Page 107 of A Witchy Spell Ride
“I don’t know.” The words burned. “But they’re close. Closer than we thought.”
Bones kicked the side table. “Could be someone inside.”
The room went quiet.
Because that thought?
Was worse than a stalker.
Worse than a stranger.
It meant we’d been looking the wrong way the whole time.
“Don’t touch anything else,” Cross snapped, already sliding nitrile gloves on like he was dressing for church. “Let me have it clean.”
He moved like a surgeon in a field hospital, swift, precise, contemptuous of the setting. He photographed first: blood pool, blade angle, the way Adam’s left sneaker still pressed a crease into the bedspread like his reflex had tried to stand him and failed. The motel Bible sat on the nightstand like a punchline. The TV was still on, volume low, blue light washing the room in a funeral.
I scanned the corners the way I was trained. Trash can. Sink. A single red petal in the basin, stuck to porcelain by a bead of pink water.
“Cross.” I pointed with my chin.
He bagged it. “He wants us to know he was here,” Cross said, voice flat. “But this? This feels… off-brand.”
“How.”
“Our petal boy loves theater,” Cross said. “Roses on counters. In doorways. On clean surfaces you can’t miss. Sink petal that could slide down the drain? That’s either rushed, or not his style.”
“So, there were two,” Bones said. “One who kills quiet. One who leaves pretty.”
“Or,” Reaper said, “One man with an audience in his head.”
I moved to the bathroom doorway and leaned in without crossing the threshold. There — lower hinge, fresh scuff. Door had been blocked open. Killer wanted sightlines. On the laminate counter near the sink: a ghost of citrus and solvent. Not motel cleaner. Shop degreaser. The kind we keep by the garage sink.
“Smell that?” I asked.
Bones sniffed. “Citrus-and-lie. Shop brand.”
“Someone’s hands aren’t office-soft,” I said. “This wasn’t an accountant who bought a knife.”
Cross crouched by Adam’s feet. “Look at the left trouser leg,” he said. “Fine black grit. Asphalt dust. Not from this room.” He bagged that too. “And the cut.” He tilted the camera for me. “Upward, fast, left-to-right. Killer’s right-handed. Strong.”
“Everyone we know is right-handed,” Bones said. “Except Vex when he’s drunk.”
I drifted to the window, pulled the curtain with one knuckle. View of the lot. Half dozen cars. The river of neon beyond. A ladder shadow crossed the asphalt, from a work truck two slots over with a magnet stuck on the door:River Grove Heating.We’ve seen that magnet on more vans than I liked.
“Plate?”
“Swapped,” Cross said, already two moves ahead. “Again.”
Reaper touched the wall with two fingers, as if he could listen through paint to what happened minutes ago. “He never made it to Selene tonight,” he said. “He was cut out of his own show.”
I looked down at Adam’s face and felt nothing. Not pity. Not relief. Just the cold understanding that our map had been wrong.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Cross’s secondary line, the one he sets to alert on strange events without having to be asked.
Ghost. Security feed just went down at the clubhouse. Only in the west wing. Back hallway.
