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“Yes, Detective Riley.”
Gently, he kissed me again before stepping back and finding his shoes. Something flashed in his gaze when he looked back at me from bedroom door, as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he gave a weak smile and left.
Once I heard the front door close, I put on my lounge pants from the night before so I wasn’t walking around naked and went into the living room.
Brysen was still snoring on the couch. I was happy to see him getting sleep. There were times when I worried about him. He was just as bad as Grayson sometimes with his insomnia. Since he’d been staying with me, though, he seemed to at least get a few hours each night.
After starting a pot of coffee, I went to take a shower. I didn’t work until later, but there were a few errands I had to run before then—drive across town to pay the water bill since the company lived in the freaking Stone Age and didn’t allow online payments, and I needed to get mine and Brysen’s VIP passes for the festival the following day.
I tried to forget about the person who’d drawn the smiley face on my bedroom window.
My neighborhood was normally quiet and was in the better part of town. Asshole teenagers never came to play pranks on people here, not like they did in the other neighborhoods. However, I wouldn’t let myself consider the alternative…that itwasn’ta group of kids and was instead the fucking serial killer.
I had a too-active imagination. That was all.
The killer must’ve seen me when he’d been stalking Beth, and he obviously had no interest in me. I was safe. Not his type.
Grayson was the one I needed to worry about. Hehadto go and piss off a damn psychopath.
Once I was out of the shower and dressed, I poured a mug of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to read news articles on my phone. Mid-sip, I stopped my scrolling and focused on one of the headlines.
“Vanity Killer Strikes Again: Mutilated Body Found Near the River.”
The body had been found in the next state over.
I called Grayson.
“Detective Riley.”
“Did you see the news? A body was found in Oklahoma.”
“Yeah, we just got word from the authorities,” Grayson responded. “It sounds like Ameinias. Cuts on the victim and a fatal blow to the gut, as well as white flowers around the body. We won’t know for sure, though, until we can look deeper into it and examine the body.”
“This is good, right?” I asked, as hope blossomed in my chest. “Not good for the person who died obviously, but at least he’s out of Addersfield.”
“If hehasmoved on, people here are safe. But it’s also disappointing. All the places we searched, all the work we put in, all for nothing. And I have no authority in Oklahoma. So the case is out of my hands.”
“You wanted to be the one to catch him,” I said.
“Yeah. He made it personal.” Grayson sighed, and I imagined him closing his eyes and massaging his temple, something he did when he was agitated. “I gotta go, baby. The feds just walked in, and we have to discuss where to go from here.”
He’d called mebaby.Damn, hearing that one word was more effective than coffee at perking me up. He didn’t seem to realize he’d said it, either. He sounded exhausted and stressed. He’d only been at work for a little over an hour and was already dealing with some shit.
“Be careful.”
“I will,” he answered. “I’ll call you later.”
Grayson disconnected the call, and I looked out the patio doors, thinking. Brysen was still snoring on the couch, adding an amusing background to my musings.
Addersfield wasn’t too far from the Oklahoma border where the body had been found. A little over an hour. But at least the killer had moved on. For the first time in weeks, I felt like I could truly breathe.
The storm had passed, and the sun was finally shining through the dark clouds.
***
The festival was more crowded than I’d anticipated. An empty lot outside of downtown Addersfield, as well as several acres of land beside it, had been completely transformed.
Tents were set up, along with various stages for the performers. Food trucks were parked throughout. The convention center was less than a block away, and it’d been rented out for all the graphic artists and chefs.
