Kiss of Death

Book 2: Shadows of Love

by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain

Genres: Horror; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

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Release date: June 30, 2025

Publisher: Smarmy Press

Print pages: 594

Sample

Prologue

 

The steam rises along the shower curtain and coils against the ceiling, tendrils wrapping around and around themselves like snakes made of mist.

The water sprays in an endless sizzle. Blessed white noise. The gurgle of the sucking drain only seems to add a hollow rhythm beneath the purr.

Erik knifes a hand through the cloud of vapor and twists the stainless steel handle. The warm spray cuts off, that pins-and-needles feeling in his chest snuffed out all at once.

The showerhead drips a few times, and then a quiet seems to spread outward from this spot, a fresh stillness filling the shower, filling the bathroom, filling the house. Even surrounded by steam, goosebumps ripple over the surface of Erik’s flesh.

The quiet holds him there for a few seconds. He stands in the cooling steam, feels the air gently shifting around him.

He listens. Lets his hearing reach beyond the bathroom, stretch down the long hallway.

Nothing seems to stir in the rest of the house.

He always feels awkward in other people’s homes, twitchy and nervous, and the feeling is somehow heightened in foreign bathrooms. Stripping naked and showering pushes it up to a higher level still.

Nude in a strange place. Vulnerable. So vulnerable he can almost hear the Psycho soundtrack screeching its galloping pulse. But he pushes the shower curtain aside, and no knife comes ripping for him.

He steps out. A floofy bath mat cushions the floor, little twists of fabric like blue dreadlocks nestling against his feet.

And then, as though arriving on some kind of three-second broadcast delay, the air hits.

The air-conditioned room seems frigid against his wet skin. The chill hugs around the flanks of his torso first and then slides itself over the planes of his back and chest like a pair of flatted hands gone icy and dry.

He shivers a little. Towels himself off and wraps the lush thing around his waist.

Stepping forward, he smears a palm over the mirror. The layer of steam swipes away at his touch, and his face appears there in the dewy glass.

He always cringes at the sight of his own face — the collection of features somehow worse than he can ever remember. Striking in the way the pieces don’t quite fit together. A puzzle with something missing where the angular chin and bladed cheekbones should be.

Weak jaw. Crooked eyes. Big forehead slowly growing as, even at 24, his hairline retreats for the crown of his skull.

There’s a fleshiness — a pouchiness — to his face that he can’t stand. Buccal fat bulging where the sharp lines should be. A sag in the cheeks pulls the skin into creased bags along each side of his nose.

Probably why Donna left me.

But no. No. It had been more complicated than that. It always was.

They’d been engaged, and he’d envisioned their lives together many times. Fantasies of a house, kids, all of it.

But it hadn’t worked out. Life often doesn’t.

Anyway, there’s been no one since Donna. Three years. God knows he’s tried.

And a strobing montage of rejection flashes deep in his skull. Memories of faces, places, and pain. A vast sea of pain.

Suffering is supposed to relent when one accepts it. Surrender is supposed to sap the torment of its power. He tries it over and over internally like a mantra.

You’re not what anyone wants.

You’re not.

But it’s OK.

It’s OK.

This is just how it is.

He brings his hands to his face. Fingers the pudge of each cheek and pulls back toward the crooks of his jaw. Tests out something like a facelift in the mirror.

He blinks and focuses on the new person there. Eyes tracing the fresh jawline before making eye contact with his double.

He looks different. Leaner. Harder. Not exactly great, but different.

Something creaks out in the hall, and he freezes. Lets his jowls fall back into place.

Floorboard groaning?

Someone here?

He listens again. Lets his eyes swivel to the whitewashed plane of the bathroom door. The air seems to tighten around him, an icy fist clutching his chest.

No further sounds come. That stillness seems to settle over the house again.

Just being paranoid.

The house is settling or something.

His eyes shift back to that saggy face in the mirror, trace the soft lines that draw him there. The steam is starting to blot his image out again. A mercy.

He sighs, wind wisping against his lips.

I’m not what the world wants.

But it’s OK.

It’s OK.

He pries his gaze from the glass and dresses then. Pulls on a baggy pair of jeans and a baggier t-shirt, both of which he’d found in a dresser in the master bedroom.

He cinches the waist of the jeans with a leather belt, but that doesn’t stop the shirt from hanging on him funny — a loose tarp that reaches down to almost mid-thigh, billows funny when he moves. Like he’s wearing a hot-air balloon.

Finally he moves to the door. He’s careful, quiet as he eases it open. Then he peers out into the hall, looks both ways.

Nothing.

He finds himself breathing easier now. That tension of being alone in a strange bathroom finally ready to fade away.

He crosses back through the house. A gaudy seaside mansion erected in the mid-90s. Something ghastly and tasteless about every architectural detail.

Granite countertops like dark pools under cabinets the color of butterscotch.

Vast expanses of beige tile and Berber carpet.

Ugly faux marble columns scattered here, there, and everywhere with no seeming structural purpose.

And the bodies, of course. Though those weren’t original to the house.

He pays the corpses little mind. The horrors he’s left lying around.

He passes the living room where the dead body still reclines in the La-Z-Boy, brainpan mostly emptied of its contents. It smells of stale cigar smoke here.

He passes the bedroom doors where he knows the children will have bled out by now.

He pauses a second at the door to the master bedroom. Peers through the crack between the door and the frame. Sees the red splashed over the sheets, the bedspread. Sees her there. What’s left of her.

