Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
All of me.
And inexplicably, impossibly, she’s still here.
She turns away to put on her shoes, but I close the distance between us in two strides. My hand catches her arm, gently turning her to face me. Questions flutter in her eyes, but I don’t have answers, only the overwhelming need to connect, to affirm that something real exists beneath the horror and manipulation.
I kiss her, not with the ferocious hunger of our first time, not with the drugged abandon of last night, or the possession of a few moments ago, but with deliberate tenderness. For a moment she’s still, surprised, then her arms wind around my neck, drawing me closer. The kiss deepens and I fall deeper.
When we break apart, I rest my forehead against hers. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I confess. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be whole again. But, somehow, you fill the gaps inside me, Lena. You put me back together. This—you—it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
She touches my face, her fingertips tracing the line of my jaw, her thumb sliding over my mouth. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”
“Together,” I repeat, the word feeling like solid ground in a world that’s crumbling beneath our feet.
The morgue is housed in the basement of the county hospital, a sterile maze of tile and fluorescent lighting that does nothing to mask the pervasive smell of formaldehyde and death, the scents stronger than they’ve ever been to my sensitive nose. As Lena and I navigate the corridor, I find myself hyperaware of her presence beside me—the slight rhythm of her breathing, the subtle shift of her weight with each step. Even in this clinical setting, surrounded by the aftermath of violence, she infiltrates my mind like a virus I’d gladly succumb to.
Coleman is waiting for us outside the autopsy room, leaning against the wall with a cigarette burning between his fingers despite the prominent NO SMOKING signs. His eyebrows lift fractionally when he sees Lena.
“Ms. Reid,” he acknowledges with a nod before turning to me. “Didn’t realize you were bringing company, Victor.”
“Lena is helping with my investigation,” I tell him.
Coleman studies us both, his detective’s eyes missing nothing—the way Lena stays close to my side, the protective angle of my body toward hers. “Must be some help,” he observes dryly.
“What’ve we got?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Jeanne French. Forty-five. Army nurse.” Coleman pushes away from the wall, leading us toward the autopsy room. “Found in a vacant lot off South Norton Avenue early this morning. Everyone’s calling it the ‘Lipstick Murder’ because the killer wrote on her body.”
“Wrote what?” Lena asks, her heels clicking as we walk.
“Fuck You P.D. in her own lipstick,” Coleman says grimly. “Press got word, thinks it said B.D. for the Black Dahlia. They’re having a field day with that theory.”
“But is it the same killer as Elizabeth Short?” I press.
Coleman’s mouth tightens. “Different method, similar ritual elements. She was beaten to death, not cut in half, but her body was nearly drained of blood. And there are other markings—symbols carved into her torso that match what we found on Winters and Short.”
Inside the autopsy room, the body lies on a stainless-steel table, a sheet drawn up to her chin. The medical examiner, a balding man with thick glasses, looks up from his clipboard as we enter.
“Detective Coleman,” he acknowledges. “Mr. Callahan. And…” He looks questioningly at Lena.
“A consultant,” Coleman says before I can speak. “It’s fine, Doc. What can you tell us?”
The medical examiner pulls back the sheet, revealing a middle-aged woman with dark hair. Her face is badly beaten, almost unrecognizable, with severe bruising and fractures across her facial bones. Unlike Elizabeth Short’s almost theatrical presentation, Jeanne French’s death appears brutally direct—rage rather than ceremony.
Or at least, that’s what it's designed to look like.
“Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head and chest,” the examiner explains clinically. “Multiple broken ribs, one of which punctured the right lung. But as with the Short case, there’s a nearly complete absence of blood in the body—much more than would naturally drain from the external wounds.”
“They collected it,” Lena murmurs.
Coleman and the examiner both look at her sharply.
“It’s a logical conclusion,” she says quickly. “If this is a ritual killing, blood collection would be consistent with certain occult practices.”
I step closer to the body, my enhanced vision picking up details I might have missed before my transformation. Beneath the obvious trauma, there are precise incisions on her torso—strange symbols carved post-mortem, similar to what I’d glimpsed in the warehouse with Lena.
“These markings,” I say, pointing to the symbols partially obscured by bruising. “They seem deliberate.”
“Yes,” the examiner agrees with a raised brow. “At first glance, they appeared to be random injuries from the beating. But under closer examination, they’re too precise, too patterned. Someone carved these after death.”