harley have any distinctive marks, scars, or birthmarks?” Hope asks, steering me away from the new information.

“She has a tattoo.” The Devil Skull Riders’ insignia is her birthmark. “Upper inner thigh,” I add. All women Devils have the emblem there, right over the femoral artery. The brothers have theirs on their chests, spreading over their hearts. The club is life.

The man in the white coat flits his eyes to the detectives through the glass. “Upper inner thigh,” Hope tells him.

“Left leg,” I add as she holds the intercom button down.

Moving around Harley, he lifts the sheet from her legs and the world stills. “Lower the sheet,” Officer Hope commands. But it’s too late. The mutilation of Harley’s thigh is already branded onto my brain forever.

The ink of her tattoo is nowhere to be seen—just raw, angry flesh.

Such violence.

She suffered.

She fucking suffered.

“Were there signs of sexual assault?” I ask, swallowing the rock lodged in my throat. That’s the motivation for most killers when it’s a young girl, right? I don’t want to know, but I need to. I have to know everything she endured. Allow it to harden me so I can hunt the fuckers who did this and rain the devil’s wrath upon them.

“No.” The reply is quick and confident.

A rattle shakes my body. Tears blur my vision. Small mercies.

The drapes begin to close, and a panicked gasp hitches my breathing. “Wait,” I plead, my hand pressing against the glass, willing it to disintegrate. I want to hold her.

“It’s okay,” Detective Hope assures me. It’s a lie. Nothing is okay.

“We would like to show you the belongings recovered from the body. Would you be able to confirm if the items belong to your sister?”

The body.

The words echo in my head before the door opens and another man in a lab coat walks into the room with a tray and places it on a metal table. It’s the kind of table you get in prisons when you’re sitting across from an inmate. I’ve visited too many prisons in my short lifetime.

A see-through bag sits inside the plastic tray, holding a few items inside. “Can we speak for a moment?” the man in the lab coat asks the officers.

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