Tatum.
Emma.
Nix.
Carly.
Ali.
Quinn.
Brooklyn.
Daisy.
Addilyn.
Alice.
Tucker.
Trey.
Juliette…
My breath rings in my ears and my heart pounds as the world around me warps and fear creeps up my spine. Rodriguez calls out to two men standing near the body and as they wheel the gurney over, my stomach rolls. I want to leave, turn away from what I know is coming, but I can’t move no matter how hard I try. The men stop next to us and Rodriguez pulls the sheet back.
“Sammy,” I breathe. A sense of relief shoots through me, quick as a flash, before the pain descends and I take a step back, tears stinging my eyes as I stare at her bruised and bloody face. Memories come rushing back from my past and another wave of pain crashes into me, this one older and weathered from years of tormenting me.
“What happened?” Blaze asks, snapping me out of my daze and I take a step forward as I push the pain away, ready to funnel all my energy into examining the scene around us. Rodriguez shakes his head as he covers her with the sheet again.
“We’re not sure yet but it appears someone lured her out of her apartment and attacked her from the cover of the trees.” He points over my shoulder and I turn, studying the thick patch of foliage behind me. “She stumbled out of there and made it into the street before she collapsed.”
“How did she die?”
Rodriguez glances over at the gurney. “We don’t have an official cause of death yet but it looks like someone literally beat her to death.”
“Jesus,” Kodiak hisses, shaking his head. “Poor girl.”
“We just saw her,” Fuzz adds, looking as shell shocked as I feel. It’s insane. Only a week ago, we were helping her move boxes into her new place and now she’s dead. But how? The man who hurt her, the man we saved her from, he’s gone. None of this makes any sense. Blaze runs his hand through his hair.
“How did you know to call us?” I ask. When we saved Sammy from her captor, we never involved Rodriguez in that part of it so there’s no way he could have known that we had helped her.
He grabs an evidence bag and presents it to us. “This was on top of her body.”
My eyes widen as I stare at our business card, covered in blood and Fuzz releases a stream of curses. We gave her a couple of our cards but the placement doesn’t make any sense. The only way that it would have been laying on top of her body would be if the killer put it there himself.
“Do you have any witnesses?” Kodiak asks and Rodriguez shakes his head.
“I have officers canvasing the area but it’s not looking good.”
“So you don’t have any leads?”
Rodriguez sighs. “I just started the investigation, Blaze, but I promise I’ll keep you guys updated.”
Blaze nods and shakes his hand. “Please do. We’ll let you get back to work.”
Rodriguez nods and turns back to the crime scene as Blaze ushers us back to our bikes, all of our questions hanging over us like a cloud.
“Who would do this?” Kodiak asks as we stand on the sidewalk, watching the police work. Blaze shakes his head.
“I don’t know. After all that girl survived…” He blows out a breath. “She deserved better than this.”
Something nags at me and I scowl as I watch them load her body into the medical examiner’s van, unable to put my finger on it. We had such a run of bad luck lately when it comes to the girls we help and I can’t help but feel like we’re failing in our mission.
“Something more is going on here,” Fuzz says and Blaze’s eyes narrow.
“What do you mean?”
He shakes his head. “I mean, this is the second girl to die after we helped her in the past year or so and with Dina, we all assumed her ex did it but Sammy’s abuser is dead so…”
“The only other connection is us,” I whisper.
“No,” Kodiak snaps, taking a step back as he shakes his head. “That’s insane. Who would do that?”
I smack his chest with the back of my hand. “Think about all the women we’ve helped, then think about all the men who would have a reason to hate us. Surely one of them is mad enough and crazy enough to do something like this.”
“There could be other things that we’ve missed, too,” Fuzz adds, his face grave. “We need to get Streak to start looking into this and we all need to start going over old cases as well but we need to do it quietly.”
Kodiak holds his hands up. “Hold on. Two times is a coincidence, not a pattern.”
“And if you’re wrong? Are you really willing to let another girl die before we start looking into this?”
“This is insane,” I breathe, tipping my head back and squeezing my eyes shut for a second before blowing out a breath and meeting their gazes. My thoughts keep swirling back to Juliette no matter how hard I try to think of something else and the thought of her getting hurt kills me. “We’ve got too many important people in our lives to take the chance that this isn’t connected.”
“And let’s say it is connected and we start looking into it and only end up pissing whoever it is off more. Then what?”
“Enough,” Blaze says, his voice full of authority and we all turn to him. “You all have valid points. We’ll start looking into this but we’ll do it carefully and quietly. The last thing we need is to lose anyone else.”
Chapter Fifteen
Juliette
Butterflies flutter around in my belly and each breath I take rings in my ears as I smooth my trembling hands down my jeans and glance up at the clock. Before he left this morning, Sawyer told me he would be home at five and I have just about five minutes to finish this up before he gets home.
God, why am I so nervous?
After my lunch with Mercedes today, I decided to run to the store and grab what I needed to throw together a quiet little dinner for Sawyer and me so I could thank him for letting me stay here. It was just supposed to be casual and allow us to start exploring our feelings like we talked about last night and I thought I would be okay but now that he’s almost here, I feel like I am about to go on my first date all over again. I have never cooked for a man, at least I don’t think I have, and since I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, I couldn’t exactly ask him what he liked or if he is allergic to anything. This whole thing could really blow up in my face.
Burying my face in my hands, I groan. What the hell was I thinking? This is going to be a disaster, I just know it. My heart jumps in my chest and I take a deep breath before shaking out my hands. This is crazy. How does he affect me so much? Granted I don’t remember a huge chunk of my recent past but I don’t ever remember feeling like this before meeting Sawyer. He lights a fire inside me. A fire that is just as warm and comforting as it is exciting and I can’t imagine ever giving it up. But I’m still lying to him and I have no idea what he’s going to do when the truth comes out.
Maybe I should just tell him. Maybe I should just open up and let him in to the horror of my life for the past two weeks but the way I feel around him feels too damn good and I’m quickly becoming addicted to it. What if his feelings for me change once he knows the whole story? I honestly don’t know what I would do or how I would cope if he decided he wanted to walk away from me.