Red flashes of memory interrupt his thoughts then. The struggle. The heat. The knife pushing into her.

He stops in the kitchen to find something to eat. Rifles through cupboards and drawers. Wishes he had time to have a bowl of Raisin Bran Crunch, but he settles for a bag of trail mix. More portable.

The housekeeper lies at his feet on his way through the dining room, face down on the tile. The puddle of blood surrounding her is going cloudy already, a skin coagulating on top of it like pudding.

He moves on. Keeps going. Crosses back through the living room to the foyer.

Darkness sucks at the windows. Black nothing — the endless night just on the other side of this space.

He opens the front door, pushes over the threshold, steps away from the house. And words come to him as the night enfolds him once more.

You’re not what anyone wants.

But it’s OK.

No one is what you want.

He smiles to himself as the thought comes all the way home.

The loneliness doesn’t hurt you. It sets you free.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Gray morning light leaked over the horizon, and Detective Brant Taft drove into it. He was still half asleep.

There’d been murders. He knew that much. But the few details relayed to him on the phone were already getting a little fuzzy.

A whole family?

Could that really be?

At a stoplight, he chugged lukewarm coffee out of a travel mug. It’d been a microwave job on yesterday’s brew, and a poor one at that. Some funky note accompanied the motor oil taste now. Just a hint of liquid mold clinging to the back end of his tongue.

The light changed, and the detective’s SUV rolled forward. The headlights sheened off of the wet asphalt, the reflections shaking as the vehicle bobbed up and down. The windshield wipers pumped and squeaked.

The blue ribbon of Taft’s GPS route stretched off the edge of his phone screen, glowing where the thing was mounted on the dash. Still a ways to go yet. He was new on the job here in St. Barnabas, had yet to touch most of these streets, and he still relied on the phone to get around.

He rolled through a residential neighborhood now. White picket fences. Towering brick houses set back from the road with details that seemed dated to an earlier century.

Then the road dead-ended, and the front end of the Bronco pressed right up to the ocean’s edge. He took a left and headed north.

A rugged beach rolled along to the SUV’s right. Dunes tufted with scrubby bunches of grass, flattening out into a sandy plane pocked with divots like acne scars. And then the sea itself beyond, churning and boiling.

The road veered away from the coast a bit, making way for a string of beachside mansions. Even a modest home on the Atlantic coast would cost one seven figures at a minimum. The towering compounds flitting along the passenger side window pushed that to eight figures, easy.

Winding driveways stretched back to modern facades of steel and glass, sprawling lairs sliced into the dense Carolina thicket. He couldn’t imagine staying in one of the hotel-looking things, let alone living in one. Some people had too much money for their own good.

The road snaked farther inland, cutting through an uninhabited stretch of land with a forest on one side and a boggy-looking marsh on the other. After another mile, he turned onto a sloping dirt road marked “PRIVATE — NO OUTLET.”

At the first turnoff, the blue line on the phone showed its end point zooming closer. He was here.

He turned his head. Yep. There could be no mistaking it.

The driveway was clogged with patrol cars, and even at this distance, he could see the uniforms swarming the house. The CSI van was already here too, snugged up to the garage doors.

Taft wheeled into the drive. Heard rainwater swishing against the wheel wells.

He pulled half off the asphalt into the grass and parked that way, with the tires straddling the edge of the driveway. Better to stay back and out of the way, he thought.

Then he dug in the glovebox. Grabbed a couple aspirin in a paper sleeve. Washed them down with more lukewarm coffee.

He craned his neck to take in the house after that. Tasted that bitterness still clinging to his tongue. Sharp. Better than the mold, at least.

The mansion was a big, asymmetrical thing with a roofline that looked like an origami project gone wrong. Arched windows and dormers were scattered about in no discernible pattern, and Taft counted at least four different siding materials. Gaudy was the term that came to mind.

He popped open the door, and the sound of the sea was there right away, sloshing and slurping and sizzling in the distance. Then the rain picked up and blotted the ocean sounds out.

Taft jogged to the house. He pounded up five wooden steps to a wraparound deck and nodded to the sergeant standing with his hands folded in front of his crotch just outside the front door.

Then the detective gloved and bootied up. Listened to the rain drum against the porch roof as he did.

The front door, a heavy wooden thing painted brick red, hung open. Taft squinted to try to see into the shaded interior of the foyer beyond the threshold, but he couldn’t make out much.

A potted plant squatted there. Maybe a console table next to that. The shadows ate up the edges, reduced the view to only silhouettes.

He wondered, again, what he might encounter here, and a chill scraped up his spine like the tip of an icicle.

It was bad. Bloody. He’d gathered that much from the phone call.

But, for one final moment, it was all left to his imagination. Unknown. Abstract. The reality would take shape over the next minute or two. For now, it could still be anything.

Finally, he snugged the second nitrile glove down into the gaps between his fingers. Cleared his throat.

He stepped through the doorway into the dark. But the gloom didn’t hold for more than two steps.

The CSIs already had rigs of lights set up in the living room and beyond. Taft pressed that way. Stepped into the dome of light.

He walked through the scene, passing from room to hall to room. And he saw the horrors. Still-life installations. Bodies sprawled and splayed.

The corpse in the La-Z-Boy came first. Most of the top of the head was missing, the jaw gone slack below the empty shell of the skull. Gunshot wound. Point-blank from the looks of it. This was the patriarch of the family, John Baker.

