And him? Exhaustion tugged at him despite his sleep. He thought back to the fights with Kat before, to the times when they’d ended up in this exact place, both battling for control, both too fucking cowardly to fix anything or be honest.
Instead, they just chipped away at each other until nothing was left. They picked at one another until love changed into something so much darker. Talk about toxic.
Yet, she never left his head, had lived there the whole damned time they’d been apart.
He rubbed his eyes and wondered just how he’d survive another round of this mess.
* * * *
Olin swallowed as the images from the murders spread across his desk.
They were up to eight women, all tortured and murdered, and all of them with hair just like Kat’s…
They were the same general height and weight, the same pale skin. Their hair was often recently dyed, as if someone had wanted them to appear a certain way and was willing to alter them to make it happen.
Each body that had shown up added to Olin’s fears, to this nagging feeling inside him he couldn’t ignore. The bodies were all found in areas of the city where Jerry had power and they all looked like Kat.
They also all had knife cuts like the ones he knew Kat had.
As much as Olin wanted to believe it had nothing to do with her, he wasn’t the sort of man to lie to himself, especially not over anything this important.
Could these be some message?
No, Kat hadn’t mentioned anything, and Jerry didn’t seem like the type to not personally deliver such a message. If he’d reached out to Kat, the woman would have said something to Olin.
Right?Olin hated that he wasn’t sure about it. Kat was difficult to read, but he couldn’t imagine she’d be foolish enough to ignore such a threat.
So maybe, if Jerry was behind it, he was simply picking girls who looked similar? Was it some perverse fantasy he wanted to relive?
Olin let out a long sigh before a knock on the door had him calling for the guest to enter.
Olin wasn’t surprised when Dean walked in—he’d called him there in the first place.
Dean moved his gaze over the desk, then pursed his lips. Yeah, it didn’t take much to figure out the topic. “Well, that’s not good. Heard rumors about a serial killer, but I sure didn’t think the victims would all look like that.”
Olin gestured at the chair. “So it’s not just me.”
Dean shook his head. “They all look like Kat. How many in total?”
“Eight bodies so far—all left out in the open. Whoever is behind it wants them found.”
Dean sat and blew out a slow breath. “Does Kat know?”
“Not yet. Wasn’t sure how to handle that issue.”
“How to handle Kat, you mean?” Dean chuckled as if the idea itself were hilarious. “That woman does what she wants when she wants to. I don’t know if there’s any handling to be done with her.”
His words took Olin back to watching DeanhandleKat a few nights before at Sanctuary. Kat might hiss a bit, but there was no doubt she melted just as hard.
Still, Olin tried to keep his mind on the task at hand. “Normally I’d let her know, because if this is about her, she could be in danger. However…”
Dean picked up the thought easily. “However, Kat had a talent for doing the exact wrong thing in any situation. I have a feeling if she found out about this, she’d decide to go confront him, and we don’t needthat.”
“But we can’t ignore it, either.”
Dean let out a sigh but nodded. “You’re right about that. We need to talk to Bradley and clue him in on what’s going on. At that point, we can make sure someone is always watching her.”
“Won’t she notice that? She doesn’t strike me as the sort of girl who is going to just go along with that.”