Marrow

JACK

The cabin is quiet. The surrounding forest whispers in hushed tones. The twitter of wood thrushes that are late to migrate. The rustle of squirrels in the dense underbrush. I pack the arrows and compound bow away in the case, appreciating Kyrie’s taste in weapons.

When I look to the opening of the trail, the demanding urge to follow after her wars within me, the image of her walking away a fresh brand, and I drop a heated glare to the dead body at my feet.

This is the first time body disposal has become an inconvenience.

I place the tablet on Colby’s lifeless chest and check the time on my phone, setting an alarm to alert me in twenty minutes, the time needed for Kyrie to reach the university for her meeting.

Pocketing my phone, I glance around the wooded scenery, and I see why she loves it out here. The seclusion, the privacy. The wildlife to study. The sentimental attachment to the cabin with her father and family.

It will be difficult for her to give this up.

After I lasso a rope around Colby’s ankles and secure the knot, I place the bow case next to the tablet on his chest and tow him to the front of the cabin, where the hauling of severed body parts will be less of a hike.

Once I get all of him to the basement, I can start the defleshing process. Which I admit, it’s been too long, and my blood jolts through my veins in anticipation.

I head down there now to locate a hacksaw, making sure I take the tablet. Not that I don’t trust my beautiful little reaper, but one should always be prepared for a surprise in a basement. Especially when my vixen has been known to leave random parts of bodies in my lunch.

As I pull the door open, my eyes fall on the glass enclosure taking up half the space.

How the fuck did she get a glass cage down here?

The sheer ingenuity of the structure is remarkable, breathtaking in its horror.

And I realize, this is Kyrie’s kill room.

The chest freezer in the corner calls my attention, and I bypass the numerous gleaming tools along the wall as I stride toward it and the handwritten letter I spy atop the unit. I take the letter in hand, recognizing my stationery.

Dear Jack,

Everything here is all I have of you.

I thought it would hurt to give these things away. From the moment we first met in my home, I’ve clung to every piece of you I could find. I know you don’t think you saved me that day. Maybe you’re right, but not in the way that you think. You gave me the chance to save myself. Whether you knew it or not, Jack, you became the scaffolding I rebuilt my life on.

Maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt to give these pieces of you back. Because I can stand on my own now. When I take the scaffolding down, I like the life I’ve built. It might not be everybody’s life, but it’s mine and I am the way I want to be. And I want to share my life with you. The real you, not the man I thought I knew from these pieces you left behind and the moments I stole.

So, I give you these things with a lighter heart. I’m not so naïve to think you won’t just take them and disappear. I know you intend to leave West Paine, Jack. I promise that I won’t follow this time. I can only hope that what we’ve shared felt as real for you as it feels to me.

I built up an image of an angel of vengeance who swept into my life on a cold wind in my darkest hour. I wanted to destroy the man I met after years of watching from the shadows. And I love the man I’ve come to know in the process of trying to burn you down.

I love you, Jack Sorensen. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved. The only man I ever will.

Forever yours,

Lille Mejer

I fold the letter slow and deliberate, lining up the corners to meet exactly before absently running my finger over the crease. A burn forms in the pit of my stomach as my gaze pans over the items she spread out next to the freezer.

I flip open a manila folder. Within are torn pages from magazine articles. Photocopied images from journal publications I’ve authored. A number of press releases are included, but there are also little tokens, like receipts, sticky notes, even a pen—one I faintly recognize as I grasp the familiar soft-touch barrel.

One of my syllabi are among the objects, from a class I taught while finishing out my PhD at Revery Hall University in Ashgrove.

But the lone scrap of paper is what claims my attention. Kept in pristine condition and laminated, I pick up the receipt from Arley’s Campus Restaurant & Bar. Revery Hall University. Cash paid. Pellegrino. Chicken Caesar Salad. Cappuccino.

Dated for the day I killed Winters.

I brace the heels of my hands on the edge of the freezer and mutter a curse.

My little stalker.

Kyrie trailed me for years, watching me, collecting souvenirs. All without my notice.

Curious, I lift the freezer lid to find half a body. Regardless of being sealed in plastic wrap, I know it’s the other half of Mason Dumont. Like one of those friendship hearts broken in two, our heart is a dead body, and she’s giving me her severed half.