Then he passed the body face down in the dining room. Female, late 50s. Blood pooling in the grout lines around her head. The housekeeper, apparently. He’d heard her name over the phone, but he couldn’t remember it now. Rosie something. Maybe Rosa. He gave the red puddle a wide berth.

Taft took the details in, but he didn’t dwell on them.

He felt, in some way, distant from the violent aftermath here. Like his mind had pulled him a few feet back, sucked his awareness deeper into the gopher hole of his subconscious, left some space between him and the interior of this tomb of a house.

His throat felt tight. He swallowed, and it went away.

He turned a corner to find another hallway. Bedroom doorways cut wood-toned rectangles into the white swaths of drywall. All of the doors hung slightly ajar.

Camera flashes strobed behind the first door to the left. A tech photographed red smears on pale carpet there.

Taft kept going. Kept walking. Just peering into each of the doorways. Catching glimpses of the dead left on display.

When he’d walked the length of the hall, he found an old-fashioned painting of Jesus hung there. It seemed familiar, similar to the one at Grandma’s house way back when. Different, though, too.

A twist of thorns encircled the messiah’s heart, which seemed to hover over his chest. Exploding rays of brightness shot out of the disembodied organ like it was bursting with light.

Taft turned and headed back the way he’d come. He walked slower now, one finger pressed to his mustache. Soaking in more details. Letting his mind process.

Two officers filled the gap at the end of the hall, rushing for him. Taft looked at them long enough to recognize Sergeant Milum and Detective Gallagher.

They seemed an odd couple, especially crammed into the hall together the way they were.

Carrie Gallagher was slender, elfin-featured, and Black. Her dry sense of humor seemed to go unnoticed by many of the local cops — a detached, deadpan kind of thing that often made Taft laugh out loud.

Meanwhile, Dale Milum was a side of beef with arms and legs somehow shoved into a police uniform. Even as big as he was, Sergeant Milum’s jaw seemed disproportionately broad. Taft thought he looked like that big meathead football coach for the Detroit Lions, Dan Campbell. He’d always liked Campbell, and he liked Milum in the same sort of way, vaguely.

The first of the two, the uniformed Milum, spoke up.

“Detective Taft, I—”

Taft interrupted by holding up an index finger. The sergeant’s meaty chest heaved, and he blinked rapidly, a combination of gestures that reminded Taft of a scolded child.

Behind Milum, Gallagher rolled her eyes before she spoke.

“Detective Taft has this whole thing about walking the scenes. Give him a couple minutes.”

Taft stepped closer to the nearest bedroom door and peered inside. Pink everything — carpet, drapes, canopy. Big dollhouse against one wall. A girl’s room.

Two techs hovered over the closet on the far side of the space, one snapping photos and the other filming.

It took Taft a second to make out the corpse curled up into a ball on the closet floor. If it weren’t for the decor in the room, he wouldn’t have been able to guess if it was a boy or girl. A bullet hole pierced the chest. The face was smashed flat.

Grace Baker. Seven years old.

And only when his eyes snapped away from the grisly image did he note the blood smears streaking the floor, heading that way. It seemed like something a cat would do. Crawl into the closet to die with some privacy.

Even as fresh goosebumps crawled over his back, he turned and swept down the hall. He gazed briefly at a similar scene in the next doorway, where the body of eleven-year-old Carson Baker lay dead in his bed, likewise shot.

Next the wife, Natalie, 32, lay still on the bed. Nude. Wrists bound. Half-covered with a sheet splotched with her own blood.

With the nearly headless corpse in the La-Z-Boy and the body face down in the dining room, that made five dead in this house.

Lots of moving pieces here. Lots of details to straighten out.

Father. Mother. Son. Daughter. Even the housekeeper.

He’d probably dispatched the husband first. Neutralized the possible protector quickly.

After that…

His mind played over the girl’s body curled up in the closet again. The bullet wound was one thing. The smashed face was another. Just a pulped mess. The whites of the eyes stark against all the red.

And memories of Detective Stinson flared in his mind. His dead partner. She’d suffered a similar fate not six months before.

Taft remembered every detail. The nightmare montage flickered against the movie screen in his skull yet again. Angry red.

Cold sweat beaded on the back of his neck. When the interrupting pictures opened in his head like this, he had a hard time turning them off.

He’d left town not long after Stinson’s demise. Put a thousand miles between him and that whole mess, or damn near it. Took a detective job way the hell up the coast in sleepy, beachside St. Barnabas, North Carolina. A fresh start. Less stress.

Yeah. How’s that workin’ out for ya?

He shook his head. Shook the memories away. Refocused on the hallway before him, the snowy swath of carpet at his feet.

Something drew him to the only doorway he hadn’t peeked into — the bathroom. Light streamed in through a skylight in the ceiling, a pool of brightness touching the floor that somehow pulled him closer.

He stepped into the hushed space. White tiles shot up the wall like teeth and then transitioned to floral wallpaper about halfway up.

He hesitated there, just inside the door. The flooring felt different underfoot. Smooth ceramic unlike the carpet in the hall.

He took a breath. Let it out slowly.

Something was different here. Some charge in the air that almost felt private.

Finally, he walked through the space. Smelled some soft soapy fragrance. The faint hint of sandalwood touching his nostrils.

He checked the shower. Leaned past the curtain. Pressed his nitrile-coated fingers to the rim of the drain. When he lifted his hand, he found the fingertips shiny with wet.

He cleaned up here. He must have.

Couldn’t walk down the street as bloody as he would have been.

That means…

He turned back to face the rest of the bathroom. Scanned over the vanity, the toilet.

There.

