Page 50 of Choosing Us

“She fought back, and that likely left him feeling even more unstable. Was there anything remarkable in her autopsy compared to the victims?” Tara asks.

“It looks like in addition to death by manual strangulation, she had bruising to indicate physical assault to her abdomen, matching wounds that one would see from being punched repeatedly.”

“So, she pissed him off,” Walker adds.

I nod along. “And he lost it, not only when she dared to fight back, but also something made him snap to make him physically hit her as well, in addition to the strangulation. Does it say if the hits were pre or postmortem?”

“Based on bruising, it looks like she was still alive when he hit her.”

“Asshole,” Kelly says under his breath.

“He is starting to unravel. If he hasn’t already killed again, I don’t think it will be long before he does. There are too many variables he couldn’t control last time, or that went wrong. He’ll have to try and perfect his ritual again or be bombarded with a driving need to fix it until he does.”

“I’ll see when I can get my hands on Carmen’s cell phone. I already contacted the commanding officer as soon as I saw the case,” Mason tells Walker.

He nods in response. “Let me know if you need me to make any calls. Harlow and Tara, let’s work up a profile on Carmen compared to the other victims and see if there are any connections we are somehow missing. Kelly, can you read through every line of that autopsy report and make sure we aren’t missing anything that would connect her kill to the others?” We all nod and depart to our separate commands.

But there’s still something nagging my subconscious that I can’t place—something that feels familiar.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I’ll take the cheeseburger and fries, and can I get a side of ranch with it, please?” Finn asks as he flashes a cheesy grin to Doris.

“You and that dang ranch, Finn. I’ll never understand.” Doris shakes her head and looks to me. “What about you, darlin’?” Doris and her family have run The Forrest Falls Diner for generations, but everyone just calls it the diner. I’m too much of a gentleman to ask Doris her age, but I feel like she felt old when I was kid … even though she looks the same now.

Maybe she’s a vampire and has looked old for centuries.

“I’ll have the fish and chips, please. Oh, and can I get an iced tea when you get a chance, too?”

Doris writes down our orders, although she probably knew them from the moment we walked through the door. “Sure thing, hon.”

“Thanks, Doris.” I hand her the menu, and she departs with a nod and a smile.

With five—no, six—siblings, it’s important that we make time to connect one-on-one. And it’s also where we share info like insider trade secrets and keep tabs on everyone.

All of us do it with each other, even if none of us outright admit it.

“How do you think Christmas went with everything?” I ask Finn. The girls planned a significant emotional gift for Cami in honor of her first Christmas with us, and I wasn’t sure how it would land, but I’m so glad it went over even better than I hoped it would.

“I think it went as well as it could have, all things considered. But hold on, are we just glossing over The Cavalry alert from the other night?”

“Oh, that?”

“Yeah, that. No one told me what happened after the barrage of text messages.” He looks at me accusatory, and I lift my hands in defense.

“Sorry, I was a little busy.”

“Oh, reaaaalllllly?” Finn’s eyebrows shoot up as he grins like the little shit he can be.

“Not like that, not … yet, anyway,” I admit as I grab the back of my neck. “But yeah, Jack let me borrow his jet, so I went and got Harlow, then brought her home. She stayed in the guest room, for the record.” I can’t do anything to protect Harlow from the dangers she faces daily in her job, but I’ll do whatever I can to shield her from what I’m quickly discovering is her parents’ unique brand of bullshit.

“You mean you brought her back to your home. Is she coming to New Year’s Eve at Dad’s?” Finn asks before taking a big drink of his Coke.

I’m dumbstruck and blink at my brother before he about spits out his soda and asks, “You do realize that New Year’s Eve is in three days, right?”

“No, I actually didn’t, not until right now. But … is it too early to bring her to a family thing? We haven’t even had our first official date yet.”

“Psh. Technicalities. If you borrowed Jack’s jet to go get the girl, I think it’s safe to say it wouldn’t be too early to bring her along. In fact, it sounds more like it might only be a matter of time. You seem to be quite smitten, brother.”