Famished, Meghan O'Flynn [free ebooks romance novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Meghan O'Flynn
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Curious.
A clatter arose downstairs. He followed the noise to the kitchen.
She was standing at the stove, with her back to him wearing a pair of flannel pajamas and fluffy yellow socks. The dishwasher stood open but empty.
Hannah turned as he approached, her cheeks flushed with the heat from the pan, a spiral notebook clutched against her chest. She slid the book onto the counter behind her back, eyes locked on his. “I was making a spinach and mushroom omelet for you. Looks like you’re up too early for breakfast in bed.”
“Looks like I’m awake too early to pick up the clothing from last night as well.”
Alarm flashed across her features. “Sorry, I—I like things clean.” She looked down as if that were something to be ashamed of—as if the world wouldn’t be a better place if everyone picked up their shit.
More curious.
“I do, too,” he said simply.
She grabbed a spatula, cut the omelet in the pan, and slid two almost symmetrical halves onto a pair of plates, then put the pan in the sink.
In the dining room, the table was already set with orange juice, coffee, and sliced melon.
Yes, he could get used to this. Perhaps he’d let her stay forever.
It’s quiet here.
An hour from Petrosky’s usual domain, far from the brick and mortar of the city, the howling wind lashed against fields of dead grass and grain. While nearby areas were covered with higher-end condos and lakefront housing developments, this town just outside Lapeer had peaked and declined well before his killer had made the trek out here.
The run-down barn was tucked in the back corner of an abandoned wheat field, at the end of a gravel drive. To his right, he could make out a trailer park in the distance, though it was too far for anyone to have heard much.
I’ll question them anyway.
In the middle of a pasture on his other side, an enormous metal chicken loomed, the only thing around that appeared to be in good repair, despite deposits of graying snow on its beak. Fucking country folk. Maybe his killer had a sense of humor.
The barn itself was missing boards like many of the other barns in the area. Through holes in the ceiling, frosty sunlight speckled the straw-covered floor. The air was redolent with damp hay and the iron scent of freshly spilled blood.
The girl was laid out on a wooden table at the back of the barn. Like the other girls, her wrists and ankles were secured by leather restraints, which had been fastened to the table legs. Her stomach had been sliced neatly in half, like two sections of a broken heart. The pieces lay on top of her chest, the remnants of her last meal teeming with ants. Jumbled corkscrews of intestine dangled from her belly down onto the sawdust and what might have been the top of an ant’s nest below the table—they’d probably been hibernating when they were disturbed by the dripping of warm bodily fluids. The techs bustled around the perimeter of the room, either done with the table or simply avoiding the mess.
“The location is different,” Petrosky said finally. “This rural thing isn’t his style.”
Morrison’s face was green. Rookies. You never knew when they were going to lose their cool or their lunch. Here it was probably the bugs, the way Morrison was staring at them.
“Well…yeah, Boss, the location is different, but the building is just as dilapidated. And the place itself probably has the same number of people within a two-mile radius as those old housing projects. The modus operandi is consistent with the first two as well.”
“Modus what?”
“It’s Latin. It means—”
“I don’t give a fuck what it means, Surfer Boy. And breathe through your mouth before you throw up.”
A winter bird, blue and orange, squalled and fluttered out through a gap in the ceiling above. Petrosky watched the bird disappear into the frigid sky.
“Maybe our killer ran out of places in the city,” Morrison said.
Or he’s escalating, broadening his territory. “They know who the girl is?”
Morrison looked at his notes. “Working girl, same deal. Bianca Everette. Her driver’s license was under the table. Not bothering to hide their identities, is he?”
It was a dare, a tease. “This guy’s fucking with us,” Petrosky said.
“We’ve got something over here.” A tiny wisp of a woman with a tattoo behind her ear and short-cropped platinum blond hair waved a flashlight from the front corner of the barn.
Petrosky headed her way, leaving Morrison by the body.
“What’ve you got?”
She pointed near the corner where a splintered piece of plywood leaned against the wall. “Behind it. I was dusting above the board and touched it to secure my tape, and—”
Petrosky squinted in the dim light. “Show me.”
She pinched a corner of the board and lifted it away from the wall. He peered into the space, past threads of cobweb strung with sawdust. There were marks there, uniform, deliberate.
“Need a bigger light over here!”
The crime tech slid the plywood out of the way.
Morrison shone a thick flashlight beam onto the words, dark brown now, hard to read against the grime. With a blood tracking LED, they’d light up like Christmas.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
A tech behind him snapped a picture.
“What do you have?” Graves ducked into the barn, boards squeaking under his shoes.
“Poem, in blood, like the others. He’s trying to tell us something, but I just can’t—”
“ID?”
“Bianca Everette.”
“Where’s she from?”
“Close to here according to her license.”
Graves whipped out his phone, tapped the screen, and put it to his ear. “Hernandez? I need you to do a background on a Bianca Everette. Look at newspaper ads in the Lapeer area and anywhere nearby. And I need someone to pull all escort services in a fifty-mile radius. Have something for me when I get back.” He slid his phone back into his pocket.
Petrosky’s muscles vibrated with tension. “What the hell was that about?”
“They’re already in front of a computer, Petrosky. Tricky guys. Can crack into anything to get what we need in ten minutes.”
“So can my guy, Graves.” He gestured to Morrison. Morrison straightened, jaw set.
“It’s under control, Petrosky.”
Rage burned in Petrosky’s chest. “This is bullshit.”
Graves glowered at him. “If you’re so anxious to make yourself useful, go to her house. Find her next of kin. Go talk to her mother. Get us something we can use this time.”
Petrosky sucked down three cigarettes in the six miles to the Everette house. He tossed the last butt into a swath of pine trees in the front yard. The house was tiny, maybe eight hundred square feet, with two windows—the one on the left, probably for the living room, and the one on the right belonging to a single bedroom, as evidenced by a pillow and a stuffed bear smashed against the inner screen. From the front porch, Petrosky could have reached out and touched either one.
Morrison stood behind him, as irritatingly calm as he’d been on the drive over. Apparently, year-round sunshine made you care less about FBI shitheads. Petrosky breathed through his nose like a bull and fantasized about goring Graves, or at least breaking his jaw. It almost made him forget that he was there to give a mother news that would fuck up her life irreparably. Fast and direct. That was the best way to do it. Coddling wouldn’t make a kid any less dead. Still, he felt like a truck was sitting on his chest. Dammit.
He knocked.
The front door opened to reveal a woman with papery thin eyelids and a strawberry bun streaked with white. A boy of about four sat on her hip, his thumb in his mouth, his shirt dirty with the remains of breakfast. The wind huffed freezing air at them through the open doorway, and the kid buried his face in her neck.
“Donna Everette?” Petrosky said.
“Yes?” Her voice was low, soft, cautious.
He flashed his badge. “Detective Petrosky. We need to speak with you, ma’am.”
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