She just sacrificed her leverage.

Unease prickles beneath my flesh. I check my phone, waiting for a text from Kyrie to flash on the screen. My thumb hovers over the onscreen keyboard, ready to type out a text…

I stall.

Kyrie asked me to come to her cabin. She wanted me here. Alone. Where I could read her letter in privacy. She’s giving me time to process and analyze, but more so, she’s allowing me the solitude to make a decision.

She didn’t want to say these words aloud; she felt there’d be a chance I’d reject her offer, reject her.

Most days, I can mimic the emotions necessary to blend in with society, to even charm people. I’ve perfected the manipulation to stay hidden beneath a mask.

With Kyrie, there is no mask. She sees the ruthless killer, the unfeeling monster. Hell, she’s watched me for years. She sees all of me—so can’t she see what she means to me?

I unfold the letter and read it over once more, trying to decipher the full meaning.

I know you intend to leave West Paine, Jack.

She’s been made aware of my transfer. Is she asking me to stay? Is she saying goodbye? Can she let us end that easily?

“Fuck.” I slam my closed fist against the freezer, frustration climbing my nerves.

Imitation is simple. It’s the nuances of human emotion and sentiment that confound me, and Kyrie is the most goddamn confounding of all.

Scraping my fingers through my disheveled hair, I decide that this is what Kyrie wants. She wants me here, ruminating over us and our future, and the only way I know how to fucking think clearly is while I’m defleshing a body.

She probably fucking knows that, too.

I search the basement until I find a vinyl coverup and gloves, then spend the next fifteen minutes methodically and expressly dismembering Colby in preparation. When the alarm sounds on my phone, a small morsel of anger burrows under my skin.

I yank off a glove and grab my phone to send her a text: Call me.

After half a minute, when she fails to reply, I decide I’ve given Kyrie long enough. I gave her an explicit instruction to text me when she got to the university. I don’t need her to give me any more time.

I’m going straight to her.

For now, I use Kyrie’s plastic wrap to seal Colby’s limbs and torso, then store the pieces in the freezer with the half of Mason. I make quick cleanup work, planning to return to do a more thorough job.

Even with the tollbooths, it takes me less than twenty minutes to arrive in the West Paine parking lot. It takes me exactly two minutes to reach her empty office.

I stand at the doorway, absorbing every detail that states Kyrie has not been inside this room once today. A desperate fire stokes to life in my chest as I march to Dr. Cannon’s office.

“Where is she?” I demand.

Hugh looks up from his computer screen, a deep furrow notched between his eyebrows. “I’m sorry, Jack, but who are you referring—?”

“Kyrie—” I grit my teeth. “Dr. Roth. She said she had an important meeting with you today.”

Standing, he buttons his suit blazer, the concern etched in his deep complexion thoughtful. “We did. However, Dr. Roth said she needed to reschedule, that she wasn’t feeling well. She’s working from home today on a few things.” He lowers his gaze to the screen and clicks the mouse. “I received an email from her just a few minutes ago…”

His voice drifts out as I take off down the hallway.

Her home is my home.

And I would have received a security alert if she’d gone there.

I pull out my phone and check the logs. There’s one recorded entry from about twenty-five minutes ago. The system was accessed using my login information. Adrenaline rushes the chambers of my heart as I tap on the cameras to view the rooms.

My feet come to an abrupt halt when I glimpse her sitting at a desk in one of the guest rooms.

Everything about this is off. Why is she in a different room? Why did she lie about the meeting? My questions die when I notice her hand hovering over the mouse on the desk, then blink out.

“Son of a fucking—” I hurl the phone at the wall, watching with satisfaction as it cracks and skitters to the floor. I plant my hands to the cool cinder block, eyes sealed shut while I try to think past the furious pounding of my heart.

“Jack…?”

Lifting my head, I glance over to see Joy nervously clutching a purse to her chest. The silence of the department filters through my senses, and I turn to take in the wide and concerned gazes cast my way. Dr. Cannon stands at his office door, watching me intently.

I push off the wall and step toward Joy. “Give me your phone.”

She blinks. “I don’t understand. Jack, this isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”

Patience shorn thin, I feel a layer of my fabricated mask slip away, and Joy registers this transition. Fear crests her shiny dark eyes.

