Page 1 of Autopsy of a Fairytale

Teeth.It was always the teeth that woke her. The way they scraped. The way she bled. The nightmare of that memory haunted her. Forced her to suffer through every painful second of that night. Every broken bone. Every tear in her flesh until the teeth scored her skin. Then, and only then, would she wake, paralyzed by fear, the sting still coating her throat.

A heavy weight shifted at the bottom of the mattress, and all seventy pounds of furry muscles heaved onto her chest like a living, weighted blanket. Only once his soft head nuzzled her neck did she relax. She was safe in her bed, not bleeding out on the street, and her arms wrapped around her pitbull. He was her best boy, always sensing her panic and driving it away before replacing it with pure adoration. She breathed in his scent, letting the mix of fur and shampoo ground her, but it wasn’t until his tongue licked the tears from her cheeks that she realized she was crying. The nightmares came less and less since adopting Cerberus, but when the memory hit, it struck with a vicious malice that left her crippled. After the attack, sleep had been nearly impossible. The stench of blood filled her nostrils. The crack of her bones rang in her ears, and the paralyzing fear that settled like chains on her limbs would pin her to the bed long after she woke. They said she was lucky. She had survived, butfortunatewas not one of the words she used to describe herself. Her words, the ones that plagued her darkest hours, were ugly. Cruel. Unforgiving.

Until she met Cerberus, the seventy-pound black pitbull with cropped ears that the shelter claimed was friendly but unadoptable because of his harsh appearance. His face captured her attention the instant she wandered into the kennel. She was alone and single, and one Saturday, still limping and in pain, she saw a flyer for a local adoption event. Fate dragged her to his cage, and while the other prospective dog parents avoided him like he was diseased, his gravity drew her to his door. She was helpless against his pull, and one look into his soft brown eyes was all it took to convince her. He was her dog. Her best friend. Her good boy. She was well acquainted with evil. She had stared it in its rotten soul and survived. This animal was pure goodness, and she adopted him on the spot. He was named Cerberus after the three-headed hellhound of Hades, and that name felt prophetic. The Cerberus of myth guarded the Underworld, and the black pitbull guarded her darkness. Her furry beast with a beautiful soul.

Isobel Emerson pushed Cerberus off her chest with a kiss on his meaty head and escaped the confines of her sweaty sheets. Months had passed since the assault that haunted her sleep. Most of her peace was thanks to the bed hog currently digging at her pillows, but the transfer to Bajka reduced how often she looked over her shoulder. Bel—her father had given her the affectionate nickname, and it stuck with her all these years later—had been a fearless cop in her twenties, but making detective at thirty-one in New York City corrupted something deep inside of her. She had seen humanity’s underbelly. Its darkest, cruelest self, but it wasn’t until the attack that the fear she kept chained down in her soul broke free. She remembered little of that night. She had answered a call that led her and six other police officers to an abandoned warehouse, but the chaos that exploded upon their arrival separated her from the group. The doctors blamed her memory loss on the lingering trauma from the ordeal, but Bel never believed their explanation. Something happened that night that left her alone in the darkness, a fruit ripe for plunder. The assault was vicious; the attacker driven by bloodlust. Bel had never experienced such excruciating pain, and as she fought and failed to escape the powerful assailant, she knew that was how she would end. A homicide victim the likes of which she swore to protect.

But despite the holes in her recollection, one thing she always remembered was the teeth. Sharp and filled with dread, they dragged across her skin, cutting like a surgeon’s blade. They carved up her flesh as if they were a sculpture’s chisel and she the marble. The ripping had started at her throat before plunging down her chest to her belly, and then, as suddenly as it began, the teeth abandoned her shredded body. No one could explain the attacker’s actions. Every fractured part of her pointed to his intentions. He didn’t crave her fear. He wanted her death, but moments before he finally claimed her for the darkness, he fled. She was alive, scarred but alive because a predator had inexplicably discarded his prey.

Bel found it impossible to remain in the city after the doctors cleared her to return to work. Every building, every siren, every alley held a threat. Something in her broke, and she seized the first escape she could find. Bajka—a quaint and relatively crimeless town—needed a detective, and she had a moving truck packed before the ink was dry on her contract. Beast of a dog in tow, she rented a small cabin on the outskirts of the town a few hours south of the city and fled New York.

Bel shuffled into her rustic kitchen and pulled a pitcher from the fridge before filling a glass. The nightmare had ripped sleep from her body, flinging it out of reach, and she leaned against the sink as she drank the cold water. The cabin was a single, large room, her bed only feet away from where she stood, and she savored the cool liquid calming her dry throat as she watched Cerberus snore. At least one of them was enjoying the king-sized mattress that dominated half of her home.

The clock on the microwave read 4:00 a.m. in angry red letters, and Bel glared at it as she shoved the pitcher back into the fridge. A light outside caught her attention as she put her cup in the sink, and she peered out the picture frame window, watching Vera move around her cabin. The elderly woman was Bel’s first friend in Bajka. She owned the cabin on the opposite side of the grassy yard, and Bel watched her grey curls bob in and out of view. From her movements, it looked like Vera was cleaning her kitchen, and Bel smirked before snagging her book off the table. Ships passing in the night, both women were unable to sleep. One due to her age, and the other to her demons.

Cerberus had stretched out over both pillows, and Bel surrendered any hope of shoving him out of her way. She settled below him, head resting on his snore-rumbling ribs, and she cracked open the novel, her eyes drowning in the written words that always brought her peace. Suddenly she was no longer Detective Isobel Emerson plagued by anxiety but Louise the pirate, running from the only man who loved—

The ringing phone jarred her awake, her forgotten book slipping off her chest as she rolled toward the bedside table.