His eyes landed on the stainless steel garbage can tucked back in the corner. Three steps brought him to it.

His bootied foot toed up onto the pedal and pressed. The silvery steel lid popped up.

Taft gazed into the open mouth of the thing. Stared right down into its gullet.

Nothing.

Nothing but a couple crumpled Kleenex gathered at the bottom of a plastic trash bag.

He released the pedal, and the lid glided closed. He stared at the top of the trash can for a few seconds. Blinking. Thinking.

Then he scanned the room again.

This time it was the cabinet under the double sinks that drew his gaze. White wooden doors with chrome knobs like dots of silver.

He moved that way. Knelt and looked into the dark space under the vanity.

Bottles of Drano and various other cleaning products cluttered the space just inside the first door. Blue and orange and gray plastic forms lined up like rows of soldiers.

He nudged a few of the bottles aside to better see behind them. Nothing of note.

Then he sidled to the next cabinet door. Opened it.

A small tub of sponges and rags occupied this section. He pulled it out onto the floor. Couldn’t quite tell what he was seeing behind it.

He got out his phone. Shined its flashlight beam into the dank space. Swept the circle of brightness over the rumpled stuff deep in the chamber.

Bright red caught in the glow.

Yes.

In the back corner, he found the wadded-up bloody clothes.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Camera flashes flickered in the small space of the bathroom, the bursts of light reflecting strangely in the mirror. Taft watched from the doorway, wishing he'd had more coffee.

The bloody clothes had already been documented — both photographically and on video — exactly as they were found, clumped up under the vanity and shoved in the back corner.

Now one of the techs got out a pair of chrome tongs that looked like they belonged in a tray of chicken wings at Old Country Buffet. The tongs clacked a couple times, mandatory practice squeezes.

Then the tong tech squatted on the bathroom floor and thrust his top half inside the cabinet, swallowed by the dark under the sink.

It looked funny, in a way. A bunny-suited tech waist-deep in a cabinet with just his legs splayed on the bathroom tile.

The CSI wriggled out again after a few seconds. His arm came last, some weight evident at the end of it.

He stood and held up a pair of bloody jeans by the waistband, allowing the wadded legs to unfurl.

The tech holding the camera jumped backward with a small shriek as something tumbled out from the folds of the fabric and hit the tile floor with a clatter.

Taft zeroed in on the object. A kitchen knife. Long and sharp, with a pink plastic handle smeared with brown.

“I think we just found the murder weapon,” the tech with the tongs said. “Or one of them.”

Taft clicked his tongue.

“Looks like it.”

The photographer snapped away again. He started with the knife, documenting it from various angles and then moving closer to get shots of the mottled brown bloodstains.

Then he moved to the pants, which hung funny from the tongs. So saturated with blood that most of it hadn’t dried yet. The deep red had only started that fade to rust and then to a deeper brown here and there.

Taft felt his jaw flex a few times. Molars squeezing. His eyes darted around, away from the bloody evidence.

How long ago would he have been here?

Two hours? Maybe less?

With the knife and jeans documented on photo and video, more clothing items came out of the shadows one by one. T-shirt. Hoodie. Boxer shorts. A pair of balled-up socks.

Jesus. Even the fucker’s socks are drenched in blood.

One of the techs checked tags and called out sizes. Long and slender from the sounds of it. Based on the XXL t-shirt and hoodie and the length of the pants, the guy might be 6'5" or taller, but the waist on the jeans was 32 inches.

Taft couldn’t stop his mind from picturing a guy built like Jack Skellington. Dangling arms and legs that swung freely when he walked. Stooped shoulders, like those skinny guys usually had. Maybe something emaciated in the face, cheekbones sticking out like a pair of doorknobs.

He blinked a few times, and the cartoonish image faded out.

Now Taft drifted away from the bathroom doorway. He found himself easing back down the hall, pins and needles pricking in the meat of his right foot from standing and watching for so long.

He walked back through the house, suddenly wanting some fresh air. In reverse, the mansion took on a labyrinthine quality. Taft took a wrong turn before doubling back and finding the gray light shining through the windows on each side of the front door.

He pounded out onto the porch. Felt the cool, humid air touch the bridge of his nose as soon as he stepped outside.

The sea tossed itself in all directions in the distance, sloshing and spitting and thundering against the sheer wall of the cliff face there. Taft watched the lurching surface for a moment. Scratched his mustache in thought.

The storm was supposed to be worse somewhere south of here, but the black along the horizon sure seemed to suggest otherwise. Taft stared into the darkness for a few seconds.

Then his eyes flashed to the foreground — something moved in the yard before him.

His partner, Detective Gallagher, stood some hundred feet out in the driveway near Taft’s Bronco, her feet straddling the line between the asphalt and the grass. The tiniest smile curled the corners of her mouth when she saw Taft coming, and she said something to the big slab of meat, Sergeant Milum, standing next to her.

Milum had been shadowing Gallagher all week. He’d been a uniformed officer for ten years and was hoping to make the move to detective soon, and Gallagher was the most experienced detective on the St. Barnabas police force.

Only as Taft drew to within a few yards of them did he realize what was going on.

Milum bent over at the waist and sprayed vomit into the grass.

The gore must have gotten to him.

The detective toed right up to them and then stepped back. The beige puddle at his feet looked vaguely like creamed corn.

Milum swiped the blade of his hand under his bottom lip before he spoke.

“I don’t know why… I mean, I’ve seen plenty of murder scenes. I guess something about… I don’t know.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Gallagher said, that little smile dancing at the edges of her lips again.