“Your phone, Joy,” I say around my clenched jaw. “It’s for Kyrie.”

She plunders in her bag and holds out her phone, her wide gaze never leaving my face. “Oh… Is she all right?”

“I’m going to make damn sure of it.” I take the device and light the screen. “Passcode?”

Her mouth parts. “Uh… One-two-three-four-five-six.”

I punch the code in to verify, then frown at her. “Tell Dr. Cannon my afternoon class is canceled.”

“Sure, Jack…”

Without any further explanation, I leave Joy and my other colleagues staring after me with concerned expressions. I exit through the emergency door to reach the parking lot faster and, once I’m seated behind the wheel of my car, I breathe in a stable breath, then use Joy’s phone to call Kyrie.

The call goes straight to voicemail.

Clutching the device in an iron grip, I mentally comb her letter, looking for any clues I missed. Despite Kyrie’s tendency to be emotionally volatile at times, this doesn’t feel like the way she’d leave things between us.

She’s not leaving. She’s not running away from me.

Setting up a loop on my security feed… Establishing an alibi with Cannon… Keeping me busy defleshing a body…

She’s buying time.

I key the engine and crank the car. “Goddammit. She’s going after Hayes on her own.”

Why the fuck would she do this without me.

She’s being impulsive, putting herself in danger. Hayes may not be the ultimate villain to fear, but he’s unhinged enough we can’t discount him. I wipe a hand down my face, not knowing whether I want to strangle her or kiss her when I find her.

Panic rises up from the bowels of some dormant part of my soul to torment me.

I will find her.

Bypassing the road to my house, I drive straight to Hayes’s last known location. He’s been holed up in a cheap motel since he arrived in Westview. According to the PI I hired to dig into the ex-agent, Hayes is staying in room 212 of the Homestead Inn.

Hayes’s Honda isn’t in the parking lot. Outside the room, I first scope out the window, noting the lowered blinds, listening closely for any signs of movement inside.

Then I stand back and kick the door. It groans but doesn’t budge. Muttering a curse, I ram my shoulder into the weakened door, falling into the room as the frame cracks and the latch gives.

Righting myself, I glance around for any signs of a struggle. But then there wouldn’t be, would there. Kyrie would be prepared. She’d lure him under false pretenses. She’d hunt him like one of her victims, then drug him, subduing him in a remote location under her control.

Where would she take him? Not to her cabin, to her kill room where she wanted me kept out of the way.

I rifle through the nightstand drawers, comb through the sparse contents of the closet. No gun. She would make him leave his weapon.

Spotting the laptop on the foot of the bed, I open the device and scour the files. Obsession takes on a whole new disturbed meaning as I open file after file of images of Kyrie through the years. Soon, however, his unhealthy fixation on her transfers to me, where he’s been digging into my past to connect me to the Silent Slayer murders.

And I realize in a singular moment of clarity that Kyrie thought she was protecting me from Hayes. In the event she didn’t succeed, she was saying her goodbye. One last kill together. One last heated moment. Handing over her amassed collection on me…and the bodily evidence of Mason Dumont.

She was setting me free.

I yank the alarm clock off the nightstand and smash it against the wall. Chest heaving, I stare down at the destroyed appliance.

Apparently, I’m only capable of two ranges. Shallow affect and full-blown rage.

Collecting myself, I turn the laptop around and dig deeper into Hayes’s archives of Kyrie and uncover the purchase documentation for Kyrie’s childhood home.

How the hell did the PI miss this?

I slam the lid closed on the laptop and, before I’m tempted to smash it against the wall too, I curb the violent tendency and tuck it under my arm, taking it with me as I storm from the room.

A game board needs to be set. Pieces placed. Rules have to be followed.

As I drive away from the Homestead Inn, I make a call to the local police department to report Dr. Kyrie Roth as a missing person. I’m not depending on authorities to act; it’s a counter-measure.

We’re going to need a few of those.

If Kyrie discovered that Hayes owns her family home, she’d want to tear out his still-beating heart. When I find them, I’m going to make damn certain she does.

So that’s where I go. With no gun. No knife. No ligature. No physical weapons.

We won’t need them.

We are the weapons.