Page 17 of Autopsy of a Fairytale

She raced for the vehicle, but it took her all of five seconds to discover it was empty. The hood of the car was cool, the engine having sat idle for hours. Had Emily run out of an ingredient, deciding to pop over to the store to purchase it? Many of the town square’s shops were within walking distance of one another, but at this hour? Most weren’t open yet.

A window at the rear of the building hovered above the door. It was too high for her to look through, but that angle might offer a view of the counter. If someone could hoist her up?

Bel rushed back to the main street and settled close to Abel so no one else could hear. He was tall. He would have to do. “Can you help me?”

“Of course, Detective.” He followed her to the alley.

“Would you mind lifting me?” She pointed to the window, trying not to think about the man wrapping his arms around her thighs.

“Sure.” He bent, jerking her upwards, and her muscles went rigid to avoid leaning against him more than necessary. When he hoisted her over his head, she gripped the small ledge and peered through. The shop was empty. Emily was not inside.

“Where is she?” Bel whispered to herself before speaking aloud. “You can put me down now—Wait!” She stiffened against Abel’s pull, and he pushed her back up.

“What is it?” He grunted below her.

“I see something, hold on…” Bel trailed off, straining to make out the flash of pale coloring that caught her attention. “Can you shift to the right?”

Abel groaned under her weight but complied, and the object came into view. Bel froze. Everything within her both stilled in terror and screamed in panic, and forgetting to use her words, she shoved herself down. The pale sight? It was a hand.

“Detective?” Able stumbled.

Bel cursed as her feet hit the pavement hard, but she ignored the tweak in her knees and scanned the alley. She should call for help. She should call Garrett, but what if…?

“Stand back,” she ordered Abel as her gaze snagged on the fractured parking block, and she raced for it.

“Detective, what are you doing?”

“Get back,” Bel repeated, and Abel barely had time to leap sideways before she launched the concrete through the air. This panicked act would probably come back to haunt her, but she couldn’t think of that at the moment. All she knew was there was a hand inside this shop, and if she delayed, her hesitation could cause devastating consequences.

“Please be alive. Please be alive. Please be alive,” Bel’s mind chanted as she tucked her blazer protectively around her arm and reached through the shattered glass to unlock the door. The second it was free, she was moving, and she was suddenly back in New York, blindly running for her life, fear eating away at her like a vulture upon the carrion.

The distance took seconds, but to Bel, it was a lifetime. And then she rounded the counter corner, her feet skidding to a stop. Her entire body went numb, and nausea roiled in her stomach like a Kraken-whipped storm. Her fingers shook. Her muscles froze. She was too late. Too late. Too late.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but the sound of crunching glass jarred her back to the present. Able hovered in the doorway, inching closer.

“Get back.” Bel threw her hand up in an order. He opened his mouth to argue, but she pinned him with a glare of vengeance. “Get outside now, Abel. No one comes in.”

Sensing the severity in her tone, the older man slipped outside, and she dug her phone out, dialing with shaking fingers.

“Hey,” Garrett answered on the first ring. “Bel?” he asked when nothing but silence greeted him.

“I found Emily.”

The station wasmere blocks from The Espresso Shot, but as Bel stood motionless before Emily’s body, the few minutes it took to hear the sirens blaring seemed to stretch into hours. Emily Kaffe leaned against the counter in the only spot invisible from the street. Her upraised hands, the only part of her Bel had seen from the high window. She had wanted to believe the shop owner had fallen, her hands reaching for help, but instinct warned her what she would find. But even then, Bel was not prepared.

Emily sat, knees to her chest, in a small circular ceramic tub. Custom made, its claw foot base was forged from a bronze metal, the claws as severe as the chandelier’s foundation below Brett Lumen. The ceramic tub was bone white, only just big enough to support Emily’s naked form, and delicate green leaves and thorns illustrated its circumference. Bel didn’t need to look further to understand. Just as someone had carved the chandelier, so had they painted this tub. A rose bush.

Emily’s bare ankles were crossed, her knees propped up on the sides, and her torso leaned back against the counter. Her arms were raised above her head and bound with thin, ornately twisted bands of metal, entwining her fingers in a delicate pattern with her palms side by side and facing forward. Bel studied the design, but it was the fact that Emily’s lower half was submerged beneath black coffee that triggered her recognition. A spoon.

Bel almost choked at the realization. Brett Lumen had been carved into a chandelier, turned into the furniture he cherished. Emily had been shaped into a spoon to stir the life-sized mug of coffee, becoming one with the liquid she claimed flowed through her veins instead of blood.

The desecration of her body was not the only thing to mimic Lumen’s macabre display. Bel desperately wanted to avoid it, to drape her jacket over Emily’s bare and pale chest, but she had already altered the scene enough with the broken glass. She could not contaminate it further, and so she forced herself to witness the ruptured flesh. Emily’s heart was gone, the beating organ replaced by delicate roses.

“Emerson…? Detective Emerson!” Bel jerked at Sheriff Griffin’s voice, startled by how close he stood to her. How long had he been there? How many times had he called her name?

“Are you okay?” he asked as their gazes met, and she nodded. “Did you touch anything?”

“I had probable cause,” Bel whispered, not sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.

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