“At least I made it out here. Didn’t want to, you know, contaminate the crime scene.”

“Well, you’re contaminating the grass,” Taft said. “Part of the driveway, too.”

Milum’s eyes went wide, but then he realized Taft was joking and laughed.

“Anyway, that in there?” Taft waved his arm toward the house. “That’s just about the worst I’ve seen. I’ve worked maybe 500 homicides, I figure. And we’re talking Florida murders, most of ’em. You know all those Florida Man news stories? About guys throwing alligators through drive-thru windows and crashing their cars into mini malls because they were ‘trying to time travel’? I worked nothing but Florida Man cases for years. Trust me, this is worse.”

Milum blinked a couple times. Then he nodded and stood up straighter.

Gallagher ticked her chin at Taft before she spoke.

“Heard you found the killer’s clothes,” she said.

He bobbed his head once.

“One of the murder weapons, too.”

Gallagher smirked and raised one eyebrow.

“Now you’re just showing off.”

“Well I suppose I should say potential murder weapon,” Taft said with a shrug. “There was a kitchen knife wadded up in the clothes. Had blood on it, so…”

Gallagher scoffed.

“So quit pretending to be humble. Take the W, Taft. You earned it.” She thrust her hands in her pockets. “Anything distinguishing about the clothes or the knife?”

“Knife has a pink handle. And as for the clothes, we’re looking for a tall, skinny fucker based on the inseam of the jeans. I’m thinking 6'5", 6'7", something like that.” He shrugged. “So yeah, it’s better than nothing.”

“Hell, only a couple percent of the male population is that tall. I’d say it’s a lot better than nothing.”

They both looked at Milum, who had to be that tall himself, but the big sergeant was staring off at the ocean now. His eyes looked a little glassy, Taft thought.

“You think this one could have anything to do with the Asher murder?” Gallagher asked. Her voice was low now, like she didn’t want to disturb Milum’s touch of catatonia.

Taft shrugged one shoulder. He’d thought about the Evelyn Asher murder as soon as he laid eyes on the master bedroom.

“Could be. Only one victim compared to, you know, this. And that was, what, two months ago?”

“About that,” Gallagher said. “Aspects are similar, though. That mattress…”

The bloody mattress had been exactly what Taft was thinking about. He’d only seen photos of the scene — the Asher case had been assigned to one of the other detectives on the force — but that white and red splattered image of Evelyn Asher’s bedroom was burned into his memory all the same.

The Asher woman had been tortured, there was just no other word for it. And Taft suspected something much the same had happened here, what with the ligatures on Natalie Baker’s wrists and the wounds evident on her body.

The victim in the Asher case had been home alone, but the elements of overkill were similar. No doubt about it.

“This scene is a lot more chaotic overall,” Gallagher said. “What’s your theory about how it all went down in there?”

She eyed Taft in a way he took as skeptical.

Taft crossed his arms over his chest and stared up into the clouds, replaying the scene in his head, at least as he imagined it. He looked back at the house as he spoke.

“He dispatched the man of the house first. Gunshot wound to the head. Close range.”

Taft made a finger gun and splished out a little gunshot sound effect with his lips before he went on.

“Me? I’m thinking Dad had fallen asleep on the La-Z-Boy there watching TV or something. That let the killer get right up on him and blow his brains out.

“Weapon woulda been something high caliber to do the kind of damage it did, even point-blank. Some kinda Dirty Harry shit.” He shrugged. “Anyway, the point was to take out the threat first. To eliminate the family quickly.”

“I’m with you so far,” Gallagher said.

Taft tipped his head to the side then, still half in a trance.

“And he tried to do the same with the kids, right? The boy, Carson, was found dead in his bed. Shot in the chest. Slightly less violent than the way Dad went, but quick enough.

“But the other, the little girl Grace, had ultimately crawled into the closet to die. She was shot, but she’d also taken quite a beating to the face and head. Left a mess.”

He shook his head a little as the images came to mind once again.

“I’m thinking she hears the gunshots. Creeps out into the hall to see what was going on. Gets shot. That would explain the little bit of blood we found on the carpet there.

“Maybe that startles him. Or angers him. Either way. He ends up beating on her, either right there in the hall, and she crawls to the closet to die, or she runs, he catches her somewhere between the hall and the closet and beats here there. In any case, that explains the mess in her bedroom.

“And that leaves Natalie Baker. He changes tactics with her. Strangles her. Uses a knife on her.

“With the others, the goal was to get them out of the way as fast as possible, eliminate obstacles. But he took his time with Natalie. That was his real target here. Just like Evelyn Asher.”

Taft fell silent for a few seconds. Remembering again.

Finally, he went on.

“Then it seems the housekeeper showed up after all that. Sometime shortly before dawn. My guess is she walked into the wrong place at the wrong time and got her throat slit in the dining room there.”

Gallagher nodded.

“Her husband is the one who called it in,” she said. “Said she’d arranged to get her cleaning done early to be able to visit with family out of town this morning. A baby shower.

“When she didn’t respond to texts, her husband came to check on her and found all this.”

Again, they fell quiet. The rain pattered at the pavement.

Taft mulled it again, little doubt left in his mind. Even with four additional victims in this case, the woman of the house had been the focus in both crimes — the point and the purpose.

This was, more than likely, the work of a serial killer.

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

Light glared down from the overhead recessed bulbs in the Baker kitchen, pooling in circular reflections on the marble countertops.

