Page 29 of What We May Be

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He rubbed his hand across his cheek again, trying and failing to reduce the sting. “She still scares the shit out of me.”

Smiling, Charlie brushed aside his hand to inspect the damage herself, her fingertips lightly grasping his stubbled jaw and setting off a totally different kind of sting. “Some things never change.”

“No, they don’t.” His response was low, husky, and it drew her gaze to his lips. Not intended but unmistakable, and a rush of warmth spread up his neck and down to places he had no business thinking about at a crime scene.

“Yo!” Maggie called, shattering the charged moment. “There’s a dead body in here.”

Charlie removed her hand, and Sean reined in his careening desire. Pulling up his agent persona, he willed his id to behave and stepped into the room.

Diego wasn’t kidding, and Sean was in the same boat as Jaylen. He hadn’t seen worse than this either. The sight would replay in his nightmares forever.

Stripped naked, Julian Hirsch had been positioned spread-eagle on the bed, a limb tied to each post. Blood coated the ropes, the bedposts, and his thighs and groin that had been scored. Blood was smeared around his mouth, red on his pale, slack face, like someone had covered his mouth and pinched shut his nose.

“Smothered,” Maggie confirmed. “By hand, then pillow.”

And to think, Tracy had come home from the hospital to find her husband dead in their bed, bloodied and butchered. Based on first impressions downstairs, Sean wasn’t a fan, but he wouldn’t wish this discovery on anyone. That thought, more than the scene itself, made his stomach lurch. He turned his back on the room and braced a hand against the bathroom doorjamb. Eyes closed, he struggled to catch a breath, afraid the deep inhale he needed would make his stomach churn worse.

Beside him, Charlie snapped her fingers Maggie’s direction. “Vicks.”

Pocket contents jangled, then a moment later, Charlie shoved a travel-sized metal can into his hand. “Under the nose,” she said.

He stripped off a glove, popped open the canister, and dabbed the strong-smelling balm beneath his nostrils. He handed the canister back to Charlie and breathed deep, letting the menthol do its work. Charlie settled against the wall to his left, giving him space to pull himself together but letting him know she was there. Sean wrestled his gut and mind into check, and when all was stable, relatively, he glared at Maggie from beneath a raised brow. “‘Ain’t pretty’?”

“Sorry.” She tossed them each a new pair of gloves. “I might have understated that a bit.”

Charlie joined him beside the bed. “Just a wee bit.”

“You got the note?” Sean asked.

The ME withdrew a plastic bag out of the evidence case on the dresser and handed it across the bed to him.

“Where was it?” Charlie asked from over his shoulder.

“Tacked to that pillow”—she jutted her chin at a bagged bloodied pillow on the other end of the dresser—“over his face.”

Sean studied the newest note. Same paper, same red block letters, but with the next number and a new quote:

#2 – SO SWEET WAS NE’ER SO FATAL.

“Desdemona,” Charlie said.

Sean whipped around, brow raised even higher.

“HU’s Repertory Theatre put on Othello last year,” she said with a shrug. “Annie and Trevor dragged me with them. Desdemona was falsely accused of adultery.”

“Nothing false about this one,” Maggie quipped. “That man was the walking definition of can’t keep his dick in his pants. Now”—she gestured at the bed—“no pants.”

Sean groaned.

“Sorry, sorry,” Maggie said.

“I don’t know how Diego does it,” Charlie said with a chuckle. “Speaking of, can you go downstairs and tell your husband and Jaylen to gather everyone in the dining room for a debrief? Looks like we’ve officially got a serial case.”

“Sure thing.” Maggie covered Julian’s body with a sheet and removed her gloves. She paused halfway to the door and pointed at Sean. “I’m watching you.”

Sean waited until she left the room to shiver dramatically. “Yep, definitely hates me.” Charlie didn’t smile at his joke, which meant she was taking this one harder than usual. “You okay?”

“It’s hard seeing someone I know butchered like that.” Her eyes flitted to the bed and back. “You okay?”

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