Page 36 of Edge of Control

Before I could type out my message, the other phone vibrated against the glass coffee table. Luke startled at the sound. He jumped off the couch and went to the kitchen, where I heard him begin to stress eat.

Same, buddy. Same.

I grabbed the burner phone. It was a message from my contact in Pressure Point.

G: Rachel is down to meet tonight. You free?

Well, there was my answer. I couldn’t see Jace tonight.

It appeared that I had other plans.

Chapter 14

Jace Holloway

There was another murder,this one slightly different from the last few.

It was a woman, for starters, so the killer didn’t appear to have a preference when it came to targeting genders. And this one wasn’t discovered in her bedroom. Instead, she was in the living room, on the floor, the carpet underneath her crusted in blood but her body mostly clean of it. A gash across her neck was the cause of death. Her head hung limp, her dark black hair falling down over her lifeless face like a curtain.

And then there were the wings. Those were the same as before. Large, sprouting out from her shoulders, appearing as though they were already in flight. They glimmered underneath the white lights of her living room.

She didn’t have roommates, and the neighbors hadn’t heard any kind of struggles, nor did they spot anyone that raised red flags.

Itwas a clean kill with a clean getaway.

This time, though, there wasn’t a camera. At least none that were apparent.

“When was the time of death?” I asked Officer Caleb. He had a scruffy blond beard and heavy eyelids. It was like he’d aged ten years in three weeks ever since he started working the case.

I understood that feeling.

“Forensics puts it at sometime around eleven last night.”

The yellow crime scene tape that closed off her apartment door flitted in the wind from an open window. The sounds of the city filtered in. Honks, shouts, talking, busses. So many people walking by, minding their own business, enveloped in their own lives, completely unaware someone’s life had ended just feet away from them.

“Do we have her cell phone? Laptop?”

“It’s with the FBI right now.”

“Damn,” I said. I knew them getting involved would complicate things for me, but that was fine. The ultimate goal here was uncovering Nevermore. If they did it first, then so be it. This wasn’t a race.

Although I did want to win.

“I do have a contact for you. I think they’ll play ball. Her name is Angela Wolf.”

“Perfect,” I said, taking the contact info in my phone. I’d give her a ring later. But first, I wanted to turn this place inside out, inch by inch.

I started with her bedroom, searching for anything that could help. Why was it that the others were dead andpoised on their beds, but she was in the living room? I looked through her closet. Found a book bag with textbooks about psychology and a class schedule. Damn. She was likely a college student, younger than the other murders.

What kind of sick fuck was behind this? Luring innocent people into having sex with them and then killing them at their most vulnerable?

And why wasn’t a signature—besides the wings—left at this crime scene? No poem?

I checked around her bed stand, looked around her wardrobe. She had modest clothing mixed with more risqué outfits. Leather and lingerie. There was a crop leaning against the wall. Furry pink handcuffs by the floor.

I went back to the living room. She had a large apartment. Must have cost upward of two thousand dollars a month in rent.

“All of these victims lived alone, and they’ve all been pretty set up. But none have had lucrative jobs that we know of, huh?”

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