Taft pointed at a magnetic knife strip on the wall beside a gleaming stainless steel Wolf range.

“They’ve got a set of knives here, but they aren’t pink.”

Gallagher went down a row of cabinets, opening each drawer.

“So far there’s nothing pink in here, either.”

“Holy shit,” Milum said, staring down at his phone.

Taft turned.

“What is it?”

Milum pointed at the knives hung along the wall.

“Those knives retail for like three grand.” He tapped at the screen of the phone. “And then look at this. I found a set that matches the murder weapon. Retails for 39.99.”

Gallagher stopped her perusal of the drawers and looked at Taft.

“OK. That’s interesting.” She nodded and focused on Milum. “You’re thinking the cheap knife doesn’t belong to the Bakers?”

Milum licked his lips.

“I mean, it’s just a theory. But look at these appliances. The range is easily ten thousand. The fridge is probably fifteen. Another couple grand for the espresso machine. It’s clear they spared no expense in here, including on a top-of-the-line knife set. Why would they also have this one crappy knife? But I could be wrong.”

Gallagher crossed her arms.

“No. No, that’s good, Milum. I think you’re onto something with this.”

The gears in Taft’s mind were turning now, too. If the murder weapon wasn’t from the Baker house…

“What about Evelyn Asher?” Taft asked. “Maybe she had a set of pink knives.”

Gallagher swore under her breath.

“Buell would know. It’s his case. But he’s on vacation.”

Taft shrugged.

“Can’t we call him?”

Gallagher and Milum exchanged a glance.

“Detective Buell is kind of a…” Milum stopped. Swallowed.

“He’s a fucking asshole,” Gallagher finished, getting out her phone and dialing Buell’s number.

A few seconds later, she shook her head.

“No answer.” She ended the call. “I’ll try again and leave a voicemail if he doesn’t—”

The phone chimed out a musical beat. Gallagher stared at the screen.

“Motherfucker.”

“What now?”

“He’s video calling me.”

She sighed and accepted the call. Detective Buell’s face filled the screen. He wore sunglasses and a Panama hat and appeared to be reclining in a pool chair.

“Detective Gallagher! I knew you’d be calling!” He turned to someone off screen. “What did I say, Melinda? Did I call it, or what?”

He chuckled and shoved a tortilla chip in his mouth, continuing to talk while he chewed.

“You guys can’t go one day without needing me for something, swear to Christ.”

“Yeah, I just have a quick question about the—”

“I mean, I haven’t even been gone for a full 24 hours, and here you are, coming to ol’ Buell for help.”

A giant cocktail with a slice of pineapple jutting from a skewer appeared in front of his face. He took a long drink and then smacked his lips.

“Honestly, what the hell would you guys do without me?”

Gallagher’s nostrils flared.

“I truly don’t know. Anyway, I was wondering if—”

“Oh hey, what’s the weather like?” He threw his head back and cackled. “Heard you guys are gonna get nailed by this hurricane. Meanwhile, here I am, living it up in Hawaii. Check this out.”

He angled the camera to show off a cloudless tropical view, bracketed by palm trees.

“That’s lovely, Buell. Anyway, like I said. We have this quintuple homicide—”

He pretended to choke.

“Quintuple homicide! Hooooo-ly shit! No wonder you’ve come begging to ol’ Buell.” He gave a patronizing smile. “Ahh, but the thing is, I put in my request for vacation time back in like June. So as much as I’d love to take lead on this, no can do.”

“OK,” Gallagher said.

“You’ll just have to rely on your partner, whatshisname. Florida man. What with all of his supposed experience.”

He put air quotes around the last word.

“He’s standing right here, by the way,” Gallagher said, pursing her lips.

“Good,” Buell said and took another sip of his drink. “I mean, you gotta look at it from my P.O.V. This is legitimate vacation time. Sanctioned by the brass. Hotel booking and airfare nonrefundable. Not to mention the flak I’d get from the wife. Isn’t that right, Melinda?”

He winked off screen.

“No one is asking you to come back, Buell,” Gallagher said. “I just want to know if you remember whether or not Evelyn Asher may have had a set of pink knives in her kitchen?”

Buell frowned.

“Evelyn Asher?”

“Yes. The woman on Piedmont Terrace. Murdered back around Labor Day.”

“Yeah, I fuckin’ remember.” He scoffed. “But no. No pink knives.”

“Are you sure?”

“Goddamn right, I’m sure. Her whole kitchen was one of those beach-themed monstrosities. Everything matchy-matchy. Aqua toaster. Aqua microwave. Aqua coffee machine. I would have remembered pink knives because they woulda stuck out like a sore thumb.”

“Alright then,” Gallagher said. “Thanks.”

“Hey, if you guys need me to—”

Gallagher hung up on him.

“Well. So much for that idea,” Taft said.

A clattering sound came from the front hallway, and Taft turned to see a procession of gurneys being wheeled out the front door to the fleet of ambulances waiting outside.

Using a satellite map on her phone, Gallagher gave him a rundown of the immediate area.

“You can see that this end of the peninsula is pretty isolated.” She dragged her finger along a stretch of coastline to the west. “This is the Chicamacomico campground. Closed this time of year. Then there are a few residences down here. This is the private road you came in on, and you can see that most of the houses on the road are just after the turnoff from the main road.”

“How far away from where we are now?”

“Probably two miles,” Gallagher said.

Taft clicked his tongue.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s gonna make finding any witnesses tough.”

She pointed at a blip on the map farther up the private road.

