Page 3 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

“Incoming.” Alistair tosses his head to our right, and I follow the direction carefully, seeing the federal agents who’d approached us in Tillie’s Diner weeks ago. Moving in sync with one another, they approach us.

“Hope they aren’t trying to blend in.”

“They want us to know they’re here. It’s an intimidation tactic, making sure we know they’re watching us.”

Odette Marshall shoves her hands in her pockets, offering a welcoming smile as she steps in front of me. The man she’d introduced as Gerrick brushes her shoulder, nodding at Alistair in silent acknowledgment.

“We wanted to stop by and offer our condolences for your loss,” she says, so casually, dripping with fake sincerity, and I’ve had just about enough phony emotional displays to last a lifetime.

I’m not in the mood to play nice, especially with them.

Neither Alistair nor I say anything in response to her opening statement. We just stare blankly, waiting for her to get to whatever point she has.

“Listen,” she levels. “All we want to do is help. I know you may not see that right now, but we just want those responsible for these crimes to pay for them.”

“You should take your help elsewhere,” I snip. Maybe it’s the bite of the cold or the sting of loss, but I feel like an exposed nerve. Every whisper of air across me sends an agonized bolt of pain through my body.

“Is that your way of telling me you know more information than you’re giving and want me to stop poking around?”

“No,” I say. “If that’s what I meant, I would’ve said it.”

Odette smirks, rolling her lips together as she nods.

“If your plan is to interrogate us at a funeral, it’s not only shit taste, but our lawyer won’t appreciate it either.” Alistair curls his hand around my upper arm. “We told you everything we know.”

Which is true.

When the two of them showed up at the home on Pierson Point and found us already there, they were quick to request our presence at the station house.

I’d been unfeeling to the entire experience, practically silent, barely aware that Rook Van Doren’s father had forked up the bill for my lawyer, who did most of the talking for me. A pleasant gentleman who made it very clear if either of the detectives or anyone else with a badge tried to speak to us without him around, they’d regret it.

“I somehow doubt that.” Gerrick speaks for the first time. “Your loyalty will be your downfall, and the killer doesn’t even deserve it. Thatcher—”

“Don’t say his fucking name,” I snap, taking a step in their general direction with no fear of repercussions. What do I have left to lose? “You don’t get to say that name.”

My hands curl into tight fists, my fingers bunching up the material at the sides of my dress. I feel Alistair’s hand squeeze my arm, not from anger or Gerrick’s comment, but to hold me back from doing something I might regret.

Like strangling this prick with my bare hands. But in no universe do I find myself having remorse for this jarhead.

“Watch yourself, little girl.”

I step a little closer, pointing one accusatory finger, unafraid of his stature and blank expression. “It seems you have your priorities a little skewed if you’re treating him more like a suspect instead of a missing person.”

Those words echo inside me, bouncing off the walls of my vacant chest. That might be what hurts the most—not knowing if he’s dead or alive. If this copycat killer has him as leverage for the Halo or has already tossed his body into the ocean as fish food.

I don’t know where he is.

I can’t find him. None of us can.

“Until I find his body, Thatcher Pierson is our number one suspect in the murder of those girls and May Pierson. I’d get used to it now so it won’t be so difficult adding money to his books when I throw his ass in prison.”

“Just how dumb are you?” I counter. “Find the easiest target and pin him with murder? Get some evidence other than your ego, dickhead.”

My stomach twists, my hands flexing at my sides. The vivid image of gutting Gerrick Knight with the pin in my hair becomes more appealing by the second. The metallic taste rushing to my mouth is hard to swallow, and I know my self-control isn’t wound as tightly as Thatcher’s.

That was the whole point of him teaching me. How to control it so that I didn’t do what I desperately wanted to do right now.

These useless cops are hunting Thatcher down for a crime he didn’t commit instead of searching for him. They don’t understand that he would never kill May, that none of those girls dying is his fault.

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