Marrow

JACK

Had I known how pleasant the department would be without Brad, I’d have gotten rid of him a while ago.

Gossip floats through the air Thursday morning, the rumor mill still churning with news of an arrested coworker. Not only could Brad be implicated in several disappearances around the trinity college towns, but also murder. Arson might be tacked on to his charges too, since investigating authorities are speculating that Brad set fire to his home in order to destroy evidence of bodily remains.

He’s since hired a pricy lawyer and gotten released on bail, on account of his pristine reputation, but the university thought it was better if he took an extended leave of absence until the debacle is settled and his name cleared.

I roll up my sleeves and power through a pile of tedious paperwork, feeling more at ease since I fed the urges. I’m not completely satisfied…but the recent kill was enough to suppress my more animalistic desires that have recently surfaced.

The only thing disturbing my inner peace right this minute is the FBI agent still lurking around. Eric Hayes should be focused on Brad and the pile of evidence I supplied in his house. Yet he’s here, skulking the hallways, seemingly more invested asking around about Kyrie than Brad.

As if my thoughts conjure her, Kyrie walks past my office door. She doesn’t stop to peek inside and annoy me like she typically does. She hasn’t left me anymore presents in my lunches, either. Which raises more than a few red flags.

After the other night, when she broke her award and I stitched her wound, I’ve tried hard to enforce the same level of contempt for the woman who invaded my turf and threatened my carefully-secured world. But, whether it’s the haze of a fresh kill or satisfaction over Brad, I find myself recalling the soft feel of her hand in mine, the way her intense, liquid blue eyes held my gaze, completely trusting, as I pierced her flesh with a needle.

She never flinched.

I push away from my desk and slide my sleeves up farther as I follow after her.

I stalk her until she reaches the cold room, then I grip her elbow and tow her inside, shutting the door behind us.

She says nothing for a solid three seconds as she simply stares at me, mouth pursed. Then she says, “You have a real disturbing thing for cold rooms.”

I cross my arms. Mostly to keep from touching her. “The games are done. There’s something else going on here,” I say. “Something serious, and it has to do with you.”

One of her eyebrows hikes in amusement. “I didn’t tell you to set Brad’s house on fire. Did you not think that would draw just a bit too much attention?”

Beneath her sharp sarcasm is a tremble of fear. She brushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then glances around the room.

“Hayes isn’t here for Brad.” I narrow my gaze on her, move an inch closer. “He’s not even working with the local authorities on the case. He was never here for any missing person case on Mason.”

Kyrie exhales heavily. “Then what is it, Jack? Can you hurry up and tell me so I can get the hell out of here and get warm?” She rubs her arms.

I remain silent, the cold not bothering me.

She swipes at the unruly strand of hair again, and mutters a curse when the stitches on her hand snag in her hair. “Dammit,” she says, bringing her palm up to inspect.

“Let me see.” I reach for her hand, but she pulls back.

“I’m fine.” The look in her wide gaze says otherwise.

Something is digging in deep beneath her typically unshakable surface.

She’s rattled.

I grab her wrist and haul her toward me, then bring her hand up slowly so I can see the stitches. “Why don’t you have cream on this?”

She shrugs. “I was in a hurry today.”

I nod. “Hmm.” I keep hold of her, reluctant to let her go as I press my fingers against the pulse point in her wrist, feeling her heart speed twice as fast as mine.

A wicked curve tips her lips as she gazes up at me through thick lashes. “So, Jack. Speaking of framing your good friend Brad for murder, did you have fun with Ryan?” She teases me with her sultry smirk. “He was kind of special to me, you know. I had plans for him.”

A faint wisp of fire curls beneath my skin. I know what she’s doing, trying to avoid the topic of Hayes by poking the monster to get a rise.

My cock answers the baiting call as she conjures images of the night I painted my cold room red with her victim’s blood.

“How did you do it?” she probes, pushing in closer, her fingers lacing around mine. The feel of her abrasive stitches against my skin shreds a layer of my control. “Did you drug him first. Strap him to your table. Did you strangle him before you flayed the skin from his bones. Or did you—”

My fingers dig into the back of her hand in warning. “Stop, Kyrie.”

Her face winces in pain, the sight stirs my blood. “I just want the visual,” she says, breathy as I grip her tighter. Her lips tremble from the cold, and my cock throbs at the sight. “Least you can offer me after you stole my toy.”

The red pool of blood stains my vision, and all I see is her, there, covered in sticky red, her eyes snapping open…

My jaw tightens. “You’re playing with fire.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that. Jack Sorensen could never get hot.” Her leg slips between mine, her thigh grazes my cock. Her breath catches at the feel of my rock-hard erection. “You’re too fucking cold—”

I trap her throat in a brutal clutch and force her back against the body locker. A sharp breath escapes her lips as I capture her mouth with mine.