“This is the closest property. The Sandpiper Inn. Kind of a bed and breakfast situation. Mostly seasonal, like the campground, so it’s probably also closed. But they usually have an off-season caretaker, so I’m thinking if you head up there and take a look, Milum will start talking to the people who live down by the main road.”

Taft scratched his mustache.

“And what about you?”

“I was thinking I could head to the morgue now. M.E. is already there and ready to start the autopsies, apparently.”

Taft nodded and took a final look around the kitchen, hoping for something pink to jump out at him. Then he met eyes with his partner again.

“Let’s get to it, then.”

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

The first thing Logan McKenney heard upon waking was the distant crashing of the sea.

He squinted bleary-eyed at the unfamiliar room around him. The huge four-poster bed. The nautical-themed paintings on the walls. The suitcase propped open on the window seat.

Then he remembered.

The Sandpiper Inn.

He flashed on moments from the night before — an image of Zarco sticking a bottle rocket in his own butt crack and lighting it, cackling like a madman the entire time. Kaitlyn yelling at Bo to quit climbing the faux waterfall to do backflips into the pool.

A faint throbbing in his head accompanied these recollections. He might have had a bit too much to drink. But that was expected at one’s bachelor party, was it not?

He rolled over. Found the bed beside him empty.

Naturally Kaitlyn would already be up and at ’em, despite the festivities of the previous night. She never stopped moving. And even though he appreciated how driven she was, it wouldn’t kill her to relax now and then, for her own sake. But that wasn’t going to happen today. Not with their wedding being tomorrow.

He dragged himself out of bed and dressed quickly, not wanting to leave Kaitlyn to get breakfast ready by herself.

The polished wood of the banister was smooth under Logan’s fingers as he descended the grand staircase that led to the ground floor common room. The view beyond the large bank of windows there never failed to impress, no matter how many times he saw it. The white gazebo perched on the bluffs. The tufts of beach grass fluttering in the wind. The churning surface of the sea. The large-breasted woman floating several yards in the air over one of the pool chairs.

Logan blinked, his mind taking a few seconds to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. Then he recognized the helium-filled blow-up doll Zarco had presented last night at his and Kaitlyn’s combined bachelor/bachelorette party.

At some point, someone must have tethered the thing to one of the chairs and left it there, and now the vulgar red mouth gaped at him from midair.

Logan chuckled to himself and proceeded the rest of the way downstairs just as Kaitlyn pushed through the swinging kitchen door with a tray of pastries.

“Oh, thank God you’re up!” she said, setting the tray on one of the buffet tables against the wall. “They left the pool absolutely trashed after we went to bed last night. Cans and bottles everywhere, food wrappers getting blown all over the yard! Could you finish putting out breakfast while I start cleaning up?”

“Sure thing,” he said, sidling up behind her and kissing the side of her neck.

“Also, can you look for a pair of scissors? I refuse to look at that disgusting blow-up doll for another second, but Zarco used some kind of indestructible knot to tie it down. I couldn’t undo it for the life of me.”

“Scissors. I’m on it,” Logan said, following her into the kitchen.

She grabbed a fresh garbage bag from a roll under the sink and shook it open.

“And then we need to decide one way or the other on whether to set up for an indoor or outdoor ceremony, and I don’t know if I trust the forecasts, because they aren’t always—”

“Babe?” Logan said, putting his hands on her shoulders.

Kaitlyn sighed and tilted her head to one side.

“I know. I know. I need to relax.” Her gaze slid over to the gloomy view out the window. The sky was a slate gray rippled with darker charcoal clouds. “I just hope the weather cooperates. I really want to have the ceremony outside.”

“All the weather apps say it’s supposed to be clear skies by tomorrow,” he said and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “It’ll be fine.”

“Fingers crossed.” She sighed deeply and frowned. “You haven’t seen a tube of lipstick lying around, by any chance?”

Her tone was calm, but he could sense she was bothered.

“No. What’s up?”

The front of Kaitlyn’s hair fluttered as she let out a frustrated breath.

“It’s nothing. I just can’t find the lipstick I bought for the wedding.”

“Ah well, I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.”

“I know. But… it’s Dior.”

Logan blinked at her.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“It means it was expensive,” Kaitlyn explained. “Like fifty dollars. And I would normally never, ever spend that kind of money on a single tube of lipstick. It’s ridiculous! But it was for the wedding, so I splurged, and now I’m wondering if maybe I forgot to pack it.”

“You’ve gotta have other lipstick though, right? In that gargantuan makeup bag you haul around?”

She smiled a little sheepishly.

“Yes, I have other lipstick. But I wanted to wear something special for you.”

He took her hand in his.

“You know I don’t care about that stuff. You could roll around in mud and wear an old sack, and I’d still be marrying the most beautiful woman on earth.”

“But what if I was a worm?” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Would you still marry me then?”

He squinted up at the ceiling.

“Are we both worms in this scenario? I’m only asking because I don’t think it would be legal for me to marry you if you were a worm, and I was still human. But you know what? Screw it. The world may not be ready for man-worm love, but I don’t care. If you turned into a worm tomorrow, I’d still marry the shit out of you, and they could try to stop me.”

She laughed, rising up on tiptoes to kiss him.

“OK, worm lover. If you need me, I’m on trash duty.”

❤

Logan bussed various trays of fruit, yogurt, and baked goods from the walk-in cooler to the buffet tables and then started making a pot of coffee. He’d just measured out the grounds when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He took it out. Read the name on the screen.

Teddy Brosevelt.

