Page 32 of Autopsy of a Fairytale

“Stay here.” The Sheriff gently brushed her hair away from her face, the gesture reminding her of her father. “Someone will be in shortly to get your statement.”

When she failed to acknowledge his words, he left the office, clicking the door shut behind him. Bel sat in the silence. For how long? She wasn’t sure. Pain constricted her heart like a ravenous snake. Garrett. Sweet, handsome Garrett. Her partner. Her friend. He didn’t deserve this. No one did, and seeing him strung up confirmed his confession last night. He was innocent. She had arrested an innocent man, a man she cared for, and now he was dead.

The numbness in her soul was so severe, she could no longer sit still, and Bel stood and quietly escaped her boss’ office. The station was a storm of movement and rage. Lina Thum was just walking through the doors as Bel emerged, and on silent feet, the detective slipped through the swarm. She didn’t trust anyone to do as thorough a job as she would. This was her case. Her partner. She needed to see it through.

An officer mentioned the security system was experiencing technical difficulties as she moved for Garrett’s body, but she ignored that information. She already knew what they would find. They weren’t dealing with someone holding a grudge or someone killing for the first time. The skill of the crimes. The devastation of their station. Whoever did this was skilled and potentially wealthy enough to invade the police without detection, and Bel knew of only one person who came even close to filling those shoes.

There were similarities about Garrett’s death that matched the previous victims, and she could see from where she stood that roses had replaced his missing heart, but they weren’t what caught her scrutiny. The killer had changed his M.O. He had altered his routine, and that was what screamed for her attention. Killers followed their rituals with almost religious devotion, so to break the cycle? It had to be important. It had to mean something.

Bel looked at the blood pooling below Garrett’s feet. His cell door had been unlocked and his body moved to the outside of the bars. His wrists were strung up by handcuffs on either side of him like a crucifix, blood leaking from his gaping chest wound to stain the floor. The killer hadn’t transformed him into an object of significance. He had not been meticulously cleaned or posed, which made Bel wonder if Garrett wasn’t originally a target. He wasn’t supposed to die. There was no plan, no elaborate scene for him. Just a graphic display of brutality enacted on him and the two deputies. This killing occurred to make a point. Bel thought she found her suspect, but one look at Garrett told her she had made a grave mistake, and the killer demanded she acknowledge it. He wanted her to understand she caused these deaths. Perhaps he hadn’t intended for her to find those souvenirs in the jewelry box yet. She and Garrett had only just begun dating, and perhaps the killer was banking on the fact that she would not jump into bed with him immediately, allowing more time to pass before she discovered the bloody objects. Her partner was most likely the scapegoat meant to take the fall when the killer was finished, but by the spectacle playing out before her, he was nowhere near his finale.

Garrett still wore clothes, unlike the other victims, but it was the blood that she kept circling back to. The other three had been drained, yet Garrett’s body dripped blood everywhere. Based on the pooling pattern below him, passive drips had formed the puddle, gravity pulling the blood down. She assumed there would be high-velocity spatter somewhere from when his chest had been ripped open, but there were no walls or objects close enough to Garrett to catch the spray. Any spatter peppering the tiles would have been erased by the pool, offering, yet again, no clue what weapon caused those wounds. But as she studied the red, hoping something would speak to her, Bel remembered her accusations. She asked her partner what he had done with the blood. Was someone listening to their conversation? Watching their movement? For here it was, his every drop for her to find.

Bel drifted toward her desk after a rushing deputy plowed into her, unable to shake the feeling that this scene was for her benefit. This death was aimed at her specifically. But why? She had barely been in town long enough to warrant enemies, but why else break M.O. and go after her partner? The killer wanted her to see this. To appreciate what he was capable of and that he wasn’t done. That realization terrified her, and she sank to a seat, suddenly drained of energy. She longed to move closer, to be in the thick of it, but the second Griffin noticed her, he would banish her back to his office. Her reaction this morning had been raw. Primal. Visceral. That he held her hair while she vomited was proof enough that the Sheriff suspected just how close to the victim she was.

So, Bel sat at her desk and watched the chaos unfold, taking everything in, making notes of every conversation, every discovery. She would observe from afar, ensuring the investigation happened by the book and no stone was left unturned. Garrett deserved Bajka’s all, and this town couldn’t give that to him if she sat out and—

Bel froze, noticing a fingerprint on her desk for the first time. Dozens of prints smeared this piece of furniture, mostly hers and Garrett’s, and most were either unnoticeable or messy smudges, but this? It was crystal clear, as if coated in dirt. As if the owner had been in the woods… or filthy from renovations.

