Page 73 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
The Kellers live in a modest ranch home just outside of Ashbury, a squat single level with a typical three-bedroom, one-bath setup.
All of which is covered in blood.
There’s so much of it that when Beast opens the front door, it’s quite literally dripping from the ceiling.
My face blanches and I feel suddenly unsteady on my feet from the smell, but I don’t balk. I don’t run. I definitely don’t throw up.
“You okay there, sugar?” Beast murmurs, waiting with his big hand resting on the doorknob.
“I’m okay,” I reply, my voice stronger than my quaking knees. I step into the house, gagging on the copper smell, on the sweetness of fresh rot. Just three steps inside, I find Reba’s mother lying facedown on the floor.
Beast bends down and carefully rolls her onto her back, revealing a second smile that slices across the front of her throat, severing her carotid. That explains the spray then. The average layperson has no idea how powerful the heart is until they’re suddenly cut and bleeding, each violent squeeze of life from that muscle sending an arc of red into the air.
That’s what the marks are on the walls and ceiling.
“Jesus,” I breathe, thinking about poor Reba and her dedication to her family. Even if she survives this, she’ll never be the same. Because of me. This is undoubtedly, once again, my fault.
I traded Grey’s life for the Kellers.
Granted, Wesley Keller was a proselytizing loser who mistreated his wife and daughter and sowed hatred into the hearts of the local religious community. Mrs. Keller—sad as it is, I can’t remember the poor woman’s name—was an alcoholic who allowed her husband to drag their teenage daughter around by the hair, force her to scrub the floor on her hands and knees until they bled, and spend his evenings telling her what a cunt and a whore she was.
I don’t much care that Wesley is dead. Mrs. Keller was weak. Neither is a huge loss to me, but Reba … Poor Reba.
I rise to my feet and Beast follows me up, Sin at our back. We make our way into the living room, and that’s where we find Wesley. He’s on his knees, but slumped over, like he might’ve been begging or possibly praying before he was murdered. The carpet is soggy beneath my boots, and when Beast lifts the dead man’s head up by the hair, we can all see a mark on his throat that matches his wife’s.
“Where’s my dog?” I murmur, heart pounding. The boys humor me by checking the bedrooms and bathroom, and then following me into the backyard.
The Kellers’ property is about thirty acres, much of it flat and decorated currently with little more than brown grass and dirt, but there are about a half-dozen outbuildings to search. We start with the closest one, working our way out to the farthest.
Nothing in any of them.
No sign of Feminist. No messages from Grey.
I put my hands on my hips and let my head fall forward, thinking so hard that my brain begins to throb and ache with an incoming migraine.
“Have you found what you were looking for?” Sin asks me, his voice guarded but not entirely unkind. I look up to find his silver eyes watching me, dressed in tight denim and a cut that shows off his Americana tattoos. He is undeniably gorgeous.
“Not yet,” I tell him, trying to think like Grey, to think like Gidget. Because we’re the same person in different skins. If I were going to hide a message for him, how would I do it? Where would I go?
I look at Sin, at Beast. They’re both waiting and watching, giving me a moment to figure this out. Whether they believe me or not, it doesn’t matter. They’re giving me the chance and that’s what counts.
Grey would want to ensure that I could find his message, but that my father couldn’t. Whatever the message, it wouldn’t implicate the mafia so much as it would warn me. He isn’t going to sell his family out anymore than I’ll sell mine.
He’s heard me talk about my dog enough times that I just know Fem is alive somewhere around here. He has to be.
I start to pace, the dry grass crumpling beneath my boots.
Grey wouldn’t have come here alone. He’d be with a group of mafia goons no doubt—Ivan Wolfe, too, probably. He wouldn’t exactly have the time to type something up on a typewriter, pry up a floorboard, and tuck a secret note away.
He’d be rushed; he’d need to make it look like an accident.
I put my fingers to my lips and whistle, so loud and sharp that Sin cocks a brow at me. Turning toward the woods, I do it again. And again.
“Fem!” I scream, letting my voice echo around the empty space. Beast very clearly disapproves of the move, but he must be certain we’re alone here or he wouldn’t let me do it. “Fem-fem!” I move toward the edge of the trees, but Sin puts a hand on my arm.