Logan frowned. It made sense that Kaitlyn was awake this early. But Bo? After the sheer number of Jäger shots Logan had watched his brother down the previous night, he hadn’t expected to see him out of bed before 2 P.M.

He smeared his thumb over the screen and answered the call.

Bo didn’t wait for a greeting.

“Bro, are you seeing this?” There was a breathless quality to his voice.

“Seeing what?”

“The water, man! I’m out on the bluffs, and I can see perfect barrels breaking down by Amberjack Beach. Beautiful waves.”

Logan filled the coffee carafe with water and dumped it in the top of the machine.

“OK. And?”

“And? We gotta get out there while the surfing is good! Zarco and I are heading out now. Come with us.”

The window in front of Logan looked out over the cliffs and onto the water. He leaned forward and peered through the glass.

There were some killer waves, and they seemed to beckon to him.

He wondered what the caves in the cliffside might look like right now, the waves crashing up the vertical wall, spraying everywhere. He itched to go down and have a look.

And then he saw Kaitlyn, scrambling after a Doritos bag that was skittering across the lawn in the wind.

He pulled back from the window.

“I’m not surfing in a hurricane.”

Bo laughed.

“Don’t be so dramatic! It’s supposed to make landfall down by Wilmington. That’s way south of us. We’re just reaping the benefits.”

Logan shook his head, refusing to give in to temptation.

“I didn’t bring my board.”

“It just so happens that Zarco brought his old one, and I have an extra wetsuit you can borrow. No excuses.”

Logan squeezed his eyes shut, feeling pulled in two directions. Part of him wanted to go. Could just imagine the rush he’d feel charging one of those waves. The magnetic pull as the water grabbed hold of his board. The wind and spray whipping his cheeks. But another part of him knew it would be selfish.

Weddings were insanely expensive, and to cut down on the myriad of costs, he and Kaitlyn had decided to do a lot of the work themselves. Today they had to set everything up — the seating, the decorations, the gift bags… Kaitlyn’s to-do list for the day was longer than a CVS receipt.

“I can’t, man. We have too much to do today. I’m not bailing on Kaitlyn the day before our wedding.”

“Ahh. There it is,” Bo said.

“What?”

“The real reason you’re pussing out. Not even married yet, and you’re already scared of your old lady.”

Logan sighed.

“You can be a real dick sometimes, you know that?”

Bo clicked his tongue, ignoring him.

“Never thought I’d see the day my big brother was whipped.”

“Whatever. Just do me a favor? Be back early. We have the rehearsal dinner tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Bo said. “I’ll be there.”

This was classic Bo. Always rushing from one adventure to the next. Logan just hoped it wouldn’t end in disaster this time around.

He thought about the time Bo had knocked his front teeth out playing street hockey the night before Picture Day at school. And the time he rode a sled down the stairs Christmas morning and ended up needing stitches on his chin. And the time he went over the handlebars on his bike and got a concussion a few days before they were supposed to take a family trip to Disney World. Then there was the quicksand incident. And many, many others.

Logan had just ended the call when Kaitlyn bustled in with a trash bag that crinkled and clinked with every step.

“There. I think I got it all.” She spotted the phone in his hand. “Are you checking the weather again? What does it say?”

“Oh, uh… yeah,” he said. “It’s the same.”

He felt a pang of guilt for lying. But if he told her it had been Bo on the phone, she would want to know what he’d wanted. And then he’d have to tell her what Bo was up to, and he knew what would happen. He loved Kaitlyn, but she had a tendency to worry. He didn’t want to add to the pile of things she was stressing about, what with everything she had scheduled for the day.

So it was better this way. As long as Bo and Zarco were back well before the rehearsal, everything would be fine. What Kaitlyn didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

The coffee machine gurgled, drawing Kaitlyn’s attention.

“Are you going to make decaf, too?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Logan said. “No one drank any of the decaf we made yesterday, so…”

Kaitlyn bit her lip.

“Right. I’m just thinking, what if no one wanted it yesterday, but they do want it today?”

“Babe, you’re overthinking. We’ve got regular ready to go. If anyone wants decaf, we can make it then. Or better yet, they can make it themselves.”

“What!” She laughed like he’d made a joke. “That’s ridiculous, we can’t make our guests do that.”

“Why not? These aren’t your clients or something. These are our oldest friends and family. One of the reasons they all came here early was so they could help out.”

“I know, but…”

A musical chime sounded, interrupting her. The doorbell.

“Who’s that?” Kaitlyn asked.

“I don’t know,” Logan said. “One of the vendors?”

They both headed for the foyer, with Kaitlyn listing off the various deliveries they were expecting under her breath.

“We got chairs, linens, and other staging equipment from the rental company yesterday morning. Then the liquor delivery and the glassware and tableware after that. The florist isn’t supposed to come until this afternoon, and the caterers won’t be here until an hour and a half before the rehearsal dinner. The cake is tomorrow morning…”

She shrugged.

“It must be the florist, but I have to say, it’s a bit unprofessional to arrive outside of the scheduled time. What if we weren’t here? Would they just leave the delivery outside? And what if it had started raining again? I mean, just imagine all the roses and peonies and baby’s breath getting drenched and sodden in the wet.”

“OK, but we are here, so it’s all good,” Logan reminded her as he stepped ahead of her to reach the front door.

The shape of someone was visible through the glass panes of the entryway. But when Logan got close enough to make out the details, the man on the other side wasn’t wearing the delivery uniform he’d been expecting.

He was holding up a detective’s badge.