Page 21 of Lovely Violent Things

Too soon, she pulls away and enters the house.

I stand at the entrance, inhaling the lingering scent of her ylang-ylang and clove, whetting my appetite with a hit of her fear.

Then I step over the threshold.

Not only was Landry a recluse—the locals dubbing him the hermit—he was a hoarding recluse. Stacks of old, musty newspapers tower along one wall. Magazines against another. Miscellaneous mail and papers scatter every available section of the hardwood floor that some heap of junk isn’t taking space.

Buried beneath the mounds of garbage are antique furnishings. The sprawling entryway is paneled in deep mahogany, and gothic arches frame the hallways. Moving farther into the interior, the expansive main room opens up to two ascending staircases, where towering stained glass windows reach toward a cathedral ceiling.

I can imagine the pride that once went into this home. The old money, too. Then the unfortunate decay that took root with the newest owner.

A hit of nostalgia creeps into my bones, the structure reminiscent of the home where I was raised. Home is a stretch. It had walls and furniture and old money, too—even the decay.

I lift my foot and kick a tacky leaf of paper from my boot heel, watching a bug skitter beneath another heap.

“Oh, my god,” Halen says. “There’s no way the task force could process all this. It’s impossible.”

They likely only searched long enough to uncover the proof needed to make Landry as the prime suspect. A report which noted the wine-making apparatus in the cellar, and the esoteric tomes along with a wide collection of philosophy in the library.

“Our horned hunter makes Dr. Torres look like a tidy little neat-freak,” I say. “Which doesn’t fit your profile at all.”

The person who painstakingly measured each dissected eye to display the organs on marsh trees is obsessed with order and exactness. This is the first thing I deduced when I saw the ritual crime scene.

Halen turns incensed eyes on me. “And just what happened to Dr. Torres?” she demands. “I heard he’s been admitted to his own hospital for psychiatric care.”

I glance back at Hernandez picking through a pile of comic books. Then I take a step toward Halen, watching her slight frame tense. “I have never harmed the good doctor,” I tell her honestly.

She shakes her head, appall evident in her pretty features. “You’re lying—”

I place a finger over her mouth, stopping her words. Shock prevents her from pushing me away as she stares up at me, silence fueling the anticipation between us.

I keep my finger pressed to her mouth a beat longer, then gently drag it down, letting the pad taste the softness of her lips. “As much as you enjoy making me your devil, I didn’t have to hurt him,” I say, my tone urging her to hear the truth. “Nietzsche set the bar high for mad genius, but sadly for Torres, he’s just plain-old mad.”

She blinks, gauging me through the thick fringe of her lashes, before she takes a deliberate step backward. I observe the hard swallow that drags enticingly along her neck. My gaze settles on the hollow of her throat, where the diamond from her engagement ring used to rest.

She never put the necklace back on.

“No,” she says, nodding her reply. “You don’t lie, Kallum. You just twist the truth until it’s no longer recognizable as such.”

Slipping the glove onto my hand over the bandage, I say, “That’s your philosophy, sweetness.” I push in close to tower over her. “Fortunately, my dissertation was on settling arguments, and I love to prove myself right.”

I sidestep her, in search of the one room in this dilapidated heap that may garner any real truth.

Following the rows of unopened boxes and trash, I locate the library and roll the doors open to expose an opulent room—the only room untouched by the owner’s mental illness. There is no junk or clutter here. The mahogany bookcases are full of timeworn books and some newer editions.

An intricately carved wood desk is centrally located in the room, with a globe and mapping tools. A large herringbone bricked fireplace takes up one corner, a leather reading chair neatly positioned next to the raised hearth.

Halen enters, and I feel her shiver of excitement roll under my skin.

As I walk alongside the inlaid bookcase, I probe at the glove, outlining the ring on my thumb. I reach a row of leather-bound volumes and pause to read the spines.

“Don’t touch—”

Too late to heed her warning, I pull a book from the stack. “This world has been around longer than your laws. Why try to live by them and their rules? In time, they’ll only change again. So take what you want from this life, because it only gives you a small window to choose.” I trek to the desk and crack the musty book open. “Do we really have time to wait for the task force to tag it for processing?”

Her dainty brows knit together, and I love witnessing her moral battle. She breaks rules all the time. Her methods are questionable. Yet she’s trying so hard to walk the straight and narrow when it comes to me, wary of making a mistake. I wonder whose actions she’s more worried over: mine or hers.

Such a dilemma.

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