“Cause of death?”
“Undetermined. There are a lot of wounds, so probably blood loss, but the medical examiner will have to look to be sure.”
“Weapon?”
“Knife seems like.”
That took Olin back, made him remember Kat and the blood on the comforter of that motel room. He swallowed hard, trying to push down the fact that this could have been Kat if they hadn’t been fast enough.
There was a lot of evil in the world, people who wanted to hurt others just because they could. Olin had gotten a front-row seat to that sort of thing enough times, but it hit differently when he knew the victim.
“Thanks,” Olin said, letting the officer off the hook from anything else. It wasn’t because he was being nice—the man looked green, and Olin didn’t want to have to explain why one of his officers had thrown up on the crime scene.
He crouched beside the body and moved the sheet. He wasn’t prepared, even with the officer’s description. Blood sat everywhere, so many wounds it was difficult at first to see a body past it.
At least, until he focused on the woman’s face—well what little was left of it—and noticed her hair.
A blond so pale it was essentially white.
A tightness he couldn’t help gripped his chest. It couldn’t be…
He moved the sheet but seeing more of the body didn’t clear anything up. Pale skin—it was hard to tell much more with so much blood and so many deep cuts—a body type that could have been her.
He yanked his cell from his pocket and dialed, terrified that he’d hear the ringing of Kat’s phone somewhere nearby him.
Nothing, though. Straight to voicemail.
He dialed again and again, the pressure around his heart increasing each time.
However, on what had to be the fifth time, a voice that made him nearly sag to the ground answered. “It’s creepy to call so many times in a row.”
Olin pulled in a shaky breath as he rose to his feet, trying to calm himself.
“Olin?” An uneasiness in her tone woke him up. He didn’t need to frighten her further.
“Sorry,” he said, having no idea if he’d calmed his voice enough to reassure her. “I, uh, wanted to see if you’d taken care of calling the victim’s advocate.”
“No. I said I didn’t need to.”
“Right, right.” His gaze drifted down to the body on the ground, the girl who could have been Kat’s twin. It felt like staring into a mirror of what things could have been like, what could have happened, and it shook him to his core. “Sorry. You be careful, okay, Kat?”
She didn’t answer right away, and when she did, her voice was soft. “Are you okay? You sound weird…”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just a hard case, I guess. I’ll talk to you later.” Olin hung up before Kat could respond, needing to get off the phone and get his mind back on the case at hand.
Yet, each time he stared at the body, each time he looked at the woman whose life someone had snuffed out so cruelly, he couldn’t focus. He couldn’t think about what had happened and his brain just kept looping back around to Kat, to how easily this could have been her.
It was foolish to pretend that woman meant nothing to him, wasn’t it? But… Olin had about lost everything once before, had seen how the world liked to crush those who didn’t quite fit in.
Kat was a bad bet any way he looked at it. A brat, a troublemaker, a woman healing from a traumatic experience, and a sub entangled in the Sanctuary scene. None of those things made her a viable option for him.
So why was it that he couldn’t stop thinking about her?
And why had he never felt fear like he had when he’d thought that body might just have been her…?
* * * *
Kat woke with a scream already tearing from her throat. The dream had feltsoreal. Jerry had been there, that fucking knife of his in his hand, and he’d laughed.