“Emerson,” she groaned into her cell, eyes too blurry to decipher the name on the screen.

“Bel?” Hesitation edged her partner’s voice, and she sat up, his tone a warning to brace for what was coming. “I’m sorry to bother you on your day off, but you need to see this.”

* * *

The clockon the microwave read 8:30 a.m., and with a swipe of annoyance coated in apprehension, Bel turned the coffee pot on as she shoved her legs into her black jeans, tripping as she struggled to do too many things at once. She’d been grateful that her nightmare had the decency to arrive on her day off, and she had switched off her alarm, hoping the extra sleep would atone for the lost midnight hours, but the urgency in her partner’s voice killed any lingering exhaustion. She had not received a call filled with such dread since New York, and the knot of fear that this quiet town had finally loosened, coiled with a vengeance in her gut. The timing of her dream made sense. It was an omen. A warning. A threat.

“Outside?” She gripped the door handle and looked pointedly at Cerberus, but the pitbull made no move to get off the bed. She had promised to take him hiking in the woods that backed up to her cabin, and while she knew the dog didn’t understand ninety-five percent of the ramblings she directed at him, the accusation in his brown eyes seemed to call her a liar today.

“I’m sorry,” Bel coaxed. “If you won’t do it for me, how about for a cookie?”

Cerberus slid off the bed with an agile thunk and padded to the door, strolling outside as Bel rolled her eyes. If only all of life’s problems could be solved by cookies.

The pitbull roamed the yard as she pulled on a shirt, thankful she had opted to shower before bed instead of waiting for morning, and poured the coffee into a travel mug. She scooped Cerberus’ food into his bowl, topping it with the promised dog treats. A moth drawn to the flame, the furry beast raced inside at the sound of the bowl clinking against the floor, and Bel kissed his meaty head before locking the cabin behind her. As she passed the kitchen window, she peeked in at him as he licked his dish clean, and her heart longed to turn back, grab all seventy pounds of his comfort, and take him with her. She feared she would need his calm support today, yet she had to leave him home. A crime scene was no place for an untrained animal, regardless of his sharp instincts and protective nature. As if he sensed her watching him, Cerberus jerked his gaze to hers and wagged his tail. The little whip was so powerful, she heard it thwack the cabinet drawers, and she smiled, waving at him before walking to her car.

Twenty minutes later, Bel pulled up at the address her partner had given her, surprised by the chaos swarming the building.Lumen’s Customs, owned by Brett Lumen, was home to both his workshop and showroom. Bel had wandered inside once when she first arrived in Bajka, but the prices of his custom furniture drove her back outside and across town to the thrift store. The man was an artist of unmatched skill, his craftsmanship crossing all mediums. People came from all over the country to purchase or commission his one-of-a-kind pieces, and as Bel approached the deputy monitoring the perimeter entrance, she wondered what exorbitantly expensive piece of furniture had been stolen.

“Morning, Detective,” the deputy said as she flashed her badge and passed through the police barrier. The yellow tape encased the entire building, blocking off even the parking lot from the onlookers and media, and Bel’s heart constricted.Why was there this much tape?

“Bel,” a smooth voice interrupted her concern, and her partner, Garrett Cassidy, jogged over to her. “Thanks for coming. I know it’s your day off, but…” he trailed off.

“What happened?” The pit in her stomach gaped ruthlessly wide at his hesitation, at the unnerving edge in his voice. At six foot one with curly brown hair and hazelnut eyes, thirty-five-year-old Garrett was storybook handsome, strong and soft and sweet around the edges, which was why the tension in his face terrified her. It didn’t belong there, not on features so gentle.

“Emerson,” Sheriff Griffin interrupted, and Bel watched as the man strode toward them. In his early fifties, with specks of grey gracing his beard, the Sheriff was kind and intelligent, remarkably fit for his age, and he made an excellent boss. “Thanks for coming. I asked Cassidy to call you because I want you to run lead on this. We’ll need your experience.”

Bel froze, her feet growing roots to anchor her where she stood. Her experience? She was a homicide detective. This wasn’t a case of stolen furniture, and her nightmare flooded her consciousness.Teeth, always the teeth. She should have known they heralded a dark foreboding.

“What happened?” She wasn’t ready to plunge headfirst back into the fray.

“I think it’s best if you see for yourself… so you can form your own opinions.” The Sheriff handed her protective gear, and she slipped the sterilized covers over her shoes before snapping on a pair of gloves.

Once all three of them were covered, Garrett led the way into Lumen’s Customs, but he lingered in the entrance to allow her to enter alone, her view unobstructed.

Bel sucked in a fortifying breath, forcing her professional shell to assume control before she stepped into the showroom. Looming windows lit the impeccable space, the high ceilings offering a sense of grandeur, but she hardly noticed them. All her sight registered was what hovered in the center of the room, its grotesque form both magnificent and disturbing, and her breath caught painfully in her throat. She couldn’t breathe at the vision, at the beauty, at the terror. Her lungs constricted. Her heart thundered.

“Oh my god.” Her voice broke free from her lips, the tremble of those three small words insufficient to convey the depths of her shock.

“The victim is Brett Lumen,the forty-eight-year-old owner of Lumen’s Customs.” Garrett’s voice broke through the shock engulfing Bel’s brain, ripping her from her tortured memories and depositing her harshly in the present. “His assistant Violet Lennon discovered him at approximately 8 a.m. this morning when she arrived for work.”

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