There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(44)

“What’s going on?” I ask them.

“They found another body,” Heinrich says.

“Another girl,” Erin clarifies.

A hook lodges in my stomach, reeling me slowly toward the phone. I bend over the screen, my head between Frank’s and Heinrich’s.

The images are gory and graphic—a headless torso with its breasts torn off. Scattered limbs. A severed foot still wearing a high-heeled shoe.

“What the fuck!” I cry. “That’s on the news?”

“It’s not the news,” Joanna says disgustedly, from the sink. “It’s that true crime site. They must have bought the pics from one of the cops.”

“I don’t want to look at that,” I say, backing away.

My stomach is rolling.

The girl was slim, with a tattoo of a pheonix on her ribs. I have a tattoo in that exact same place. Without her head . . . she could well be me.

“None of us should look at it,” Joanna snaps. “It’s disrespectful. I hope they find whoever leaked those pics and fire his ass.”

“I’m not gawking,” Erin says. “They found her right over on the Lincoln Park golf course. That’s only a couple miles from here! This psycho could live right by us.”

My stomach is now doing the death roll of a crocodile.

Cole lives in Sea Cliff. He golfs on that course.

“When did she die?” I ask.

“They think after midnight,” Erin says. “She was still warm when they found her.”

I left the show at 11:00.

I grabbed a date on the way out the door.

What if Cole did the same?

It sounds ludicrous. I’ve been spending hours at a time with Cole. We’re often alone. If he wanted to turn me into mincemeat, he could have done it by now.

And he really doesn’t seem crazy. Controlling and manipulative, sure. Intense, absolutely. But could he actually put his hands on a woman and rip her to shreds?

I force myself to bend over the phone once more.

Erin scrolls down a little further.

There’s the girl’s head, her features strangely unmarked, her eyes wide open, milky as glass marbles.

She was beautiful.

And very, very afraid.

I run over to the sink and vomit.





21





Cole





Sonia comes running into my office. She stands in the doorway, transfixed by the destruction inside.

“Oh my god, what happened?” she cries.

I already set the golf club back in its bag.

Still, there’s no hiding what I did.

“I smashed the solar model,” I say.

Sonia stares at me, horrified, tears filling her pale blue eyes.

“How could you?” she says.

“It belongs to me,” I snarl. “It’s mine to keep, or mine to destroy.”

She stares down at the thick drifts of shattered glass, the downward tilt of her head causing the tears to spill down her cheeks.

In all the time she’s worked for me, I’ve never seen Sonia cry. She’s competent and capable, and keeps her emotions securely buttoned down. That’s why we get along. I would tolerate nothing less.

I don’t blame her for the tears in this moment, however. The solar model was one of the most stunning works of art I’ve ever seen. Truly unique and irreplaceable.

I destroyed it on impulse.

Something is happening to me.

Something is taking me over—twisting me, changing me. I’ve been infected. And Mara is the disease.

“Get someone to clean that up,” I order.

I storm out of my office, heading down to the main floor. I don’t bother stopping at Mara’s studio—I know she isn’t here. She’s probably still at home, sleeping.

As I pass Janice’s desk, I see several artists crowded around her computer screen. They break apart as I approach, hurrying off in every direction except mine.

Janice tries to close her browser window, but I knock her hand aside, barking, “What are you looking at?”

“Another girl’s been killed,” Janice stammers. “It happened last night.”

I lean over her desk, unpleasantly enveloped in her sickly-sweet perfume, so I can examine the computer screen.

She’s on some trashy true crime site. The page is covered in full-color photos of the murder scene.

Alastor’s work.

His bodies are far more distinct than his paintings.

And yet . . . this is a new level of violence, even for him. I see the frenzy in the scattered body parts. This wasn’t just lust . . . it was rage.

I stand up again, my heart already returning to its steady beat.

This explains why Alastor wasn’t at the show last night. He must have gotten distracted on the way over.

He missed something he really should have seen.

Lucky for me. It buys a little more time.





I walk over to Mara’s dingy Victorian. I hammer on the door, startling her roommate Frank who opens the door after a long delay, looking high and paranoid.

“Oh,” he says, looking partly relieved and partly even more confused. “It’s you.”

“Where’s Mara?” I demand.

“I dunno,” he mumbles, running his hand through his wild curls. “Work, maybe?”