Thundering heart forcing too much blood through her veins, Bel slipped silently to her forensics case and snapped on gloves before capturing her fingerprinting kit. She made quick work of lifting the print from her desk, and after scanning it into the database, she settled in to wait. It might take hours to identify a match. It might find nothing, but she was going to sit there until—

“Emerson, I told you to stay in my office.” Bel stiffened. Griffin had finally noticed her escape.

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“I understand. Trust me, I do.” He moved closer, sympathy and terror warring in his eyes. “But Emerson, I know… about you two.”

“Sir?”

“It was as plain as day that Cassidy liked you.” The Sheriff’s voice softened. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I know there was something between you two, and I figured when you guys worked it out, you would tell me. So, trust me, I understand why this is important, but you can’t be here. If anyone discovers that Cassidy’s girlfriend was the lead investigator, they could call all the evidence into question. You are no longer objective.”

“Please, don’t do this,” Bel begged. “Don’t take me off the case. I need to help him.” Her tears fought for dominance over her control.

“I don’t want to do this, Emerson.” The Sheriff sighed as if the fight had left him. “You are the best I’ve got, but we must be careful… for Cassidy. We can’t solve these homicides only for them to get thrown out in court because someone calls your motives into question.”

“I would never jeopardize this case, and you know—”

“I do, but I’m sorry. You were too close to him.” Griffin patted her arm sympathetically, and Bel saw the conflict in his eyes. He wanted her to stay, just as much as she did, but he was right. Minutes before she arrested Garrett, she had kissed him. She was no longer objective. She would never jeopardize a case, but she was aware of how it looked from the outside. How many times had she made this same call in New York?

“I’ll get a deputy to take your statement, okay? And then… why are you running Eamon Stone’s prints?”

“I’m not,” Bel squinted at the Sheriff, and then the realization hit like a bulldozer. She wasn’t running Eamon’s prints. She was running the odd one from her desk. The one that shouldn’t have been there, and it seemed the system had found a match.

Bel sat in her car,unable to stay but unwilling to leave. The station was a swarming hive, curious bystanders surrounding the chaos on their way to work, and she wanted to scream at every one of them to leave her partner in peace. She didn’t want news of his death to leak. She didn’t want this town to hear her guilt. No matter how Sheriff Griffin tried to convince her this wasn’t her fault, she had been the one to tighten the handcuffs on Garrett’s wrists. She left him here overnight to meet his horrifying end alone, and the tears refused to stop. What she wouldn’t give to rewind time and ignore that jewelry box, to not abandon her innocent partner for the wolves.

Griffin was right. She was too close to this. He had promised to keep her informed of the case’s developments and to look into Eamon Stone, but then he forced her to leave the station after she gave her statement. It was the right call. Her heart was a wreck, her guilt eating her alive like a parasite, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t abandon Garrett.

“You’ll find the evidence that proves I’m innocent. I trust you.”He shouldn’t have trusted her. Look where it got him.

“I’m sorry, Garrett,” she whispered as she twisted the key in the ignition. If she sat in the parking lot any longer, she would find a way back inside, and her presence would only jeopardize the case. Emily noticed Garrett had feelings for her. Vera had practically pushed the two together. Griffin—as it turned out—suspected it too, and if they had spotted their relationship, then the entire town probably knew. She needed to leave, to give Garrett the best chance of finding justice.

The minute Bel got home and saw Cerberus, she burst into tears again. She was never this emotional during a case, but memories of her own bloody attack and kissing Garrett flooded the reasonable side of her brain. Perhaps Griffin taking her off the case was a good thing. She couldn't handle these killings at the moment.

The afternoon passed in a blur. She was a shell, a ghost haunting her own home. Even Cerberus was wary of her, both following her every movement and keeping his distance. Not knowing what was happening at the station was almost too much to bear, yet every time she tried to eat, the sight of Garrett’s blood burned her memory, turning her stomach. The hours dragged in an agonizing haze of nothingness. The day lasted a century. It lasted seconds.

Then, a little after 9:00 p.m., her cell rang, and Bel practically dove across her furniture to answer it.

“Emerson?” The Sheriff’s exhausted voice sounded through the phone. “I asked Thum to rush the autopsy instead of waiting until tomorrow. He was killed the same way as Lumen, Kaffe, and Legat, but you already knew that.”

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