One second of shock where her body goes rigid, then as I bite into the kiss with violent urgency, she moans and dissolves under the crazed demand. She kisses me back with an angry, desperate need to rival my own.

My hand locks tighter around her throat, savoring every sweep of her tongue over mine, the way the column of her throat strains enticingly against my palm.

I release her hand to greedily grip her blouse and yank the hem free of her tight pencil skirt. My hand plunders beneath her shirt as I take her mouth, kissing her deeper and reveling at the trace of blood that bleeds into the kiss.

I roam up her rib cage, fingers tracing the sexy curve of each of her bones, her skin soft and smooth. Bearing harder against her pelvis, I practically impale her with my cock, the fucker so goddamn raging to sink into her and discover how fucking tight her cunt can grip me.

As I sweep higher and skim my thumb over her nipple peaked against the thin material of her bra, she moans more urgently, the vibration along my palm heightening my need to hear her scream.

I break away to kiss her neck, teeth scraping her skin before I bite into her tender flesh. But it’s not her sudden, restrained cry that freezes my blood and my hand. The rough, beveled feel of scar tissue beneath my fingers has my spine locking to pull me up straight.

I tower over her and stare down into her beautifully flushed face. “Who did this to you?” I demand.

Chest heaving, she blinks rapidly, then shakes her head against the body locker. “It was…an accident,” she says, her voice breathy, clipped. “I was young.”

I don’t believe her. “An accident that causes you to spiral at the sight of broken glass?”

Her glare cuts through me. I’ve examined just about every injury and cause of death on the planet, and as I continue to probe the twin scars on her chest, I make out the distinct evidence of severe injuries caused by a very sharp object.

“Jack…?”

The tremble in her voice triggers a flash of memory, and suddenly I see Dr. Kyrie Roth in a whole new, illuminating light.

I remove my hand from her scars and blouse, then with a hard swallow, I place a kiss to her forehead. So completely out of character, her gaze widens with worry.

“We should get out of here,” I say, reaching down to situate the member of my body not yet receiving the message.

“All right. Sure.” She nods and tucks her blouse into her skirt, then fixes her hair.

She turns to go, and I grab her wrist. “Leave for the day,” I tell her.

“Is that an order, Jack?”

I nod once. “Stay away from Hayes.”

Some unreadable expression flits across her face before she forces a bright smile. “I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine.”

She escapes then, and I’m left with the rioting thrum of my heart and the sweet taste of her mouth on mine. After enough time has passed, I exit the body cooler and head to my office, where I collect my satchel and suit jacket.

The need to fit the last piece of the puzzle in place is a compulsive force propelling me forward. I walk toward Kyrie’s office, not sure how I feel about leaving her here with Hayes, but if I’m right…then I’ll know exactly why he’s here.

Kyrie doesn’t look at me as I hover at her office door, and I know she’s shaken. But not from the kiss. From the secret she’s kept from me for far too long.

I drive straight home and go to my office. Behind a false bookshelf panel is the biometrically sealed door that leads to my personal cold room and study—my trophy room. I pass by the glass-encased bones, not stopping until I reach the storage shelving where I stuffed a box of items from ten years ago.

I dig out the near ancient camcorder, then retrieve a power adapter.

My leg bounces as I’m seated on the sofa and impatiently wait for the 8mm tape to rewind.

When the girl’s face appears on the static-filled screen, I hit Pause on the device.

There, on the grainy screen, are the pale-blue eyes I’ve been obsessed with for the past three years. They’re open and wide and there’s no mistaking the terror held in their depths.

I press Play, and the sound of Kyrie’s grated scream cracks through the small speakers.

The footage plays back the earlier events of a night where a serial killer stabbed a teenage girl during a family massacre.

And as I stare at the screen, I witness her die all over again.

Because that girl was dead. I watched her die.

I drag a hand down my face. “Jeg forlod hende.”

Setting the camcorder down, I bound up and head to the glass case. I unlock the door and select the fragile bone displayed in the middle of my other trophies.

The Silent Slayer’s hyoid.

I run my finger over the smooth bone—a bone that doesn’t need the connection of any other bone to exist within the skeletal framework. The innermost part of the bone contains a hollow cavity, where blood vessels course through every layer, carrying nutrients and oxygen.

Even though I’ve studied this particular bone the entirety of my career, I feel as if I’m seeing it for the first time.

No, the lone hyoid needs no other structure to exist. Yet it’s reliant on the life-sustaining marrow for survival.

That night ten years ago, when I set out to extinguish another killer in my territory, I strangled that killer to death right next to his last victim—a girl with haunting pale-blue eyes; eyes I never once looked into until the moment she showed up at my university.

This entire time, she wasn’t dead. She’s not the dead one at all. She’s been what’s sustained me here.

She’s the marrow.

She’s my marrow.

Kyrie didn’t start as a killer—she was made.

And I helped make her.